In the second installment of my “Who the F*** is . . .” series, we look at SkyValue (Allegiant was the first). These guys are certainly less well known than Allegiant, and they are much smaller.In fact, as you call tell by the route map below, they’ve appear to fly only 5 routes. In actuality, one of those was canceled almost immediately, so they’re down to four.
From their base in Gary (Indiana), they fly Mondays and Fridays to Williams Gateway (in Mesa, outside of Phoenix), Thursdays and Sundays to Las Vegas, Saturdays to St Petersburg and then on to Orlando before returning, and Sundays just to Orlando. They had originally planned Ft Lauderdale flights, but those were dropped.
An article in Northwest Indiana’s Post-Tribune notes that the service has done well enough for them to fly year-round instead of just through April 1 as planned. This is certainly somewhat surprising, but congratulations if they can really make it work.
It’s interesting that while Ft Lauderdale flights failed early on, the flights to Williams/Gateway in Mesa near Phoenix have been successful. I personally think that airport has a lot of potential as a secondary field as the population moves toward that part of the Valley. Flights to Chicagoland make sense because of the strong ties between the areas. Many people from the area come to Arizona during the winter, and the Cubs hold Spring Training in Mesa. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more airlines try limited flights out of that airport at some point.
The article also notes that SkyValue is looking at extending their Williams flights to connect on to southern California. If so, I’ll have to give a try sometime when I go back to visit the family, but I’ll have to do it quickly because I bet that fails miserably.
Flights are actually operated as a charter by Xtra Airways on 737-800 aircraft (even though the article says 747-800). Fares begin at $79 each way.
