I'm looking to feed passengers into a focus city to help get them to my hub. The city is located in a metropolitan area, with many regional airports surrounding it (within 500nm). How beneficial do you think it'd be to take passengers from the regional airports and feed them into the major airport to eventually get them down to my hub?
Has anyone noticed positive results from doing this?
Did it increase passenger demand at the airport?
Did it fill your flights up significantly?
Thanks for the help, thinking about investing in a small aircraft type and wanted to see if it'd be worth it.
That will be difficult. Two stop connections are only a minority of connection possibilities and do not get good ratings, and they only get booked if direct or one stop connections are not available. You are better off offering one stop connection, meaning connecting all those regional airports to your hub.
I have a PBI(hub)<>HOU flight with an E70. To help increase passenger load on that flight, and any other flight of HOU I schedule, I've scheduled HOU<>DFW /// HOU<>DAL /// HOU<>AUS<>SAT
I have a PBI(hub)<>HOU flight with an E70. To help increase passenger load on that flight, and any other flight of HOU I schedule, I’ve scheduled HOU<>DFW /// HOU<>DAL /// HOU<>AUS<>SAT
Does your response still apply to this?
There is no general answer to that.
It depends on what your competition does.
If I get you correct, then you offer HOU-PBI (hub) but want to increase loads by collecting pax from AUS, DAL in HOU to proceed to PBI.
I don’t know about the situation on your server, but norally I’d say: no way. Fly DAL/AUS-PBI or not at all.
Btw, why did you choose PBI? Where do you want your pax (from HOU, DAL) to connect to?
This is possible to do with cargo, but quite difficult with passenger airline. As suggested above, it is better to connect small airports directly to your hub. Also in big market like USA, it usually very easy to fill a E70, if you have a fairly large network.
If I get you correct, then you offer HOU-PBI (hub) but want to increase loads by collecting pax from AUS, DAL in HOU to proceed to PBI.
I don’t know about the situation on your server, but norally I’d say: no way. Fly DAL/AUS-PBI or not at all.
Btw, why did you choose PBI? Where do you want your pax (from HOU, DAL) to connect to?
I chose PBI because it sits right on the panhandle which allows me to expand in 2-3 different markets. I can go to North America, South America, Carib, Canada with ease using the E70. I'm trying to work around some of the big monopolies (ex Jason Air) and figure a network that works best for me. The idea was to get them to PBI to hopefully transfer onto flights into the Caribbean.
Now, I am still fairly new to the game - So a lot of this is mostly trial and error.
Should I move my operations to a different airport?
Should I move my operations to a different airport?
USA is a very large domestic market. Choosing a hub which is at the farthest corner of the country you will only get a small number of direct passengers flying to PBI or may be a small portion of pax connecting to MIA, FLL and Central America. I would suggest to select a hub somewhere in the center.
Unless you're facing heavy slot restrictions, connecting those airports directly to your hub is usually best. The fewer planes passengers have to catch to reach their destination the better.
Just search for a Airport where transfer is possible and has enough slots to expand. Demand isnt important. In the US OMA or MCI are good places for are start.
Find new routes with less competition than only flying between the biggest airports (where anyhow slots are not available).
Look at existing companies' routes and network and try to make the same in another place. The US market is huge but with some big companies as competitors, you need to find the niches.