I will be taking vacation Monday, March 15 through Monday, March 22. There will still be regular posts on Monday/Tuesday/Thursday along with the big reveal of the last five category nominees for the Cranky Network Awards on Wednesday. There won’t be a Friday “3 Links I Love” post, nor will I be responding regularly to comments or questions. I will occasionally check emails to see if there’s anything that needs attention, but otherwise, it’ll wait until I return.
This Week’s Featured Link
Spirit Airlines Adds Three New Popular Destinations from LaGuardia, Announces Operations Out of a Second Terminal – Spirit Airlines
I spoke with the airline to get more details on this. Right now, Spirit schedules 11 daily flights from a single gate in Delta’s Terminal C. It has now entered into an agreement with the airport to take over gates 3 and 4 in Terminal A (the old Marine Air Terminal). It’s starting by moving only the 5x daily Fort Lauderdale flights, making sure things all work out, and then it eventually plans on moving there entirely. With two dedicated gates, Spirit can grow, but…
… you can’t grow there without slots. Right now, slot rules are suspended, so airlines can back off, not fly, and then return later to the same number of slots. During that time, Spirit and anyone else can use them temporarily. So, Spirit will use those to go to Nashville. Those San Juan and LA flights are more interesting since they go beyond the perimeter and don’t require slots since they only operate on Saturday. (They could operate before noon on Sunday as well.) Spirit’s hope is that it can acquire more slots eventually, but for now, it’ll just fly what it can, knowing it has a permanent home at the airport.
Two for the Road
Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. S-1 – SEC
With Sun Country plowing ahead, Frontier sees an opportunity as well. It has filed its S-1 to go public.
First To Fly – El Al and the Dawn of Commercial Twin-Engine Oceanic Flights – AirlineReporter
I didn’t know this little piece of trivia.
9 comments on “3 Links I Love: Spirit in LGA, Frontier Going Public, The First Twin Engine Transatlantic”
Does this mean we won’t have to do the underground walk between 4 and 5 anymore (keeping in mind we’ll still have to do it between 5-6)?
Doug – That is correct. And you shouldn’t have to do it between T5 and T6 either since they are building a new terminal core there as well.
Just when I think I know what’s going on at LAX… what is terminal 1.5?
Bill – Terminal 1.5 is the new terminal core that’s being built to connect Terminals 1 and 2. I talked about it a bit in this post: https://crankyflier.com/2018/11/26/preview-southwest-finishes-terminal-renovations-at-lax-but-theres-more-construction-to-come/
Basically it’s going to hold security checkpoints, offices, baggage claim, and ticket counters. Many of the counters will hold ticketing for foreign airlines that will then bus people to gates on the midfield concourse.
Fascinating article on El Al. Personally, I always laugh when a pilot reminds me that ETOPS stands for “Engines Turn or Passengers Swim.”
Enjoy your vacation.
@ CF Isn’t JetBlue the MAT lease operator?
So the agreement would technically have to be with them and not the airport to use gates 1 and 2? And if so I wonder if 4 gates will be enough for the expansion JetBlue has planned for LGA with AA’s slots.
Rob – When I spoke with Spirit, they said they leased those gates from the airport, but I didn’t get into full details. So I’m not entirely sure.
I wonder who did the graphics in the video because there was a major error. What is a Manging Director?