Early offering for Valentine's Day

11-04-2007

Last month AirTran Airways became the first airline to announce new flights from Pittsburgh International in the wake of US Airways plans to slash service early next year.

AirTran now offers four daily round trips from Pittsburgh to its hub in Atlanta and two to Orlando, Fla., and Saturday-only flights to both Fort Lauderdale and Tampa. As of Feb. 14, the carrier will begin flying daily from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale and Tampa, and also add daily service to Fort Myers.

While these 19 new AirTran flights clearly won't offset the drastic cuts US Airways is making, they are a demonstration of faith in the Pittsburgh market, despite its increased landing fees. Although Southwest Airlines gets most of the attention as the non-legacy carrier with the most departures from Pittsburgh International, AirTran has been here 4 1/2 years longer.

In fact, the decade-old Orlando-based carrier is the longest tenured alternative airline here. It initiated Pittsburgh service in December 2000, with three daily flights each to New York City (LaGuardia) and Chicago (Midway) and two to Atlanta. AirTran's presence was small, but its impact was significant. Fares to those markets fell dramatically as US Airways slashed prices to match the competition from AirTran.

Almost immediately average ticket prices from Pittsburgh to those cities fell 30 percent to 45 percent. For example, a round-trip ticket to La Guardia cost $368 in 2000; the following year it was $195. Local travelers responded to the price drop, and AirTran was on pace to board more than 500,000 passengers here in 2001. Then Sept. 11 happened, and the bottom fell out of the travel market. Like every other domestic carrier, AirTran drastically cut service to survive, eliminating its flights from Pittsburgh to Chicago and New York.

Not surprisingly average air fares to those two markets shot back up, especially to LaGuardia, a route on which US Airways had no competition. Compared to $195 in 2001, the average 2002 round-trip fare to LaGuardia was $286, $368 in 2003, $380 in 2004 and $438 in 2005.

AirTran continued flying from Pittsburgh to its hub in Atlanta, connecting to dozens of other cities it serves from there, especially to Florida markets. But its local passenger count fell dramatically in 2002, to just under 265,000. Traffic rebounded after that, especially as AirTran introduced direct service to Orlando.

The airline carried some 390,000 Pittsburgh passengers in 2005. Then Southwest began offering low-cost service from Pittsburgh to Orlando, and AirTran's local business dropped to 317,000 passengers last year.

It's obviously too soon to know how popular these new AirTran flights to Florida will be, but we're guessing they'll do well, at least in the busy seasons. More of a factor, AirTran's local fortunes should improve considering the US Airways reductions, especially for its connections via Atlanta to destinations like New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

AirTran's prices and service stack up well against the competition. For example, a round-trip, advance-purchase fare for a one-stop connection to San Francisco on AirTran was offered for $268 plus taxes and fees. A comparable flight on US Airways starts at $508, while one-stop fares on Southwest (to Oakland, Calif.) run about $350. It just announced a fare sale for tickets purchased by mid-November.

As far as service, AirTran ranked fifth out of 22 carriers for on-time arrivals over the past year (Southwest was third and US Airways 17), according to the Department of Transportation's recent Air Travel Consumer Report. In August, it mishandled fewer bags (5.19 per 1,000 passengers, as opposed to 5.8 for Southwest and 9.61 for US Airways) and also did well in regard to customer service, logging 1.61 complaints per 100,000 passengers. Southwest was much better with .4 complaints, while US Airways ranked last with 4.42 complaints, more than twice the average figure for all carriers.

And AirTran does a good job of keeping passengers happy. The J.D. Power 2006 Passenger satisfaction survey ranked AirTran third among the low-cost carriers (after JetBlue and Southwest), with a score of 722 out of a possible 1,000. Continental was the top legacy carrier, with a score of 697, while US Airways ranked fifth, with a score of 659.

So when planning your next flight, consider the alternatives. Our patronage certainly encourages it to grow its offerings at Pittsburgh International. In light of US Airways reductions, maybe AirTran will renew its service to New York and Chicago.

When it comes to air travel, there are never too many alternatives.

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