Skybus at Gary

March 24th, 2008 at 11:49am Thomas V. Bona

Jon Hilkevitch of the Chicago Tribune takes a trip from Gary to Greensboro, N.C., on Skybus, and the Trib includes a nice online video about it.

Some thoughts:

• I know Skybus’s business model is basically “really low fares, but pay for any extras” and I knew they hawked food and trinkets on the flight. Allegiant Air does a similar model out of Rockford, but Skybus takes it to a whole new level. In the video, their marketing strategy is basically a guilt trip - “buy our beef jerky and crochet sets or else your fares are going to shoot up.” If that doesn’t work, maybe they’ll send flight attendants out in sackclothes, saying “We don’t have a uniform allowance anymore because you didn’t buy sunglasses!”
• That said, I want Skybus to work (just like I want Allegiant to work) because I think the more choices the consumer has, the better. If I’m making a quick jaunt somewhere and don’t need to check my luggage, I like having a cheaper overall fare without that amenity. I can put on my iPod and ignore the other sales pitches. The “don’t bring your own food” rule, though, is a bit harsh. Could “don’t bring your own entertainment” be next?
• Now, Hilkevitch flew on a Tuesday, but those passenger counts were pretty scary. 50 people coming in on a 150-seat plane, and 17 going out? It’ll be interesting to see what their load factors are through the week. I can see why Skybus quickly cut back to one flight a day.
• I have to keep repeating “Gary and Rockford are not competing.” They’re so far away from each other, drawing from different populations (We’re aiming for the northwestern suburbs and southern Wisconsin, they’re gunning for downtown and south-suburban Chicago and northwest Indiana) that there’s enough to go around. The competition only comes in when an airline wants to serve only one Chicagoland market (like vivaAerobus). But even if they choose Gary, there are other Mexican airlines that could look at RFD.
• Someday, I’ll get paid to fly somewhere. For now, I’ll settle for MKE-ATL-RDU on AirTran for a friend’s wedding next month.

Any Skybus flyers out there, either through Gary or Milwaukee?

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