Virgin America has announced plans to fly from Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO) to both Orlando and Toronto starting later this year. Toronto will mark Virgin's first international service while Orlando will be Virgin's second foray into Florida - and a route that potentially strikes at the heart of JetBlue.
Toronto makes a lot of sense for VA - good demographics, little low-fare competition - a great extension of the brand.
Orlando, while a huge destination, isn't exactly known for high yields. It is also the heart of both JetBlue (which runs a large operation at MCO) and AirTran (which also runs a large operation and is headquartered there.)
So, how long before JetBlue announces service from SFO and LAX to Orlando? Last time, it only took a day for JetBlue to announce overlapping service from LAX and SFO to Fort Lauderdale as we discussed.
And so much for Orange County (SNA) - San Francisco (SFO) flights which we chronicled here. While Virgin did succeed in running American out of town, apparently Southwest and long-time incumbent United were too much....
Showing posts with label Orlando. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orlando. Show all posts
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Is Allegiant Air Feeling the Heat From AirTran?
Allegiant Air, which has long operated exclusively from Orlando Sanford Airport, today announced that ten destinations will now be served from Orlando International Airport.
Normally, we would not consider this to be very interesting news except that we've been following the growth (or dare we say copy-catting) of AirTran from Orlando International Airport (MCO). AirTran has added significant new service over the past several months from MCO which closely follows Allegiant's strategy of operating less than daily (2-4 weekly frequencies) in under-served leisure markets such as Bangor-Orlando, Duluth-Las Vegas and the like. We doubt that AirTran hast been able to build the kind of vacation packaging revenue that Allegiant depends on, but clearly Allegiant decided they needed to compete on more equal terms.
Allegiant is moving markets where they directly or closely compete with AirTran to larger and more conveniently located MCO. These include: Allentown, Knoxville, Lexington and Des Moines where they fly wing-tip to wing-tip with AirTran as well as Greenville, Grand Rapids, Springfield MO, Tri-Cities TN, Huntington WV, and Youngstown where Airtran operates nonstop service to MCO from cities within a very easy drive.
Allegiant's press release says customer preference for MCO drove the decision but we see it really as a way to put pressure on AirTran. And AirTran is pretty good at picking fights - they have proven they can succeed in Delta's back yard in Atlanta and are waging a huge war in Milwaukee with Midwest and now Southwest. Even Northwest, which has a history of not tolerating LCC's in their hubs was not able to drive AirTran from Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis. This will be fun to watch...
Normally, we would not consider this to be very interesting news except that we've been following the growth (or dare we say copy-catting) of AirTran from Orlando International Airport (MCO). AirTran has added significant new service over the past several months from MCO which closely follows Allegiant's strategy of operating less than daily (2-4 weekly frequencies) in under-served leisure markets such as Bangor-Orlando, Duluth-Las Vegas and the like. We doubt that AirTran hast been able to build the kind of vacation packaging revenue that Allegiant depends on, but clearly Allegiant decided they needed to compete on more equal terms.
Allegiant is moving markets where they directly or closely compete with AirTran to larger and more conveniently located MCO. These include: Allentown, Knoxville, Lexington and Des Moines where they fly wing-tip to wing-tip with AirTran as well as Greenville, Grand Rapids, Springfield MO, Tri-Cities TN, Huntington WV, and Youngstown where Airtran operates nonstop service to MCO from cities within a very easy drive.
Allegiant's press release says customer preference for MCO drove the decision but we see it really as a way to put pressure on AirTran. And AirTran is pretty good at picking fights - they have proven they can succeed in Delta's back yard in Atlanta and are waging a huge war in Milwaukee with Midwest and now Southwest. Even Northwest, which has a history of not tolerating LCC's in their hubs was not able to drive AirTran from Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis. This will be fun to watch...
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