Huh? You realize it is a major national market and a major hub for two airlines. British Airways and Hawaiian also have daily flights now. Frontier is expanding as well.

I think your point held water a decade ago, but not anymore.

Semi affluent retirement crowd. That sounds exactly like BA and Hawaiian.

Look, PHX has a large military presence, a university of some size, a load of tech storage facilities and your basic urban populace. They have baseline travel needs. We have baseline service there. We are a leisure, low cost airline. Leisure travel to PHX is highly seasonal, and the folks who can afford the nice winter weather there have means. We don’t cater to the golf in Scottsdale crowd. I would expect our service there to remain seasonal at best.

In many ways it’s PSP writ large.

And that might carry some weight if we had 50-80 surgeons hopping our 321’s to PHX. We almost always have medical personnel on our flights or seem to, but 3 out of 228 is not a trend line to build your business model around.

We cater to the people who cater to the people who can afford the nice weather.

While I don’t have a dog in this fight, the demographics don’t really seem a great deal different than a lot of other places.

That’s only about 3% different than the US median household income. Median age in PHX 33+, median age in US is 38+, so it’s actually a slightly younger crowd.

If frontier can thrive why couldn’t we?

as I said..... anecdotal. I know you’re super invested about this PHX thing but I did not, nor have I ever, suggested we use one guy I know as a TrEnD lInE tO bUiLd A bUiSnEsS mOdEl. The only reason I commented (I realize I probably shouldn’t have) is because one regular PHX leisure traveller I know happens to also be an affluent type. Was just a funny coincidence. That’s all.

My original reason for bringing up PHX was that it’s a large western metro that is basically useless to spirit passengers unless your going east at 1am. If we even had a simple route from there to connect passengers to LAS it would give those passengers access to our whole route system. Believe it or not, the 5,000,000 people who call the Phoenix metro area home travel all year. Some people travel there in the winter, and people who live there all year like to travel to other places at aren’t 114 degrees in the summer. I know it’s shocking

make it a ACY/BWI/PHL/EWR super duper base

Allegiant has a large base at Mesa - IWA which does quite well, though is somewhat seasonal. Lots of locals drive all the way across the valley for the cheap fares, direct flights, and to avoid the crap show at Sky Harbor.

Mesa did not go that well for Spirit, we stopped flying there a decade ago.

Man, if only there were some areas slightly north of town that might skew those statistics.

I’m not super invested in the topic. There’s no need to be an ass.

Yes, they have baseline travel needs. Let me ask you to consider this...why are STL, CVG, PIT and any number of other large metro area airports deader than doornails? Those are all metro populations in the 2-3 million range. Don’t they travel? Somewhat, but once airlines de-hubbed them their true travel needs and airlines’ interest therein were revealed. PHX base population will want to travel out of the misery that is half their existence. Ok. What can we offer them to easily get to the few things they may want to do where other airlines can’t price match us, and travel isn’t a major hassle going backwards to get East? Florida and cruising the Caribbean mainly? They have Disney next door in CA and Vegas at their beck and call with SWA more than happy to play our games between bases. So, outside of that baseline travel need, the leisure travel opportunities that we can conveniently offer are limited. And that leaves the seasonal travel for the not hell on earth months for snowbirding, spring baseball, golf get aways and so on. That’s not our target audience though, as the poster above was so happy to note, we do get onesies and twosies who occasionally understand the game that’s being played by a legacy versus a ULCC.

Another way to look at it. Tucson is next door with a large military presence, university, some snowbirding and the exact same weather. Metro population is around 1M. They don’t have a Sedona or Scottsdale, or insert winter weather get away here. So the slightly affluent are less interested in airlining there. Even more than PSP, PHX is Tucson writ large.

My guess is we’ll see a MEM station open soon.

As someone that lives close to MEM, that would be awesome. It seems like it would fit the Spirit model, and plenty of space available I believe.

Whatever happened with IWA? Just wasn't making enough money?

Id like to think phx could handle a few more routes of people traveling to visit there...but i used to be a saucier back in san anton, would love to get back. City is pretty populous, though metro is far smaller than phx.

Loads weren’t great but back then if I recall, but it wasn’t a matter of “making enough money” vs “can make more money using the plane on xyz route instead”

Irony being we are discussing PHX on an ACY thread. Those ACY pilots might as well think PHX is Mars given the fact they rarely go past the Mississippi. Every leg the sun is either on the CA side or FO side, never in their eyes.

I just hit LAS and IAH within the last month - wasn't sure if that was international or not ;D

How long did it take for you and the CA to understand why it was 3 hours earlier for time? Haha.

“West coast time zone? What is that?!”

the Pacific timezone was mosdef an adventure!

It’s May 11 and there is LITERALLY zero open time in ACY.

that is all.

go ahead and Fact check that If ya want but just a glimpse into the ACY base 😁

Now I can agree with you :)

😁 my man!....... lol

You two are so cute

ACY parking
 

I’m starting my first trip in AC. Trying to figure out where the employee parking lot is… the base guide says something about the garage but it’s not very clear… just don’t want to park in the wrong area

Wait… the base guide published by Spirit is unclear? I find that hard to believe. But in all seriousness get used to that. Welcome aboard. Wish I could answer your question.

There’s good signage. The employee lot is on the right just before you get to the passenger terminal, can’t miss it. Easy walk to the terminal. You do need a permit though so get that first

So are new hires getting ACY out of training?
Have an interview next week, looking for ACY, not looking to commute.

ACY goes through a rotation of being junior on the FO side. Typically this happens because pilots either 1) reallllly want to be based there or 2) don’t.

There’s not any growth and limited movement, so vacancies usually come from FOs transferring to another base to upgrade. So unless NK has hired pilots that specifically want ACY, those vacancy slots will go to new hires who bid back out asap. So it’s normal to see ACY in training come up for a few months then disappear once some Jersey pilots are hired.

Good info. Appreciate it.