Archive for February, 2009
February 4th, 2009
Allegiant Air has announced a contest to guess its new destination, and lists the 12 cities that will get the service first. Rockford isn’t one of them. All the cities are west of here - the closest are Des Moines, Iowa, and Springfield, Mo.
Here are the cities that are getting the destination to start.
Obviously, I can’t enter the contest myself. But my smart readers sure can. My educated guess, based on what Allegiant’s said in the past and on the geographic makeup of the winning cities, is San Diego. Oakland (billed as San Francisco) seems to close to Monterey, Calif. I don’t think they’re ready to try an LA-area airport just yet. And I think we woulda heard more noise if they were ready to go to Mexico. But what’s throwing me is Fargo, N.D., which is like 1,400 miles from southern California. That’s pretty far for an airline looking to keep stage lengths at around 1,000 miles or less.
Maybe they have a trick up their sleeve, like Jackson Hole, Wyo., or the Denver area. But as my astute editor said, who in Fargo wants to go to more snow? So I’ll stick with San Diego. But I’ve been wrong before.
(EDIT (2:54 pm): Looks like it’s a “sunny” destination, according to Allegiant.So I’m voting San Diego.)
(EDIT (3.53 pm): Allegiant says to “think big”. Now I’m wondering if they’re going for the LA area. I’ll still vote San Diego, but that’s not what I would think of as “big” compared to other options.)
What do you think, dear readers?
February 4th, 2009
On its Web site, Direct Air is now selling tickets from Chicago Rockford International Airport to Myrtle Beach, S.C., through Sept. 7 and to Punta Gorda, Fla., (the Fort Myers area) through Aug. 26. If for real this is good news - both were only scheduled through May 17, and were originally expected to be seasonal. But there was always the hope that they’d extend service if things went well.
Caution - airlines sometimes change things on their Web sites before things are official, so I’m still waiting for confirmation from either RFD or Direct Air…
February 2nd, 2009
Frontier Airlines just posted its first profitable fourth-quarter in five years, and is working its way out of bankruptcy. Let’s start the idle and baseless speculation that it could someday be a viable candidate for that RFD-DEN route again.
ANCJason, whaddya think?
February 2nd, 2009
The continued bad economic climate *should* dampen prices at the pump, but that pesky threat of a refinery workers strike is keeping them up. Luckily, the strike was averted yesterday and talks continue, though a strike could be called at any time. If that happens, you’ll see a bunch of refining stop, and gasoline prices will go up (gas futures already increased 10 percent last week). Meanwhile, there will be a disconnect with crude prices, because with refineries cutting back, crude demand will drop … and crude prices would drop.
Phil Flynn notes that the overall trend for prices should be to remain low because of the economy. So if and when the strike issue gets settled, we should be back to stability in pricing.
Here are today’s prices (courtesy of AAA’s fuelgaugereport.com):
Gasoline: Rockford rose three cents to $1.94 a gallon. We’re fifth in the state and were tied at 80th of the nation’s 280 metro areas. The Illinois average rose slightly to $1.93. The national average rose more than a cent to $1.88. Illinois has the 13th-highest gas prices in the nation, including the District of Columbia. Alaska, California, Hawaii, Nevada, New York and Washington average more than $2 a gallon.
Diesel: Rockford remained at $2.35 a gallon. We have the sixth-highest diesel prices in the state. The state average dropped slightly to $2.46. The national average dropped a cent to $2.37. Illinois has the 16th-highest diesel prices in the country, including the District of Columbia. Only Alaska and Hawaii remain above $3 a gallon.
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