Just a hunch, maybe because CLE may have some use of the NK product and the pulling of UA....I can't see why not take advantage.

Also, what's up with these rumors of a SEA base!?!

 

I would think SEA is just a rumor based on the fact that it's the only corner of the country Spirit doesn't service. Seattle is a major market, but I'd think it would be too expensive there. Maybe PDX?

 

Umm, if we don't already serve PDX I'm not sure what I was doing there the other night! Seems like we serve PDX out of LAS and maybe ORD, but don't quote me on that. The next morning we did PDX-SAN, but I'm not sure what destinations are seasonal or how frequent they are either.

 

We serve PDX and driving from SEATAC or Seattle down to PDX is just under 3 hours. Might have more of a pressing need to serve other markets out of driving range.

 

I was talking about SEA, AFAIK Spirit doesn't fly to Seattle. I know we serve Portland, but Portland and Seattle are two different markets.

For a crew base, just thinking local economies, PDX would be much more economical than a crew base in SEA.

3 hours is too far of a drive for someone to make just to fly Spirit, when you factor in gas and parking, you may as well just fly Delta or Alaska. And if you live north of Seattle, forget about 3 hours, factor in more like 4-4.5 hours.

 

Sorry, I missed the part of Sailor's post about it rumored as a base. I saw your PDX? and assumed you meant servicing that corner of the country. I've heard nothing of SEA becoming a base. Normally it seems they serve it, build it up, then make it a crew base. I can't imagine just making a new market, should we even start it, a base right from the start.

I will say, the strange SEA parking email a few months ago was something that made me scratch my head, and could have certainly helped start SEA rumors, either as a new market or an eventual crew base.

 

Yeah! I forgot about that email, you're right, that's probably what started the rumors of a SEA crew base.

I think we're under serving the PNW, but the people down at the Spirit Support Center will know much, much more than I if the PNW is a viable and lucrative market.

 

Since I live in PDX I like the way you think! But I would imagine expansion would happen in OAK before PDX.

Rumors are cropping up about closing ORD and replacing it with an MSP base. Of course, that is pure unadulterated rumor. Per the Mar 9 timetable we have 21 departures from ORD, and 11 from MSP.

 

We have way less than 11 departures out of ACY but that's still a base , and hopefully it continues to be a base, lol.

 

We only have 1 gate now and I think share another if needed at MSP, so I doubt that MSP would replace ORD any time soon given that ORD is a much larger market than Minneapolis. There we only take from Delta, maybe a smidgen from Sun Country. ORD has a bigger piece of the pie for taking marketshare away from UA and AA. Nothing against MSP, but its very expensive to just open a base such as Chicago, staff to its current level, then close it in such a short time. Yes we need another gate, Im sure everyone in mgt knows and is trying to do something about it, but at the cost of real estate there--we will probably limp along the best we can until a deal can be struck. Take a look at DTW where ORD has more departures and arrivals per day and they are still open. As far as having PDX or SEA a base, I highly doubt that as well with the cost of operations in that region. They are very "green" conscious out there and you pay for it. I'm sure cost conscious Spirit would want to limit the expenses associated with those two areas and concentrate on frequency and routes. LAS is basically our "west coast" base and could simply increase frequency from there. BTW, although it may seem that opening more bases is a good thing, it is not for an airline our size. Those schedules would have to be built from either PDX or SEA which means robbing Peter to pay Paul. I don't see 50-75 crews overnighting there like ORD had last year.