Spirit Airlines

[DNAguy]

Amazing. Can't wait for SWA to come in and compete as well.

 

Although, I won't be taking Spirit no matter how cheap. I loathe flying Spirit. Quite possibly the worst experience flying this side of crashing.

[Slick Vik]

Monterrey also

[hindesky]

Two of America’s biggest low-cost carriers are expanding their footprint in the Houston area.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Discount-airlines-expanding-footprint-in-Houston-17315202.php

 

[mattyt36]

On 7/19/2022 at 3:14 PM, hindesky said:

Two of America’s biggest low-cost carriers are expanding their footprint in the Houston area.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Discount-airlines-expanding-footprint-in-Houston-17315202.php

 

I, for one, can't say I think the JetBlue-Spirit merger will be good for Houston.  I guess Frontier could take the Spirit footprint, but I prefer Spirit's relative stability . . . Frontier is, shall we say, rather peripatetic.

[editor]

5 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

I, for one, can't say I think the JetBlue-Spirit merger will be good for Houston.  I guess Frontier could take the Spirit footprint, but I prefer Spirit's relative stability . . . Frontier is, shall we say, rather peripatetic.

I agree.  More competition is better for Houston, rather than less.  And probably for every other airport, too.

I recently had to fly to another major American city, and was stunned by the lack of non-stop choices for the trip.  One big airline had two flights a day, and two other big airlines had one flight each day.  This is a run I used to do regularly back in the 2000's, and there was pretty much a non-stop flight every hour in the mornings and evenings.

The immediate reaction, I expect is to say the airlines are hurting, and there aren't enough passengers to warrant it.  I don't buy that excuse.  These are two major American cities.  Airlines are earning record profits these days.  Airplanes and airports are at maximum capacity. 

I don't pine for the days of airline regulation, but at least you could get places.  You had options, even if they were expensive. 

Today, much of the country is cut-off from much of the rest of the country unless you want to take a chance on a two-, or three-, or even four-leg journey, and hope that just maybe there might be a possibility that nothing goes wrong, your plane isn't overbooked, the weather isn't bad at one of the intermediate cities, and a dozen other unknowable factors, that you might get there the same day.

[mattyt36]

1 hour ago, editor said:

The immediate reaction, I expect is to say the airlines are hurting, and there aren't enough passengers to warrant it.  I don't buy that excuse.

I don't think many people are saying that--even in the media and the airlines themselves.  The limited seat supply is principally attributable to pilot and other staffing shortages.  That's not to say they don't still have serious long-term structural challenges if business travel doesn't fully recover.

IAH and HOU are among the middle in terms of recovery of comparably sized airports.  Other hubs like MSP, DTW, and PHL (and even ATL, if you can believe it) are doing way worse.

[TacoDog]

2 hours ago, editor said:

These are two major American cities.  Airlines are earning record profits these days.  Airplanes and airports are at maximum capacity. 

Maybe that's why there are so few direct flights.

[mattyt36]

1 hour ago, TacoDog said:

Maybe that's why there are so few direct flights.

Check out the number of direct flights between congested markets and I think you'll find that that explanation is lacking.

Sadly the pilot shortage (and lack of business demand) is hitting the smaller markets the most, and the airlines are engaged in old-school market share battles in markets like Denver, New York, LA, and Austin which is pulling capacity from the midsized markets and some of the midcontinent hubs.  Markets like IAH have seen upgauged aircraft so in terms of number of seats we're not far off from where we were pre-COVID, but the number of flights is way down (which is what @editor noticed). 

If you don't want to go to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, you are down to 2-3 options on UA at best.  Even SEA was down to 3 daily flights during a lot of this summer's peak--one leaving at 0600, one leaving at noon, and one a redeye.  Guess what fares were like on the noon flight compared to the other two.  Hell, I think AA was down to 6 flights/day on IAH-DFW at one point this year, which is unheard of.

Also, sadly, if you live in IAH's "natural" connecting catchment area, I think you can understand why IAH is pretty much the last choice for a lot of connecting road warriors--there are simply many more options via DFW or ATL, or on direct flights on Southwest.  Want to connect in IAH to go from CHS to LAX?  You've got one choice a day.  It's really pathetic.

As far as the pilot staffing issue goes, I mentioned in another thread that Mesa can't fully staff its E175 operation out of IAH (Mesa is the primary E175 operator out of IAH) and has parked the aircraft.  In the last couple of weeks, UA entered into some agreement with Mesa such that it has the option to transfer those to other airlines.

Edited August 17, 2022 by mattyt36