Skybus Airlines Shutting Down

[thelakelander]

This throws a monkey wrench in my summer travel plans. 

Airport: Skybus Airlines Shutting Down
By MEGHAN BARR â€" 1 hour ago

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) â€" Low-cost carrier Skybus Airlines is shutting down Saturday and plans to file for bankruptcy protection next week, becoming the latest of the nation's airlines to fall because of rising fuel costs and a slowing economy.

The announcement Friday came less than a year after Skybus started up at Port Columbus International Airport, offering several $10 flights. The airline's situation worsened in recent weeks, said Skybus spokesman Bob Tenenbaum.

Fuel prices and the worsening economy combined to be insurmountable for a new carrier, said chief executive Michael Hodge.

"We deeply regret this decision, and the impact this will have on our employees and their families, our customers, our vendors and other partners, and the communities in which we have been operating," Hodge said in a statement.

full article: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gvWEGmo54ofm7rRczCn4QsS0o7BQD8VRELGG0

[Lunican]

Well, they lasted about 9 months. Here is the original story: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/457/

[Ocklawaha]

This sucks... Does anyone have their load factor information? It could be critical in and out of St. Augustine, if those loads were decent. Carriers are always looking for markets to fill seats even if that means buying the gate and time slots from a bankrupt or closed airline. So all is not lost, as long as we put people on those planes.

Ocklawaha

[Jason]

That is pretty crappy.  My aunt just bought two tickets two days ago.  I hope she can get her money back!

[stephenc]

Thats sucks. The article I read said everyone is getting a full refund. Isnt the St. Augustine airport suppose to be planning an expansion? I wonder if this throws a wrench in their plans?

[JeffreyS]

Between this and the new concourses at JIA only going to be half built Jacksonville is not looking good on new Air  travel and transport business.

[thelakelander]

It looks like my best alternative right now is to drive an all nighter to New York in July.  Tickets from other airlines compared to the four I had purchased on Skybus are well above what I want to pay.

Why are the new concourses at JIA being only half built?  Is it a cost or demand factor?

[chipwich]

While this is certainly not good news at the moment, I think it will JIA will benefit by retaining more traffic in this year of economic belt tightening. 

It seems air travel in and out of Jacksonville is getting just a bit harder as we are also losing Frontier.  I imagine it probably won't be long until we see the curtain fall down on ExpressJet as well.

But hey, at least we still have Southwest and they are actually adding flights out of JIA.

[thelakelander]

Has Frontier been here longer than a year?

[Lunican]

ExpressJet dropped its nonstop flight from Jacksonville to Raleigh 3 days ago.

ExpressJet drops nonstop to Raleigh

The carrier cited the fast-rising cost of fuel for service cutbacks.

Travelers flying between Jacksonville and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., lost a nonstop option Tuesday when ExpressJet closed that route less than a year after it started.

The financial pressure of high fuel costs forced ExpressJet to "make hard decisions more quickly," company spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said in an e-mail statement.

Fuel prices also caused ExpressJet to stop offering flights from Birmingham, Ala., and scale back the frequency of flights at other cities, she said.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/040208/bus_264061696.shtml

[thelakelander]

This sucks... Does anyone have their load factor information? It could be critical in and out of St. Augustine, if those loads were decent. Carriers are always looking for markets to fill seats even if that means buying the gate and time slots from a bankrupt or closed airline. So all is not lost, as long as we put people on those planes.

Ocklawaha

Here's a quote from the St. Augustine paper:

Skybus began making regular flights between St. Augustine and Columbus, Ohio in July 2007.

Those flights usually were filled with passengers, according to Ed Wuellner executive director of the St. Augustine-St. Johns County Airport.

Two additional flights -- a second round-trip to Columbus and a daily round trip to Portsmouth, N.H. -- were added in December.

Trips to Greensboro, N.C., were added in January.

Despite skyrocketing fuel costs that prompted Skybus to cut some flights out of Columbus and Greensboro, the carrier added Chicopee, Mass., and Richmond, Va., to its flight service last month.

If the company had been able to sustain its presence, seven daily flights out of St. Augustine represented 240,000 to 250,000 passengers a year, Wuellner said in a recent interview.

full article: http://staugustine.com/stories/040508/news_txt01_001.shtml

[JeffreyS]

Why are the new concourses at JIA being only half built?  Is it a cost or demand factor?

They ran out of money and built the new ones so close to the old concourses that they can't be fully used. we might be able to use the sides of the old concourses that face the parking lot.

[midnightblackrx]

I read on their website that anyone needed refunds needs to contact their credit card companies.  I filed a refund with them today but doubt that it will actually do anything since it's not really their problem.  I think I'm screwed out of $115. 

[Ocklawaha]

Lake, Amtrak flys twice daily to New York on roughly an 18 hour schedule. On board in Jax in the evening, recline in the "bigger then airplane 1st class" seats or your own private room... catch breakfast in Virginia, and Lunch in Deleware, shortly afternoon, you roll into NYC. Full and rested!

On the other hand, you could just wake up the next morning and rush up to JIA and jump on a tiny seat, fly into EWR, JFK or LGA and hit NYC in the early afternoon! Geeze Louise, we Americans have forgotten how to travel...

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Silver Meteor... tonights flight will be at an altitude of 13 feet and a cruising speed of about 80 miles per hour... the weather in New York doesn't matter, because we are going right through it anyway, and don't forget, our restaurant features changing views!"

Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

Ock, my plan was to fly into New Hampshire, rent a car and visit about 10 Northeast cities (a triangle from Boston to NYC to Buffalo then Maine and back down to suburban Boston, hitting a string of cities along the way) over the course of six days.  With Skybus, I paid $508 for 4 tickets.  Right now, the cheapest package of air tickets are running me double the amount of the $508, which is making me seriously think about driving, since I'll have to rent a car and pay for gas on top of it.  Its still early, so I could pay around with a number of airports, from DC to Boston, and see if I can get the number down.  I guess I could check on Amtrak, as long as the risk of significant delays were not a high concern.  If no alternative is found, my wife better get ready to drive at least the first six or seven hours out of Jax before I take over.