Skybus Announces New Service to Two Virtually Unserved Airports

Chicopee, Massachusetts and St. Augustine, Florida are two of the latest airports to receive Skybus service. San Diego also received a new daily flight. The new routes will begin in mid-July. Chicopee and St. Augustine currently have no commercial service, but Skybus believes that the two airports will be ready to handle the flights by July. Skybus hopes that Chicopee will be used as a convenient alternative to Hartford, while St. Augustine will be used as an alternative to Jacksonville and Daytona Beach. Skybus is taking a big risk with these two airports. It's likely that Skybus will be able to draw a fair number of customers from both the Hartford and Jacksonville regions, since neither airport is more than 40 miles from the metro area it's servicing. But since neither of these airports currently have commercial service, it will take a bit of effort on Skybus's part in order to lure customers to these airports.

Ryanair does it routinely in Europe. The airline has been successful on many routes where it is the only commercial carrier operating from a given airport. Unlike some secondary airports in Europe, these two that Skybus plans to serve lack any major public transit, or an organized bus service to take customers to nearby city centers. However, Skybus does have an advantage over Ryanair in that its customers are more likely to use automobiles on their trips. Since automobile use is sometimes prohibitively expensive for European travelers, accessing some of Ryanair's secondary airports can be a challenge. But in the US, with an extensive road system and a low cost to operate a car, travelers can more readily access some of these secondary airports. There are certainly caveats in this thinking. For example, many travelers headed to the Pacific Northwest this summer going on cruises. But there's no easy way other than by car to get from Bellingham, where Skybus operates from, to Seattle, where ships depart. If passengers are going on a cruise, they wouldn't want to rent a car for just a day in order to make a one-way drive. Similarly, if passengers just plan on visiting Hartford and Jacksonville, then they may not need to rent a car. But if the airport is 30-40 miles outside the city, the cab ride could be more than the flight itself, which could make flying Skybus just as expensive as flying with another airline to the primary airport.

Like some of Skybus's other routes, it's unclear whether either of these routes to smaller airports can support enough traffic from Columbus. Hartford and Jacksonville are medium-size markets, and may not be able to support daily service to Columbus. Some in the Columbus area disagree with my assessment about the size of the Columbus market and I acknowledge that I may be underestimating the potential number of passengers in the region. There may be more than I imagine who are willing to drive to Columbus to take advantage of the cheap flights. I hope Skybus will be able to make the routes work, but I am still a bit skeptical of how they will do, especially during the fall and winter travel months where demand will be relatively light. Even if the routes are marketed well, I still foresee trouble for Skybus, especially to St. Augustine. Fares to Jacksonville are already very low, some of the lowest in the nation, and St. Augustine may prove to be unattractive for travelers who can pay only nominally more for service to Jacksonville's primary airport. I think the Chicopee service will do a bit better, because the yields are higher for service to the Hartford area, the Chicopee airport is closer to Hartford than St. Augustine is to Jacksonville, and there's less competition from other low-cost carriers. But even that route is still quite risky since demand between Columbus and Hartford is relatively low compared to some of Skybus's other routes. However, unlike the other two routes that Skybus recently announced, the San Diego to Columbus service should be a solid route year-round, and I see no problems for Skybus on this route since there is enough traffic to support service.

If Skybus succeeds on these two routes, then it will help show that Skybus can lure travelers to secondary airports, even when the primary airports are attractive alternatives for most travelers. The use of secondary airports is an important step that will help relieve our nation's air traffic congestion and make better use of the airport facilities we already have. Hopefully Skybus's service from some of these secondary airports will be popular, because if it is, it could help spur demand at these facilities. This would likely divert passengers from primary airports, and help stave off expensive airport expansion projects at these larger facilities, saving taxpayers billions.