I may be out of town, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of posts from BNET this week. I also had to pre-publish three a week while I’m gone, so you can still expect weekly wraps for the next couple Saturdays.
Continental and US Airways Report Steep Revenue Declines
March revenue reports are coming out and the news is very bad. Revenues are way down, as predicted.
International Traffic Causes Steep Load Factor Drops
March traffic reports are starting to com out as well, and the load factor drops aren’t pretty. Digging in, however, we can see that the international side is really hurting things.
Orbitz Follows Rivals, Drops Booking Fees with a Twist
Orbitz has finally followed the others and dropped booking fees, but there is a very important twist on how they did it.
Alaska Challenges Allegiant with Bellingham – Las Vegas Flights
Looks like Alaska wants to pick a fight with Allegiant. Will it work? I’m not so convinced.
March Airline Traffic Numbers
The full March traffic numbers are out, and I’ve got my monthly rundown. How do you spell “ugly”? See inside.
1 comment on “This Week on BNET (April 6 – 10)”
Couple of items/additions regarding your comments on AS’ new BLI-LAS service
1) They wont all fit on one plane coming home, but QX/Horizon fly SEA-BLI 4x/daily so people can always route LAS-SEA-BLI if they want to come home other than Sunday. I’ve flown QX/AS BLI-SEA-LAS a number of times.
2) It’s sparked a nice fare war for the route. G4 have lowered their fare from $118 to $58-98 for dates in June/July/Aug
3) AS had already started a special “Pacific Northwest Stimulus” fare on routes flown by G4 (BLI/RDM/EUG – LAS/PHX) http://www.alaskaair.com/as/www2/promo/farepromos/stimulus-fare.asp?CID=AS_AllDeals_RM032709SALE so this really is a drop the gloves response to G4 in their back yard.
4) Thursday’s northbound will be easy to fill. Lots of people go to Vegas Sun-Thur because the rooms are a lot less expensive and it’s generally quieter.
5) BLI is not much more than the Vancouver(Bellingham) airport, the parking lot is a sea of BC plates. From my home in the Vancouver suburbs, BLI is 40km (25miles) further than YVR and for 1/2 million people in metro Vancouver, BLI is probably closer than YVR. Until the US and Canada can negotiate a customs union, and not charge each other silly stuff like ‘agricultural inspection fees’ and ‘Navigation surcharges’ the driving across the border thing will continue to bloom.