New compitition to PAP

[FA Mikey]

Spirit has asked the DoT for permission to serve Port-au-Prince, Haiti. "If we limited our focus to leisure and the beach, we'd be missing an enormous market," said Ben Baldanza, Spirit's chief executive officer. The Haitian market is a prime example, he said.


story here

With past carriers having limited success in the market, and have fallen away quickly. Does Spirit have a chance? Will this have an effect AA's current 5 flights to the island?

 

[MAH4546]

Spirit has asked the DoT for permission to serve Port-au-Prince, Haiti. "If we limited our focus to leisure and the beach, we'd be missing an enormous market," said Ben Baldanza, Spirit's chief executive officer. The Haitian market is a prime example, he said.
story here

With past carriers having limited success in the market, and have fallen away quickly. Does Spirit have a chance? Will this have an effect AA's current 5 flights to the island?

The only past carriers in the Port Au Prince market have been poorly funded, ventures by Haitian Americans to compete with AA, like Air d'Ayiti. Air France has been flying MIA-PAP, as well, for over 25 years, but they have been the only real compieition.

Spirit is the first "real" airline that is going up against AA. However, all they are adding is a daily A319, and PAP will still remain heavily underserved.

 

[eolesen]

I wouldn't go so far as to call Spirit a "real" airline.

Maybe Baldanza has a couple Dungeons and Dragons buddies in Haiti, and is doing this as favor?...

 

[MAH4546]

I'm sure some of those who work at MIA will get a huge laught at this. Starting 10 February 2007, Spirit Airlines will allow only ONE check-in baggage free of charge on all flights. Including their runs to Kingston, San Juan, and Santo Domingo. Now that is a huge joke! And they aren't a small player in this market, either. During the holidays, Spirit is operating FLL-SDQ 4x daily.

 

[Skymess]

I'm sure some of those who work at MIA will get a huge laught at this. Starting 10 February 2007, Spirit Airlines will allow only ONE check-in baggage free of charge on all flights. Including their runs to Kingston, San Juan, and Santo Domingo. Now that is a huge joke! And they aren't a small player in this market, either. During the holidays, Spirit is operating FLL-SDQ 4x daily.

The same problems will exist for Spirit as they did for Jet Blue.

Travel for poorer people is not undertaken lightly. They save up long periods of time for those tickets and when they travel they sometimes represent whole villages in their travels in terms of what is in their carry on baggage. They each carry things from their respective country to relatives and friend's relatives in their baggage. Then they take things back to the country for many people too.

If Spirit, or other airlines, can't accommodate that baggage than they can't compete in those markets. Baggage and cargo space is what makes the A-300 such a great plane for the caribbean market.

 

[eolesen]

No kidding. The average bag to SDQ, PAP, POP, etc. was essentially the size of a Volkswagon Beetle with a handle (sometimes)...

 

[Mach85ER]

No kidding. The average bag to SDQ, PAP, POP, etc. was essentially the size of a Volkswagon Beetle with a handle (sometimes)...

I think we're up to PT Cruiser size now

 

[eolesen]

Baggage and cargo space is what makes the A-300 such a great plane for the caribbean market.

That's also the reason you won't see RJ's replacing props in the Caribbean anytime soon. There's no way the ERJ or CRJ can replicate the capacity of the ATR's baggage hold.

Pallet for pallet, the 777 would be a perfect (albeit expensive) replacement.

 

[MAH4546]

That's also the reason you won't see RJ's replacing props in the Caribbean anytime soon. There's no way the ERJ or CRJ can replicate the capacity of the ATR's baggage hold.

It is one of the main reasons the ATRs are not going other. Though there are two other reasons as well: many Caribbean runways can't handle jets (i.e. MHH, AXA, SLU) and operating high CASM RJs on short, high frequency hops like MIA-NAS and SJU-STT would kill profits.

Pallet for pallet, the 777 would be a perfect (albeit expensive) replacement.

Forget the 777. That is what the 787-3 is for.

 

[eolesen]

The 787-3 is advertising 30 LD3 positions, which exceeds that of the 777 and A300 by 8, but I'm not convinced that the fuel savings will offset the higher seat mile costs (primarily ownership) on that short of a haul.