Las Vegas is the largest market that Virgin America does not currently serve from LAX in terms of traveler demand, and Los Angeles is the largest local market for Las Vegas travelers.
nwcoflyer From United States of America, joined Jun 2003, 641 posts, RR: 15 Reply 1, posted (4 months 1 week 6 hours ago) and read 8095 times:
Geez.... thats not an over served market lol. WN, NK, UA, AA, DL- am I missing anone else that flys that route? I would think they could use their airplanes for some other markets. Good luck to them.
lightsaber From United States of America, joined Jan 2005, 10690 posts, RR: 100 Reply 2, posted (4 months 1 week 6 hours ago) and read 8043 times:
Out of curiosity, how many other airlines are on this route? While I do believe this is a 'must have' route out of LAX, I do not think the margins will be good. A quick check on Orbitz for May fares has the lowest fare on Spirit ($88) with DL, UA, AA, and US (on UA?) with direct flights (plus WN, of course). It will be interesting to see how VX does with this route.
jonathanxxxx From United States of America, joined Feb 2011, 638 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (4 months 1 week 5 hours ago) and read 7963 times:
Could these be planes that would otherwise be sitting at LAX or LAS all day or are these new airplanes devoting all their time to the route? If the latter it seems like a horrible waste of aircraft...
panam330 From United States of America, joined Mar 2004, 2601 posts, RR: 10 Reply 6, posted (4 months 1 week 5 hours ago) and read 7943 times:
Quoting usflyguy (Reply 3): and 3 flights a day, all in the afternoon. Definitely won't be getting any of the daily commuters.
Yeah, the schedule is pretty jacked. I'm guessing we'll see them add in the mornings sooner rather than later. Perhaps it's an aircraft utilization thing. Use 'em while they'd otherwise sit idle.
iowaman From United States of America, joined May 2004, 4098 posts, RR: 7 Reply 7, posted (4 months 1 week 5 hours ago) and read 7906 times:
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Interesting schedule, none of the flights in either direction leave before 11:30am, so that eliminates some of the business traffic they may of otherwise captured. It's a huge market though.
This is a couple months old so it may vary slightly from current schedules, but here is a break down of LAS-LAX service:
WN 12x daily
DL 8x daily (mix of mainline/connection)
AA 5x daily (all mainline)
UA 5x daily (mix)
NK 2x daily
slinky09 From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2009, 593 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (4 months 1 week 5 hours ago) and read 7863 times:
What is it with VX and their inability to schedule decent transfers for VS passengers? The two daily VS flights arrive at 3 pm or 7 pm, the first gives a long wait, the second means overnight if you want to use VX as many do. The same is true at SFO where even to VX destinations you end up flying with someone else due to poor timings [scratches head!].
usflyer msp From United States of America, joined exactly 13 years ago today! , 1787 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (4 months 1 week 5 hours ago) and read 7802 times:
Quoting slinky09 (Reply 9): What is it with VX and their inability to schedule decent transfers for VS passengers? The two daily VS flights arrive at 3 pm or 7 pm, the first gives a long wait, the second means overnight if you want to use VX as many do.
Considering VS flies to LAS themselves, I highly doubt VS transfer pax are a big concern for VX...
MaverickM11 From United States of America, joined Apr 2000, 15733 posts, RR: 48 Reply 19, posted (4 months 1 week 5 hours ago) and read 7453 times:
Quoting usflyguy (Reply 18):
Probably redeploy the planes out of DFW.
And/or the market is rough, even at their low costs.
Quoting LAXintl (Reply 15): The tech savy yuppie, or cosmo sipping club goer or the Hollywood fashion wanna be probably would find the VX schedule just right.
You gotta be kidding...
Quoting usflyguy (Reply 17):
Yes, because that demographic is doing a good job of helping VX pull in the profits.
I guess image conscious $30,000 millionaires is not the best demographic to chase after
srbmod From United States of America, joined Mar 2001, 16888 posts, RR: 51 Reply 22, posted (4 months 1 week 4 hours ago) and read 7198 times:
Quoting usflyguy (Reply 3): and 3 flights a day, all in the afternoon. Definitely won't be getting any of the daily commuters.
To me, the timings make sense, as the first flight gets you there early enough to be able to typically beat the lines to check-in at your hotel. The second flight gets you in late enough in the afternoon to be able to check-in and have a nice evening out and not have to rush. The last flight is clearly aimed towards those folks who are heading out there after work.
Quoting LAXintl (Reply 15): The tech savy yuppie, or cosmo sipping club goer or the Hollywood fashion wanna be probably would find the VX schedule just right.
PIEAvantiP180 From United States of America, joined Sep 2009, 469 posts, RR: 0 Reply 24, posted (4 months 1 week 4 hours ago) and read 7041 times:
This schedule looks like it can be done with a single aircraft rotation. Maybe they have some slack in their fleet to run this schedule. I sure hope the bean counters and the route planning guys are right in this move, to me it does not look like a money making route. As for them getting any connection traffic from VS and VA I'm sure DL would have something to say about that. They have a JV with VA and I'm sure by the end of the year the VS JV will be fully implemented. I'm sure VX is purely on this route for the local crowd and to serve their FF members in the LA area.
25 LAXintl: I'm not joking about the demographic. VX has cultivated itself a quite unique passenger demographic unlike I have ever seen in the US market place. Th
26 MaverickM11: So what? Because/despite that demographic, close to $1B has flown out the door.
27 roswell41: Apparently their demographic is too small or not interested in paying extra for VX. Walmart sells more clothing than Nordstrom is akin to Spirit bein
28 LAXintl: I was answering your response to my comment that the VX demographic might find the schedule just fine. Nothing about profits, or other business matte
29 san747: Definitely. It's a route that, while I understood why we never served it prior to now, needed to be added. LAS is already one of our stronger station
30 AussieItaliano: Unless some of us West-Londoners would prefer to change planes at LAX instead of making the trip to LGW. I doubt that anyone's THAT crazy, and in any
31 SANFan: Definitely; this schedule is done with 1 a/c, leaving LAX at 11:30 in the morning and returning there at 10pm. So Virgin is committing 1 plane for al
32 UALFAson: Yes, but that's probably for the 11:30 a.m. departure on a Tuesday morning. To fly to LAS for a weekend (departing Thursday night or Friday morning,
33 EA CO AS: True. And they'll enjoy it for maybe 9 months, until WN gleefully stomps them into the ground on this route.
34 jetMARC: They could easily add one additional r/t in the morning with an 8:00am departure from LAX... if the aircraft is available.
35 SurfandSnow: I first heard about this on Facebook - clearly, many people are VERY happy about this! You can't appeal to Angelenos without serving LAS (no, connecti
36 slinky09: While that is true, there are a lot of VS passengers who fly through LAX or SFO because of plane configurations (more UC seats) or because they are o
37 DL WIDGET HEAD: What a stupid, stupid move. Is this really the best way that VX can think of to use their precious assets? Putting them in the overly saturated, lowes
38 LAXintl: LA-LAS has higher yields then LA-Bay Area. Lets look at SWA that operates on both. City / Average one-way fare / Yield LAS - $124 - $0.52 SF - $126 -
39 jetMARC: I don't know if this is wise or not and I don't really know their scheduling... but whenever I fly into SFO or LAX, I feel like I always see one or t
40 delta2ual: But apparently, it is not that low yielding:
41 point2point: WIth several thousands (my roundabout averages from FAA stats) of pax flying between the SoCal area and Denver (4500 pax daily on F9, UA, WN and AA),
42 HVNandrew: Wow. DL has really become quite a player in this market, and quite quickly. I think they only restarted this route after the merger, and then it was
43 iowaman: LAS is a huge get away for the Los Angeles area on weekends. Interstate 15 is bumper to bumper on Friday nights inbound and Sunday night outbound. Th
44 srbmod: I've got several friends that live in the LA area that go to Vegas on a regular basis and most of them opt to drive while only one of them tends to f
45 panam330: Spending their "precious assets" opening a new station is smarter than spreading their current costs out over existing stations by connecting the dot
46 wn676: A rather large presence. Before their first big schedule cut in early 2008, they were still running about 8 to 10 flights a day. When LAS was finally
47 richierich: As an industry observer, it seems to me that every new route VX adds is ripe with competition (usually from more than one other airline) and has timet
48 Beardown91737: Bumper to bumper in segments. The rest of the trip is just "heavy" traffic. On Friday nights, the truck traffic in the right lane is a big impediment
49 srbmod: I'm quite aware of that fact. I just thought that US was still the dominant carrier on the route (even after the gutting of their LAS operations) and
50 wnflyguy: VX LAX-LAS was long overdue. This should be good market for VX It was also one of the most requested market from LA VX pax. The flight times for the H
51 EricR: There isn't an interstate highway from Phoenix to Vegas. You can get to Kingman or Needles on I-17 I-40 but from there is is 100 miles or so. I have d
52 wn676: It's probably only a small contribution to the overall pulldown in frequencies. In early 2007 WN and HP/US still had about 35 daily n/s flights, but
53 Sligo: This is best explanation I could come up with. There must be some of what is solid or at-least-what-they-think-is baked-in revenue to give them a hea
54 iowaman: Most certainly the same with PHX as well. I suspect both PHX and LAS would be handling much more connecting traffic if it wasn't for DEN. VX must thi
55 usflyer msp: Yawn...another hypercompetitive route for VX to bleed money on....
57 iowaman: Not sure what others are pulling on LAX-LAS, but if this information is correct WN is pulling excellent yields on LAX-LAS: Even if VX got 25 cents a
58 AirAfreak: I live in Los Angeles and I REFUSE to waste my time off driving to Las Vegas AND waking up early in the morning. I like these departure times as I can
59 Kleiner: For all the trolling about VX here, I don't hear many creative route ideas that sound any better. If you were VX (not if you were you), where would yo
60 AirAfreak: Los Angeles to New Orleans with continuing service to Savannah. How's that for creative? =] Bon Voyage, AirAfreak
61 BestWestern: Ah, the early booking price conscious leisure passenger....
62 bobloblaw: LAX-ATL to capture the new movie industry traffic. I think ATL-LAX 3x daily and ATL-SFO 2x daily would be decent for them. I also dont think there is
63 B747forever: Now the base fare seems to be $59. The $39 was just a promotion fare.
64 AirAfreak: Hardly. I simply prefer to sleep in. I am a frequent Businesselite paying passenger. I am a leisure passenger that actually books "J" fares because I
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