This brings SAN up to 4 destinations served by NK, including LAS and DFW in addition to the 2 new ones, with 5 daily departures. Interestingly enough, according to my count, that makes SAN the second largest Spirit station in the far west (of their 7 cities west of Denver), behind only Vegas. Not bad for a city that saw Spirit arrive here for the first time just over a year ago (9/07/2011.)
Both new routes are starting out with a single daily flight but I notice that the Cabo flight is already scheduled to take a freq cut in less than a month when it is reduced to 5x weekly starting Dec 1. Seems a bit strange to be cutting service that soon, AND right at the beginning of the Holiday travel season... Oh well, this is Spirit we're talking about here.
Finally, these 2 new routes are both "former" (up until yesterday) AS monopolies. It is being debated in local circles if NK is intentionally going after Alaska or if this is all just coincidence? I do note that starting March 10, 2013, AS's schedules show a doubling of their SAN-SJD service! Just another coincidence? Hmmmmmmm.... Could get interesting around here in 2013!
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4720 posts, RR: 15 Reply 4, posted (6 months 2 weeks 8 hours ago) and read 404 times:
Quoting davidCA (Reply 1): Is it ever NOT interesting in SAN? Awesome city, awesome airport
LOL! Very true. And thanx for the nice words. Wait 'til the new terminal expansion is open next year -- should be really nice, like an impressive, beautiful, "Big-City" airport!
Quoting wedgetail737 (Reply 2): It'll be a game of brand-recognition, advertising and eventually, reputation. Good to see SAN getting additional service, though.
I agree, D., it won't be much of a contest, will it? Normally, NK will do their "niche" thing and get enough bargain-hunters to (sometimes) make a route profitable. As with the original SAN-routes, DFW and LAS, and the incumbents having 9 to 12 flights/day in the market, I doubt that AA or WN much notice that NK is in the market.
But with these 2 AS routes, PDX and SJD, since there isn't that much service in either market, there might be some noticable impact. But if it does come right down to it, I'm not really too worried about Alaska.
It should be noted that the PDX-SAN flight makes a very good connection with the SAN-Cabo flight and the DFW-SAN flight is actually thru-equipment all the way to Mexico so SAN is actually a bit of a connecting gateway -- very small scale no doubt -- for Spirit. (The return SJD-SAN-PDX connection involves about 5 hours at Lindbergh so that one's not so hot.)
Oh well, we'll just have to see how this all plays out in the next 6 months to a year. In the meantime, it IS nice to see new routes from here!
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4720 posts, RR: 15 Reply 7, posted (6 months 2 weeks 7 hours ago) and read 404 times:
Quoting wedgetail737 (Reply 2): It'll be a game of brand-recognition, advertising and eventually, reputation.
Quoting SANFan (Reply 4): I agree, D., it won't be much of a contest, will it?
Quoting as739x (Reply 5): And Alaska will eventually win that.
It is, to me anyway, kind of ironic that AS is in a fairly healthy expansion mode in SAN these days. (Right now, AS, with 10 destinations from Lindbergh Field, is second only to WN in that category.) And of those destinations, as of yesterday, 9 of them (all except HNL) were monopoly routes for AS. Now in comes Spirit, taking on 2 of those monopolies at once, and handing Alaska some unaccustomed competition.
Heck, maybe these events will make AS even more intent on "taking over" SAN and growing here even more (and/or faster?) than they had planned! (I can dream anyway...)
Quoting dtw9 (Reply 6): I wonder if the airport is going to charge Spirit for the water cannon salute and the Mariachi band.
LOL! Good point. Our airport is as much about ancillary income (alternative income sources) as Spirit is!
RWA380 From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 2160 posts, RR: 4 Reply 9, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 18 hours ago) and read 404 times:
Quoting SANFan (Reply 7): Now in comes Spirit, taking on 2 of those monopolies at once, and handing Alaska some unaccustomed competition.
AS has a great number of monopoly routes from PDX as they are our largest carrier, so many carriers that at one time were the incumbents (like UA to SAN) are gone and AS is in place. NK isn't much competition for AS I'm guessing, as has been stated before here on A.net, NK creates market share where it flies rather than taking away from other carriers. 2 of the 3 routes NK serves from here at PDX are AS markets, you will notice NK has not made planes to serve SEA yet, it seems NK is trying it's hand against AS here is easier than taking on AS at it's fortress hub. It will take one cheap trip on NK for most Northwesterners, to ensure they will be back on AS on their next trip.
Next Flights: AS PDX-SEA-KOA on DH4/738 in F, HA KOA-OGG on 717 in Y, AS OGG-PDX on 738 in F
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4720 posts, RR: 15 Reply 10, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 402 times:
An interesting little factoid that I just noticed in a joint press release issued yesterday (by NK and SDIA) talking about the new service from SAN:
Quote: “We’re excited to grow our network of ultra low fare options for our west coast customers in San Diego and Portland with service to a new international destination – Los Cabos, Mexico,” says San Diego resident and Spirit’s Senior Manager Route Planning Robyn Platt. “We look forward to continuing to save customers money on travel by offering them the lowest fares.”
Hmmmm, it's kind of comforting to know that the Senior Mgr Route Planning for Spirit Airlines is a SAN resident! Maybe that helps explain the growth by the airline here...
Say Robyn, when might we see SAN-AZA flights begin???
treebeard787 From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 503 posts, RR: 1 Reply 11, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 402 times:
Quoting SANFan (Reply 10): ay Robyn, when might we see SAN-AZA flights begin???
I personally feel it's only a matter of time before NK starts up AZA-SAN, it seems like the perfect route for them.
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4720 posts, RR: 15 Reply 12, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 11 hours ago) and read 402 times:
Quoting treebeard787 (Reply 11): I personally feel it's only a matter of time before NK starts up AZA-SAN, it seems like the perfect route for them.
I've been thinking about the possibility for months now. I would expect we might see SAN-AZA before even LAX-AZA since SAN has only 2 cx flying to the PHX-area (WN and US) while there are many more cx in the LA-PHX market. Plus, PHX is the second largest market served out of SAN so there should be plenty of traffic that would be very happy to have another airport to fly into in the Valley.
Ultimately I would expect all 4 w/c cities will at least see an attempt by NK to connect with AZA.
We can call it not waking up the sleeping Eskimo. AS is very good a defending it's turf. They also have plenty of money to defend their turf and if Spirit starts to cut into their numbers (and SAN is that important to Alaska), they will attack back.
"Some pilots avoid storm cells and some play connect the dots!"
SANFan From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4720 posts, RR: 15 Reply 14, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 9 hours ago) and read 401 times:
Quoting as739x (Reply 13): We can call it not waking up the sleeping Eskimo. AS is very good a defending it's turf. They also have plenty of money to defend their turf and if Spirit starts to cut into their numbers (and SAN is that important to Alaska), they will attack back
As we've seen (I guess) with the doubling up on SAN-SJD with the March 10 schedule! And that does appear to be a permanent addition as it shows on the schedules well into the summer (July.) (In other words it's not just a quick frequency/capacity bump for Spring Break or whatever.)
santi319 From Puerto Rico, joined Dec 2005, 323 posts, RR: 0 Reply 15, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 9 hours ago) and read 401 times:
Quoting as739x (Reply 13): We can call it not waking up the sleeping Eskimo. AS is very good a defending it's turf. They also have plenty of money to defend their turf and if Spirit starts to cut into their numbers (and SAN is that important to Alaska), they will attack back.
And that is fine, good for AS spending all that money "defending" their cities, if we have learned anything about NK is that they do not compete, if they want to lose money competing, go ahead, Spirit will pull out and look elsewhere, the only affected ones will be the customers... Theres a reason why NK has 0 debt. And by 0 I mean 0.
SANMAN66 From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 609 posts, RR: 1 Reply 16, posted (6 months 1 week 6 days 8 hours ago) and read 401 times:
Quoting SANFan (Reply 10): it's kind of comforting to know that the Senior Mgr Route Planning for Spirit Airlines is a SAN resident! Maybe that helps explain the growth by the airline here
AHA! So this is the answer to all of NK's SAN growth! I can see how NK can co-exist
and not compete with another airline serving the same route. NK simply gives fliers a
choice. Not everyone likes NK's bargain, no-frills service, or wants to pay for items ala-
carte style. There's always those who would want to pay a little extra to fly in Business
or First class on SAN-DFW on American, or pay for better quality service on AS going to
SJD, or PDX. NK is simply an alternative for bargain-hunters wishing to fly the same
routes but want to save some money getting there.
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From United States of America, joined Aug 2006, 4720 posts, 
Hmmmmmmm.... Could get interesting around here in 2013! 
From Canada, joined Jun 2009, 63 posts, 
From Puerto Rico, joined Dec 2005, 323 posts, 
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