Spirit Airlines - Why Not OKC And/or TUL?

dfwjim1 · Wed Feb 17, 2016 5:31 pm

Hi,

I was just on Spirit Airline's website and I noticed that they do not fly to Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma. It seems
like on face value both cities would be good candidates for Spirit's ULCC model so I am curious as to why Spirit is not flying
to those cities?

Thanks for your responses.

DariusBieber · Wed Feb 17, 2016 5:42 pm

Basic answer is there's probably not enough traffic to warrant Spirit's service. Take a look at SAT. They had Spirit for not even two years (around 2007-2009ish) and couldn't maintain passenger numbers. And that's a city with 3x the population of Oklahoma City.

enilria · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:00 pm

On the surface they seem very consistent with the new CEO's comments, but it is well known that MCI went fairly poorly for NK so I'm not sure I see why they would be better than MCI. OTOH, I'm not sure what else they can do. They can go after alternate airports up against G4 or they can compete with WN in markets like BWI-STL, but I'm not sure that stuff is a pot of gold either with their current model. I see them focusing around MCO and perhaps CAK/FNT/BUF. That makes OKC-MCO possible, but I think OKC-LAX/ORD type stuff is unlikely.

AWACSooner · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:14 pm

Because Okies aren't too keen on airlines that charge for carry-ons (other than the one-off G4 flight to SFB)?

jetmatt777 · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:14 pm

Quoting DariusBieber (Reply 1):

Basic answer is there's probably not enough traffic to warrant Spirit's service. Take a look at SAT. They had Spirit for not even two years (around 2007-2009ish) and couldn't maintain passenger numbers. And that's a city with 3x the population of Oklahoma City.

Just to keep the facts straight, San Antonio has a metro population of 2.3 million while Oklahoma City has a metro population of 1.3 million. That is not even twice the size and nowhere near your 3 times projection.

jetmatt777 · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:15 pm

Quoting AWACSooner (Reply 3):

Allegiant has expanded in OKC with the addition of LAS.

9w748capt · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:20 pm

NK needs high loads to do well. G4 probably has taken whatever volume of leisure traffic there is. Okies also tend to have no problem driving 20+ hours rather than flying somewhere. Sadly probably just not a large enough market for NK. Would be great though - we could use some downward pressure on our fares.

I would also be curious how many spirit customers at DFW are from Oklahoma. I suspect a fair number.

[Edited 2016-02-17 10:22:06]

dc10lover · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:34 pm

I think NK as well as F9 want to go into the larger routes.There is a "larger piece of the pie".

enilria · Wed Feb 17, 2016 6:37 pm

Quoting DC10LOVER (Reply 7):

The new NK CEO said they will avoid other carriers hubs. That pushes them toward stuff like OKC. I think they could what FL tried and go to MCO in G4 markets and see if people to move from SFB.

CIDFlyer · Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:41 am

NK at some point will have to try some newer markets with more planes coming online...perhaps they could do the likes of F9 and try some less than daily stuff like F9 does in smaller markets.

toltommy · Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:48 am

Quoting enilria (Reply 2):
I see them focusing around MCO and perhaps CAK/FNT/BUF.

MCO makes sense. I don't see CAK being a destination with CLE being half empty, and closer to more of the market. FNT? Not going to happen. NK has long less. BUF depends on the canadian economy and the strength of the C$. I would say it has the most potential of the 3 cities.

Quoting dfwjim1 (Thread starter):
I am curious as to why Spirit is not flying to those cities?

Simple. They can make a better return by deploying the assets elsewhere.

ROSWELL41 · Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:50 am

NK already serves IAG, so I doubt you'll ever see them in BUF.

toltommy · Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:57 am

Quoting ROSWELL41 (Reply 11):
NK already serves IAG, so I doubt you'll ever see them in BUF.

Whoops, thanks for the catch. But I think we could see some growth at IAG. It will be interesting to see how the market responds to B6 flying BUF-LAX.

DariusBieber · Thu Feb 18, 2016 5:29 am

Quoting jetmatt777 (Reply 5):
Just to keep the facts straight, San Antonio has a metro population of 2.3 million while Oklahoma City has a metro population of 1.3 million. That is not even twice the size and nowhere near your 3 times projection.

Facts are straight. Oklahoma City has a population of 579,000 and San Antonio has a population of 1,437,000. Which is roughly 2.5 times larger.

Nevertheless, the point is still valid. If SAT couldn't support Spirit, there's no chance OKC can either.

[Edited 2016-02-17 21:29:23]

[Edited 2016-02-17 21:29:55]

[Edited 2016-02-17 21:30:15]

jetmatt777 · Thu Feb 18, 2016 5:53 am

Quoting DariusBieber (Reply 13):
Facts are straight. Oklahoma City has a population of 579,000 and San Antonio has a population of 1,437,000. Which is roughly 2.5 times larger.

Nevertheless, the point is still valid. If SAT couldn't support Spirit, there's no chance OKC can either.

You are using the population of the city limits, the MSA (metro area) is the only important factor when comparing cities for this reason. The OKC metro is 1.3 million, and the SAT metro is 2.3 million, which means SAT is not even close to 2.5 times larger.

Using your method, SFO is well overserved as the City of San Francisco only has a population of around 850,000. Of course, if you use a metro population we come up with a much larger and more realistic number of around 8 million.

Please learn the difference between city limits population and Metropolitan area.

Beechtobus · Thu Feb 18, 2016 5:57 am

Quoting DariusBieber (Reply 1):
Basic answer is there's probably not enough traffic to warrant Spirit's service. Take a look at SAT. They had Spirit for not even two years (around 2007-2009ish) and couldn't maintain passenger numbers. And that's a city with 3x the population of Oklahoma City.

Quoting DariusBieber (Reply 13):
If SAT couldn't support Spirit, there's no chance OKC can either.

One thing to keep in mind is that 2008 Spirit (when they were in SAT last) is very different than 2016 Spirit, network wise. In 2008 Spirit was FLL centric with well over half of thier flights south of the border. Spirit had 28ish aircraft with a domestic network that consisted of a few flights between the Northeast and upper Midwest to Florida (mainly FLL), and a daily flight from LAS and LAX to FLL and DTW. One daily oddly timed flight SAT-FLL by a carrier unheard of in Texas was doomed from the start.

Fast forward to today where Spirit is now over 80 percent domestic with 75 aircraft and respectable operations if not focus cities in LAS, LAX, DFW, IAH, MSP, ORD, DTW, ATL, CLE, BOS, BWI, ACY, MCO, and of course FLL. I think if Spirit opened SAT today, they could likely make something stick to at least a few of these cities.

On to the OPs question about OKC and TUL. It sounds like the new CEO is possibly switching focus to mid-sized cities, so these could definitely be in future growth plans for NK. When one or both will be added is anyone's guess.

[Edited 2016-02-17 22:11:15]

DariusBieber · Thu Feb 18, 2016 7:06 am

Quoting Beechtobus (Reply 15):
You are using the population of the city limits, the MSA (metro area) is the only important factor when comparing cities for this reason. The OKC metro is 1.3 million, and the SAT metro is 2.3 million, which means SAT is not even close to 2.5 times larger.

Using your method, SFO is well overserved as the City of San Francisco only has a population of around 850,000. Of course, if you use a metro population we come up with a much larger and more realistic number of around 8 million.

Please learn the difference between city limits population and Metropolitan area.

Still means my statement is correct. Never mentioned metro population in my original post, just mentioned city population.

[Edited 2016-02-17 23:07:06]

jetmatt777 · Thu Feb 18, 2016 8:27 am

Quoting DariusBieber (Reply 16):

Still means my statement is correct. Never mentioned metro population in my original post, just mentioned city population

While technically true, it has no bearing on the discussion and is disingenuous to exclude the greater metro area when comparing cities in this manner.

modernArt · Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:34 am

The only real comparison between OKC and San Antonio is number of NBA championships of one versus the other...which is currently 5 times zero.

Quoting Beechtobus (Reply 15):
One thing to keep in mind is that 2008 Spirit (when they were in SAT last) is very different than 2016 Spirit, network wise.
This really is the key point. Spirit is a completely different airline today. Lots of possibilities out there like the aforementioned cities as well Nashville, ABQ, Memphis, Austin and St Louis.

Spirit Airlines - Why Not OKC And/or TUL?

Spirit Airlines - Why Not OKC And/or TUL?

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