Gates up for grabs
 

With this recent series of unfortunate events (ie, Aloha, Champion, ATA, Skybus, etc), there will be some vacant gates in the near future. Do those gates represent an opportunity for someone to expand (considering oil & the economy), and if so, who is best positioned to make a run at them?

Gates
 

Who ever wants the open gates will wait till the economy gets a bit better than it is now but then again I have been wrong before a couple of times;)

Of all those carriers, I'd think Aloha would have been the only one in a position to actually own any gates, though I could be wrong. Anyways, gate space isn't a factor unless you are talking about a few airports around the world like JFK, ATL, LAX, LGW, CDG, and places like that.

Exactly, CMH certainly wasn't a place you had to vulture around waiting for gates to come available. MDW.. maybe, though I haven't been there since the construction was completed on the terminal.

Good points. I haven't been to Columbus in a long time, so I don't know how big of a market that is. Midway seemed busy enough when I went through a few months ago, so I guess SWA could grab some additional gates from ATA. Where does Aloha have gates that could help someone?

4 Fan Trashcan,

SNA (Orange County, CA) might be a catch.

From: http://www.orbitz.com/flight-info/AQ/AQ-HNL-SNA.html

Orbitz is pleased to offer airline tickets on Aloha Airlines, which operates a daily non-stop flight from Honolulu (HNL) to Orange County (SNA) regularly scheduled to depart at 1:10pm and arrive at 8:37pm. Usually a Boeing 737 is flown for this route. Generally, a movie is offered on this route. The average travel time from Honolulu, HI to Orange County, CA is 5 hours and 27 minutes.

Hawaiian has already picked up OAK, which was previously erved by Aloha and ATA.

11 Fan, et al -

Thanks for the help. I probably over-estimated the importance of gate availability to an airline's expansion plans in the grand scheme of things.

I don't think Skybus's air stairs could be considered a gate.

Maybe some MDW gates, but thats really about it. I think for the most part the rest of those guys including ATA at out stations used common use gates.

Classic!

I would love to see AT offer SNA-HNL with our 73s.

Does Airtran have ETOPS certification?

Does the 737-700 even have the legs to fly that route economically? Plus there's ETOPS and Flag rules. There's a lot more to it than just gas up and go. At least in the beginning.

Champion did not own any gates and I am pretty sure Skybusy didn't either

I wonder how much losing the ATA codeshare hurt SW, if at all....how much revenue did an agreement like that generate for them?

I understand that it provided about 40 to 50 million of revenue (not profit) per year, according to our front office.

Google tells me that LUV's 2007 total revenue was 9.6B, so on the surface it doesn't seem like losing the codeshare with ATA is a huge deal. Was the codeshare "code" for Southwest testing the "international" market waters? Does this speed things along or slow them down? How big of a revenue generator could service to Mexico, Hawaii or the Caribbean be??? Man, I have lots of questions. :eek: