Kkfla737 From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 1033 posts, RR: 1 Reply 1, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 2451 times:
By not starting FLL-MDW or RSW-MDW they are totally avoiding direct competition with WN.
STT757 From United States of America, joined Mar 2000, 16246 posts, RR: 52 Reply 2, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 2435 times:
Did FL get some more gates or drop a frequency someplace else to launch these new flights?
MAH4546 From Sweden, joined Jan 2001, 31107 posts, RR: 74 Reply 3, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 2401 times:
Awesome! I've been waiting for this for a long time. Good to see the rumours come true. I'm going to make good use of this flight. Too bad the Chicago departure is the morning, I would perfer an afternoon, but oh well, a non-stop still is awesome.
Quoting Kkfla737 (Reply 1): By not starting FLL-MDW or RSW-MDW they are totally avoiding direct competition with WN.
Yes, true. Though, more importantly, what they are doing is filling in gaps of Midway's route network. South Florida is, IIRC, Chicago's third or fourth largest O&D market, but from Midway, there is only service to FLL. They are filling a big gap from Midway. I expect SFO-MDW to come next, another major airport with no Midway service.
JetBluefan1 From United States of America, joined Dec 2003, 2784 posts, RR: 15 Reply 4, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 23 hours ago) and read 2309 times:
It's nice to see FL expand at MDW. The routes should do very well. What kind of frequency should we expect?
JetBluefan1
Most people on a.net hate JetBlue. Get used to it.
Mexicana757 From United States of America, joined Apr 2001, 2957 posts, RR: 30 Reply 5, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 22 hours ago) and read 2300 times:
Quickmover From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 2464 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 18 hours ago) and read 2173 times:
With new routes like these from MDW, plus dropping oil prices, the last thing FL needs to do is delay aircraft deliverys.
I can see the logic behind offering these routes, but I'm not entirely sure they'll actually be successful. Chicago-South Florida is a popular travel market, but WN keeps the yields under pressure with their MDW-FLL flying. If AA matches FL's MDW-MIA fares on ORD-MIA, I suspect that FL's schedule will make it difficult to compete against AA's eight daily round-trips in this AA hub-to-hub market. Moreover, MIA's exorbitant costs will also make it difficult for FL to compete against WN's pricing to FLL. I just see the truly price-sensitive passengers continuing to fly WN to FLL, while the less price-sensitive passengers will prefer AA's broader schedule choices. The sheer size of the market is the only saving grace I can see.
As for MDW-PBI, it just doesn't seem that West Palm is a terribly popular destination from Chicago (as compared to the rest of South Florida). Part of this may well be due to fares being roughly 20-25% higher to PBI or due to the very limited schedule choices for non-stops from Chicago to PBI. I still don't know if a single daily non-stop round-trip will stimulate enough traffic to be successful. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
DAYflyer From United States of America, joined Sep 2004, 3807 posts, RR: 4 Reply 8, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 16 hours ago) and read 2058 times:
Another smart move by FL. And the delays in deliveries is also smart, they are taking aircraft based on demand. This keeps down the number of seats and lets the revenue side stay firmer than what they had seen the last 2 years.
MAH4546 From Sweden, joined Jan 2001, 31107 posts, RR: 74 Reply 9, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 13 hours ago) and read 1958 times:
Quoting ScottB (Reply 7):
I can see the logic behind offering these routes, but I'm not entirely sure they'll actually be successful. Chicago-South Florida is a popular travel market, but WN keeps the yields under pressure with their MDW-FLL flying. If AA matches FL's MDW-MIA fares on ORD-MIA, I suspect that FL's schedule will make it difficult to compete against AA's eight daily round-trips in this AA hub-to-hub market. Moreover, MIA's exorbitant costs will also make it difficult for FL to compete against WN's pricing to FLL. I just see the truly price-sensitive passengers continuing to fly WN to FLL, while the less price-sensitive passengers will prefer AA's broader schedule choices. The sheer size of the market is the only saving grace I can see.
I think they will do well with Miami-Midway, but they would benefit from adding a second daily. They aren't going to get much business traffic with one daily. Add an evening Chicago departure/morning Miami departure, and they're set.
ATA did very well at MIA despite the additional costs at operating to the airport. They captured 30% of the MIA-CHI O&D market when they were flying here, and where successful on their Midway flights despite the fact that the FLL-MDW flights were almost always significantly more affordable (I flew them on MIA-MDW 1-2x a month; rarely an empty flight and low-fares were harder to find than from FLL). TED has also done very well replacing UA at MIA, even though they have a very limited MIA-ORD schedule.
Vivavegas From United States of America, joined Apr 2004, 505 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 12 hours ago) and read 1910 times:
Quote: Nonstop Service between Chicago (Midway) and Miami
From To Flight Departs Arrives Frequency
Chicago (Midway) Miami 566 7:40 a.m. 11:40 a.m. Daily
From To Flight Departs Arrives Frequency
Miami Chicago (Midway) 567 12:20 p.m. 2:20 p.m. Daily
Cruise Ship traffic alone should fill these planes for a few days of the week. A 1220 departure can still be made with disembarking cruise passengers, would like to see a 1320 departure even more.
Mexicana757 From United States of America, joined Apr 2001, 2957 posts, RR: 30 Reply 11, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 10 hours ago) and read 1836 times:
I also think the MDW-MIA route will do well. I'm sure for now they will keep at 1x daily to see how it does.
Quoting MAH4546 (Reply 3): I expect SFO-MDW to come next, another major airport with no Midway service.
I'm also expecting for FL to announce this route sometime in the future.
Wjcandee From United States of America, joined Jun 2000, 4553 posts, RR: 17 Reply 12, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 3 hours ago) and read 1688 times:
FL has the benefit of serving these two markets with conx pax through ATL. This helps in two ways. First, they can see how much conx traffic they're getting, and they're probably pretty good by now at extrapolating what they can get with a nonstop added to the market. Second, some of their city-pairs are already combinations of conx and nonstop traffic. Some folks may book one-way on the nonstop and a return on a connection, so a single nonstop is a cautious way to enter the market.
PBI is of course a different market from MIA demographically. And MDW is different than ORD. I think AA would be insane to match from ORD, except perhaps selectively at that particular flight time, but if they do, I can't see it hurting anyone but themselves. I also think that they'll see some decent traffic in their paid biz class and on biz class upgrades to PBI; perhaps more so than MIA. This should help the yield a bit, as does the generally-higher fares to PBI due to the affluence of the area. (And while of course YMMV, I personally know people who fly into PBI from Bradley in CT on a fairly-regular basis. For a while -- I kid you not -- they were flying a chartered biz jet. Then they found Song. They loved it, told all their friends how much they loved it, and had a good chuckle about the completely-different order of magnitude the prices were. Not a normal situation, but it shows that good service and a good commercial product can appeal to the PBI crowd. I suspect that quite a few of them -- like the folks I'm referring to -- would really like the FL biz class and have a good chuckle about the savings (over even First on a network carrier).
MAH4546 From Sweden, joined Jan 2001, 31107 posts, RR: 74 Reply 13, posted (6 years 8 months 1 week 2 hours ago) and read 1679 times:
Quoting Wjcandee (Reply 12): This should help the yield a bit, as does the generally-higher fares to PBI due to the affluence of the area. (And while of course YMMV, I personally know people who fly into PBI from Bradley in CT on a fairly-regular basis. For a while -- I kid you not -- they were flying a chartered biz jet.
You pretty much explained why PBI, despite being a wealthy area, is no SNA, LGA, or DCA in terms of yields. There is such a proliferation of business jet traffic, that the real high rollers aren't flying commercial flights. In fact, one of the reasons airTran publicly stated for starting PBI-HPN flights last fall was that there is so much business jet traffic between PBI and HPN. (And while we are on the topic, I think MIA-HPN would be another perfect new route for them in the future.)
The PBI-Northeast market has plenty of airlines and flights, and are not as strong as the compartively underserved MIA-Northeast market. However, because of PBI's lack of flights to non-East coast destinations, routes like PBI-CHI tend to have stronger yields than FLL/MIA because of how few non-stops exist.
Zippyjet From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 4720 posts, RR: 13 Reply 14, posted (6 years 8 months 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 1567 times:
ZIPPYJET says Bravo! This service is going to do great! As of now, we just have venerable gate G-2 at MIA. You all may remember we FL used to have BWI-MIA service. I do hope we get this popular route back. As of now all our flights to and from MIA are ATL flights.
Sflaflight From United States of America, joined Nov 2005, 1182 posts, RR: 1 Reply 15, posted (6 years 8 months 5 days 18 hours ago) and read 1498 times:
Well I love this addition, but I think 1 daily is not enough as everyone has said.
But, as for fares, I don't know how much lower fares can go. MIA-ORD on AA and Ted is already starting at 69.00 (advance)
As someone who flew South Florida Chicagoland many many times this summer, I can tell you that I rarely paid 69.00 because the flights filled really fast! AA's 8 flights daily took off very full every time I was on them.The interesting thing is that all summer, MIA has been CHEAPER than FLL because FLL had such a limited schedule and all the flights filled up. AA and Ted only offered 2 flights each 1 morning on both AA and 1 evening on AA and Ted. What about WN you say, well believe it or not, most people in South Florida don't go running to WN first. I think South Floridians would choose FL over WN.
What is appreciated is the new pairing. Travellers in both metroplexes mostly choose the airport based on location these days (with the price of fuel and parking). Miamians going to the Southside will definitely choose FLs service rather than driving up to FLL to catch WN or driving down to the southside from ORD.
Finally, What about just connecting thru ATL? Anyone who flies South Florida-Chicagoland knows the potential delays on both sides when storms come. I learned very quickly to fly South Florida Chicagoland non stop or connections could be missed! I think the more nonstops to Chicago, the better!
MAH4546 From Sweden, joined Jan 2001, 31107 posts, RR: 74 Reply 16, posted (6 years 8 months 5 days 15 hours ago) and read 1445 times:
Quoting Sflaflight (Reply 15): What is appreciated is the new pairing. Travellers in both metroplexes mostly choose the airport based on location these days (with the price of fuel and parking). Miamians going to the Southside will definitely choose FLs service rather than driving up to FLL to catch WN or driving down to the southside from ORD.
Huge plus for me. I just spent 2 hours yesterday in a Town Car going from O'Hare to the south side in afternoon traffic, and 115 minutes of that was just to get downtown. I used to fly ATA's MIA-MDW flight all the time, but when ATA flew out, switched to MIA-ORD on AA. Going to O'Hare is a pain.
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