ruhansharma2548: Virgin America Announces JFK-PSP Nonstop ? Civil Aviation ...

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Virgin America Announces JFK-PSP Nonstop ? Civil Aviation ...

How long before Jat Blue or AA start a competing flight ? By Christmas.

Quoting LAXintl (Thread starter):
Flight is in addition to the daily seasonal SFO-PSP service which commences on October 18th.

You know, I thought the runway wasn't long enough...but I was wrong. This is an interesting idea. It's gonna be seasonal which makes it hard to try such off-the wall ideas because when you leave and return a year later you don't have much brand equity again making it easy for somebody else to jump in. I would hope that PSP is providing some serious funding for this.

It's also interesting because I'd been told that VX would ONLY be adding routes from LAX/SFO going forward. I wonder where they will get the slot for this? Are there free slots available at JFK in Winter?

"I wonder where they will get the slot for this? Are there free slots available at JFK in Winter?"

Plenty of slots at JFK. Especially mid morning when this flight is leaving. AND historically, JFK is busier in the summer than the winter.

With a Saturday-only schedule from JFK, isn't it difficult to attract roundtrip travellers? Unless you are staying in Palm Springs exactly one week (Saturday to Saturday), it seems like it would be hard to get back to NY on Virgin. You'd either have to drive to LA or fly backwards to connect in SFO).

Is this the second flight that does not involve lax or sfo

Quoting Reply 4):
With a Saturday-only schedule from JFK, isn't it difficult to attract roundtrip travellers?

Not much different then Saturday only service to ski resorts, Caribbean or Mexico.

Airlines have been doing such 1x weekly flights for ages.

Anyhow VX also has a daily SFO-PSP which can be used to connect if needed.

And the fact that the daily PSP-SFO flight will continue on to JFK as a red-eye..makes it pretty easy, really. Congrats to PSP! Big things are happening there on the air service front.

PSP is different than normal Florida or other seasonal destinations. The people in the PSP area have a lot of money and are almost entirely from somewhere else. Many people taking AA PSP-DFW are connecting on the New York. Many of the people in the valley live there on weekends and work in New York. It's not like it's just people going on family vacations, it's a higher end market than that.

Unbelievable. Seeing this, I'm speechless.

And, there are tens of thousands of annual visitors who are there for meetings & conventions which is a bread & butter segment of the market for the resort hotels. They represent a huge chunk of the $$$ that flows into the local economy. Some high-value events are held there on a rotating, if not annual, basis.

Quoting enilria (Reply 2):
I wonder where they will get the slot for this? Are there free slots available at JFK in Winter?

Slots at JFK are for prime time operations 1500-2100 (I think).

I doubt it will work.....

N737AA

Quoting enilria (Reply 2):
I wonder where they will get the slot for this? Are there free slots available at JFK in Winter?

The question is where do they get the slot and the aircraft time in JFK? Probably a day of week cancellation on LAX, LAS or SFO on a Saturday in the winter. Frees up aircraft time and if needed a slot.

Quoting enilria (Reply 2):
I would hope that PSP is providing some serious funding for this.

It's a seasonal, Saturday-only route. There's not much to fund.

The only time slots are an issue at JFK are at certain times of day where there is a significant spike in traffic - i.e. the time around the trans-Atlantic push.

I believe this is the first non-stop attempt at NYC-PSP by any carrier, correct?

Quoting Reply 4):
With a Saturday-only schedule from JFK, isn't it difficult to attract roundtrip travellers? Unless you are staying in Palm Springs exactly one week (Saturday to Saturday), it seems like it would be hard to get back to NY on Virgin. You'd either have to drive to LA or fly backwards to connect in SFO).

Many leisure carriers do this kind of flying into SZG, especially in the winter. I'm sure it's totally normal in the US too.

Quoting SANFan (Reply 9):
Unbelievable. Seeing this, I'm speechless.

Care to elaborate?

Also, Westjet flew PSP-YYZ nonstop last winter season, and very successfully, as I understand. I think this route by Virgin will work well, especially as it's being announced several months in advance and is starting as Sat only. Fairly low-risk.

Are the crews there the whole week or are they ferried back to JFK, LAX, or SFO somehow?

Cheers,
KLAXAirport ??