Follow-up to "Cheaper Fares in Tulsa"
"Watcjer" pursues a couple of great questions in follow-up to last week's posting "Cheaper Fares in Tulsa:"
"I frequently fly to west coast. As usual...I can fly out of JOPLIN or FAYETTEVILLE cheaper than Springfield. I usually purchase on cheaptickets.com. At present, for a fall trip, I can fly out of either JLN or XNA for $343.00 roundtrip. It costs $510.00 out of Springfield. Why can they have competitive pricing? Are their markets larger too?"
The Joplin airport has Essential Air Service (EAS). EAS is a federally funded program which provides small cities with a "minimal level of scheduled service." Bottom line: Joplin's air service is subsidized by the federal government. In this case, two airlines are guaranteed a certain amount to fly from that market. Generally speaking, flyers pay a minimal fare. Here's a news story on the subject from the Joplin Globe.
Fayetteville is a different story altogether and I'm going to quote myself from an earlier post...
The question can be answered in one word: Wal-Mart. The NW Arkansas Airport benefits from the large concentration of national corporate offices in the area (Wal-mart, J.B. Hunt, Tyson Foods, etc.). This is why it's possible to fly nonstop from NW Arkansas to places like Miami, New York City and Los Angeles. The service is provided due to the large number of business people making the pilgrimage to corporate Wal-Mart. Did you know that Wal-Mart requires potential vendors to come to Bentonville to make their sales pitch? Earlier this summer the Wall Street Journal reported that that airport has the third highest ticket prices in the country due to all the business travel. Take a look at the coverage given the Journal story by a Fayetteville TV station.
In 2006 Springfield moved 862,611 passengers. Northwest Arkansas moved 1,172,049. Bottom line: it's a bigger market, with a larger percentage of business traffic, which is driven by the corporate offices in the area.
Kent
The proverbial light bulb came on this evening. In the original post I said that two airlines serve Joplin in the EAS program. I'm nearly certain I miswrote. I'll double check on this and report back, but I think one of the airlines is paid for by EAS funds and the other is paid for by a grant program. I'll double check on this and report back.
Kent
The manager of the Joplin Airport, Steve Stockham, has set me straight. The airport has one EAS airline: Mesa. The airline is using code shares with US Air Express and Midwest Airlines.
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
Some people don't think too much, they drive to Tulsa (2hrs), KC (3.5hrs) or even Fayetteville (1.5hrs)to go to the West Coast LA etc. Then when they get to LA or one of the other area airports they have to fight another 3 hours of traffic. I usually fly out of Springfield to Vegas and then take the 2 hour drive into Southern Cal from the east which is much quicker.
Its much cheaper and there is alot less time wasted, and I don't have that drive back to Springfield. I really hope we get an Allegiant Phoenix flight and Ft. Lauderdale for Cruises or even transfers on Southwest. Speaking of, I often take Allegiant to Vegas and then use Southwest to Portland or whatever city is my final destination. Usually about the same as flying on Southwest all the way from KC or St.Louis
I notice Allegiant is pushing Gulfport Mississippi on the website. Nothing against Gulfport, but I am not sure people in Florida really care to go there for gambling. What gives? However, I think alot of the cities where Allegiant flys would be much more interested in Branson as a final destination - Why wouldn't Allegiant push Branson as a final destination?
As a former resident of Joplin, I never used the airport because even though JLN has essential air service, the prices were always much higher to fly. In fact, we in Joplin were told that essential air service meant that the government was picking up part of the tab for the airline to fly to JLN. Which meant that the airline would charge more because they did not have as much incentive to fill all of their seats due to partial gov't payments. When American Connection was the essential air service to STL, the fares were high and very inconvenient. Now that US Airways flys to MCI from JLN, the fares are less then SGF and there are flights to KC. Both of these airlines flew under essential air service. It sure did not seem to me that essential air service reduced airfares.