Champion Air shutting down ops May 31st

[OUman]

Champion Air will be going out of business on May 31st. That's a big hit on the service between Oklahoma City and Las Vegas.

Source: Champion Air to Cease Flight Operations May 31st: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

I hope Southwest fills the gap, those flights are doing well the last I heard.

We're also going to be losing the Cancun and Puerto Vallarta nonstops. I'm hoping those are also replaced by another carrier but with our market having a small international passenger base I don't see those returning (it would be nice if some other carrier did though).

[Pete]

Even though they obviously don't fly to OKC, Aloha Air is also suspending operations today.

High fuel prices must have a lot to do with it.

[Luke]

Jeez! That stinks!

[Karried]

Oh no... that was a nice jaunt.. straight to Vegas. ugh.

[Intrepid]

Southwest offers non-stop to Vegas. That's who I am flying with when I go to Vegas in June.

[Intrepid]

MLT Vacations, which uses Champion Air, apparently hasn't gotten the word. They are still booking flights from OKC to their various destinations thru August 2008.

[lpecan]

USAir also flies to Vegas and has always had better prices than SWA/WN when I've checked.

[venture]

MLT will be getting Northwest I believe to do the runs.

[OUman]

MLT will be getting Northwest I believe to do the runs.

We'll have NW going to LAS?! That will be interesting. Do you know anything about the Cancun and Puerto Vallarta flights though?

[Blairman]

MLT will be getting Northwest I believe to do the runs.

I hope you are right, I just booked a honeyoon to Cancun.........

[bretthexum]

MLT will be getting Northwest I believe to do the runs.

Hopefully non-stop? I'd hate to have to connect thru MSP or Memphis

[venture]

Slow down a bit. Northwest will be the operator of the flights much like Champion, but MLT Vacation will still market/sell the product. Just NW metal...nothing more, nothing less.

I'm trying to get confirmation on this.

[Jen at Airports]

Did you all see the article Ja'Rena Lunsford did on this subject? (Daily O - Friday.) She interviewed Bentley Hedges travel. It's worth checking out.

[metro]

any chance you can post the article or a link Jen?

[Jen at Airports]

I usually can find the articles online, but I can't find this one. I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, I wanted to share something I discovered today while reading up on social media (you tube, face book, etc.). I’d never heard of it before, but it’s pretty cool. It's yelp.com. Yelp bills themselves as “the fun, easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great and not so great – in your area.” I was surprised to find Will Rogers has received seven reviews – all pretty glowing – for the most part – and a rating of 3 ½ stars. (Some reviews were actually written just prior to completion of renovation.) Check it out when you have time. I will be adding better pictures of our airport to the site now that I know about it. I will see what folks have to say about other airports comparable in size.

Will Rogers World Airport - Oklahoma City, OK

[OUman]

I haven't read the original article but from what I see here it might be this one:

Source: Airline to end Oklahoma service | NewsOK.com

[chrisok]

I'm hearing that the replacement for Champion Air will be Allegiant Air. They'll be handling both the Vegas and Mexico service.

[familyguy]

I'm hearing that the replacement for Champion Air will be Allegiant Air. They'll be handling both the Vegas and Mexico service.

That's good news!!

I always liked their service.

Hopefully they'll get all that wiring checked on their MD-80's first, so they won't have the fiasco that American has right now.

[Luke]

Allegiant had a stint here in 2006 and prior. I had booked my honeymoon with Allegiant and thankfully got a full refund when they said they weren't flying from OKC to Vegas anymore.

Hopefully Allegiant will pick it back up here and fly to Orlando too. It's almost a better deal to drive to Wichita to fly Allegiant to Orlando because of their CHEAP one-way airfare.

[Jen at Airports]

You guys are amazing. How do you find this stuff out? That's good to know about Allegiant Air. Let's cross our fingers on that Orlando flight.

[chrisok]

There's a good chance we won't be able to book flights directly from them, just through MLT. If that's the case, I wouldn't hold out much hope for the Orlando flight.

[venture]

More than likely they'll just have these aircraft chartered to do the MLT items, instead of their own. If that is the case, Chris is right...you'll need to go through MLT. I would not keep out much hope for OKC-Florida service now. It has been tried before and failed every time.

Also keep in mind, Allegiant's business plan is different then most. They are a travel package company that just happens to also run a scheduled airline. They are more concerned about how many vacation packages they can sell, versus how many seats will get filled. If not enough packages are bought, the city is dropped and they move on.

[bretthexum]

It's official. Just booked a June Vegas vacation and they have Allegiant Air flights available now.