Nonstop OKC-SAT & MSY

[venture]

United Express carrier Trans States Airlines will begin daily service between Oklahoma City and San Antonio and New Orleans. San Antonio will be twice daily and start on March 3rd, New Orleans will be one daily starting on Feb 23rd.

TSA operates 50-seat ERJ-145 aircraft.

[Doug Loudenback]

Thanks for the info! This is good news!

[BDP]

That's interesting that we get New Orleans now. How much has traffic at MSY been affected by Katrina?

[venture]

MSY is still pretty slow...Baton Rouge (BTR) probably does more than MSY does. As long as the flights stay priced right...they both should do well. I would like to see United, or someone else, continue downt his road and start doing more point-to-point services...what the RJs were meant for (not as Replacement Jets).

[BDP]

I agree. I know everyone complains about the RJs, but if it gives us non-stops and it's a jet, I'm all for it. And it's got to help with business. While I know business travelers want comfort and understandably so, forcing them into layovers may make a business trip to OKC infeasible altogether.

[OUman]

Actually, it's only because of RJ's that these routes are even possible, if RJ's weren't around, we wouldn't have had half the nonstop departures we have today.
Shows the other airlines that this market is developing at a faster pace now. Hopefully, the east conourse will get built sooner rather than later. Airlines that have started/added service here ths year: Allegiant to LAS, DL Conn ASA to MCO, WN to LAS and HPX to PHX and LAS. Good stuff.

These flights bring us closer to getting nonstops to D.C. and some west coast cities like Los Angeles. RJ's are making it possible for non-hub routes (a.ka. more point-to-point service in markets like ours).

OUman

[BDP]

Actually, it's only because of RJ's that these routes are even possible,

Definately.

I think LA is our biggest O/D market without a direct at this point. Getting LA would be great.

[brianinok]

I don't know if it is or not, but I hope this has to do with our new airport director. If he had a hand in this, then it bodes well for the future. I would think that United flights to Washington Dulles and LAX wouldn't be that far off, considering how many people fly to each of the cities on a daily basis from OKC.

[venture]

One thing that is key in this...this is done by Trans States. They are in the process of moving a ton of RJs out of the US Airways system (after their contract got rejected) into the UAX system. They are doing this as "at risk" flying...so TSA, not United, is calling all the shots here. If TSA can't make money...they are gone. The OKC-SAT flights will cost around $2200 a leg to operate, so as long as fares are done correctly...they should be able to break even and make money on them. The big fear...will Southwest try to strong arm them out of the market. Considering Southwest doesn't have a massive following here, compared to American, that should be a plus.

As far as LAX goes...if this works for TSA...we may see them attempt going west. There are several markets that can work...the west coast markets are one. Washington is another on the other coast.

[BDP]

How much does international travel play into this, venture? I'd think that you might be able to fill some RJs to LAX just to accomodate international flights to the East and South pacific. It's too bad a snaller airline can't subcontract out for multiple airlines for such purposes.

[Patrick]

That's great news. I tried flying between OKC and SAT a few years ago, and the Dallas connection sucked. There is surely a market for a OKC-SAT flight. I'll use it.

[venture]

Int'l connections for an LAX option would be a good part, but not a major one. O&D is king first right now...if they can't make the market based off of that, the flight isn't going. An example would be the Toledo-Dallas route American Eagle started this past summer. Great market potential with around 100 pax per day on the route. However, American was only able to fill around 25-30 seats of the 50 available on the daily flight. Why? They did it as a mid-afternoon flight...the business community hated it. American has since suspended the flight but returning it in January as a morning flight to Dallas and an evening return - much more what the biz pax wants.

OKC-LAX will be the same deal...the schedule and prices have to work for the local market, regardless of how many people can connect at the end point.

Now I wanted to jump over to the O&D figures for OKC. San Antonio is #13 with 148 ppd with New Orleans, pre-hurricane, at #16 with 115 ppd. OKC is still left with 1 top 10 city with out nonstop service...Washington at 176 ppd. LAX comes in at #14 with 143 ppd. The remaining cities in the Top 20 that we don't have service to are Baltimore (15, 124 ppd), San Diego (17, 114ppd), and Seattle (18, 106 ppd).

So if I was running the Airport I would definitely look at the following:

Washington - United or US Airways
Los Angeles - United or American or Alaska
Baltimore - Southwest
San Diego - United
Seattle - Alaska

[brianinok]

If you combine the numbers for LAX and other LA-area airports, as well as Washington's 2 airports and Baltimore, it becomes even more obvious we should have direct air service to those cities.

I fly into DCA at least once a year (I went into Dulles and BWI once each), but if there was a direct flight to either Dulles or BWI (although I would much rather it be into DCA), I would fly direct instead of changing planes.

[mranderson]

If you combine the numbers for LAX and other LA-area airports, as well as Washington's 2 airports and Baltimore, it becomes even more obvious we should have direct air service to those cities.

I fly into DCA at least once a year (I went into Dulles and BWI once each), but if there was a direct flight to either Dulles or BWI (although I would much rather it be into DCA), I would fly direct instead of changing planes.

We already have direct service to those cities, and many more. We need non stop service.

[venture]

We already have direct service to those cities, and many more. We need non stop service.

Going by the context of his post, that is obviously what he meant. Yes it is typically a word game when saying "direct" vs "nonstop", but most out side of the industry don't worry about the difference.

[brianinok]

I was just on the WRWA website, and they still don't have a press release acknowledging this. That's kind of disturbing.

[venture]

What a shock. Most airports would have any new service like that on their site immediately. Of course, they aren't really the most reliable when it comes to getting information about the airport. I sent Karen Karney a lengthy email a month back to point out everything that was wrong with the airline info. Most has been fixed since then.

[BDP]

Int'l connections for an LAX option would be a good part, but not a major one. O&D is king first right now...if they can't make the market based off of that, the flight isn't going.

That makes sense. I just know a lot of people who have had to make an extra stop to get to their int'l or Hawaii flight at LAX. It makes an already long day that much longer.

Why do you think SWA makes sense for Baltimore? Wouldn't their exclusive use of 737s make it hard for them to fill that flight everyday?

[OkieHornet]

Does anyone have a date Southwest will begin flights to Denver from OKC? I'm guessing it'll be a non-stop flight, correct?

[venture]

Southwest will not be flying OKC-DEN nonstop, nor will they be selling the route. If you want to go to Denver, there is already a low cost airline flying it - Frontier.

My comments on Southwest to BWI are based on their ability to break even with fairly low pax numbers on their aircraft. Not to mention, they are the only existing airline in OKC that has BWI as a focus operation - AirTran is the other...and they don't fly to OKC.

[OUman]

Air Tran may start service sometime between OKC and ATL, DL/DL Conn have a monopoly right now on that sector. WN had a Sat-only n/s r/t between BWI and OKC, but the flight was stopped, looks like WN wasn't making money on that.

OUman

[venture]

When did WN have the Sat only trip from BWI? The only Sat Only i knew about was LAS...which is going daily now.

I think AirTran is a logical next step in OKC...and they could do well here. Forgetting their planes for DFW...using OKC as a CAK or FNT type focus operation would be nice.

[OUman]

When did WN have the Sat only trip from BWI? The only Sat Only i knew about was LAS...which is going daily now.

I think AirTran is a logical next step in OKC...and they could do well here. Forgetting their planes for DFW...using OKC as a CAK or FNT type focus operation would be nice.

WN had Sat-only n/s service between OKC and BWI up until mid-'04, with a 737-300. It was part of its run between LAS and BWI via OKC both ways. WN also experimented for a very short while w/ Sat-only n/s's between OKC and MCO during the same time frame ('03-'04), but that was much shorter-lived.

WN's n/s's between OKC and LAS are daily now, and it uses 733's and 73G's (-700's) for the service.

About CAK and FNT, both airports are not focus ops for Air Tran. Yes, both airports have a fair number of daily departures from Air Tran, but not that many. And I don't think Air Tran can make OKC a focus op either. But a daily run or two between OKC and ATL shouldn't be too hard to fill. Another possible entrant into this market, but far less likely for now atleast is Jetblue. It's deploying its EMB 190's now, and airports like AUS have already seen those. It operates daily service between JFK and AUS using the 190's.

OUman

[writerranger]

To New Orleans???
If it wasn't so tragic, I would think it's a joke. What airline would seriously be just now starting non-stop service to New Orleans? I just read the population of New Orleans is around 60,000 right now, there are huge environmental concerns and even major members of the New Orleans corporate community are rethinking things. So, this airline thinks it's a good idea to begin non-stop service from OKC to, of all places, New Orleans. Well fine and dandy. I can see packed planes for those flights. (just kidding)

SAT is great though. That's good news.

[metro]

writeranger, at first I was wondering the same thing, but if you stop and think about it maybe it makes sense. people from all over the us and world are going to new orleans on a weekly and even daily basis. i know of several churches around here that are sending groups twice a week. maybe it does make sense