re: New Budget Airline affiliated with Jet Blue founder will set up hub operations at MSY

quote:

---

The bad news is that if Southwest was on the fence about officially making a hub out of MSY, they likely aren't going to now - although MSY is still clearly a focus city airport for them.

---

New Orleans is very much an origin/destination market for Southwest. They serve the big city pairs, but New Orleans would never be a major connecting-type operation when they have more developed hubs at Nashville, Houston, and Dallas. This is a good thing for New Orleans because it supports competition, like Breeze.

Breeze is very much a blend of ultra low-cost carriers like Spirit (a la carte pricing on seats, bags, etc.) but with nicer amenities, like onboard TV and wifi. All along their value proposition has been to connect cities that have demand but few or no nonstop options (like New Orleans-Richmond). Many of the routes will operate just a few times a week.

Most interesting was their (so far) unsuccessful plan to recruit part-time college students as contract flight attendants.

I will be interesting to see how thier model, along with Avelo which also recently started flying, can work in the future. Their biggest advantage over the big airlines is lower labor costs (their crews, primarily pilots will make much less). With a few airlines substantially encumbered by debt (looking at you, American), there may be opportunities to make inroads with out the cutthroat anti-competitive actions that the airline industry is so well known for.

Why Huntsville and not Birmingham instead?

Because Huntsville is full of high tech and much much more desirable than Birmingham.

MSY,TPA,ORF,CHS are focus cities for Breeze, not hubs. If you read the business plan, the airline is only flying city pairs that have no nonstop competition.

David Neeleman co-founded Morris Air, JetBlue, Westjet (Canada), Azul (Brazil) and has a large stake in TAP Air Portugal.

Interestingly, after Neeleman started Morris Air in the early 90s, Southwest bought them and their routes out of Salt Lake City. Southwest made Neeleman sign a non competition agreement for 5 years, which expired before founding JetBlue in NYC. He's been like a Herb Kelleher/Richard Branson of the airline industry.

quote:

---

Still very much is.

---

Nah I meant Birmingham to New Orleans was once a SW route.

Memphis now I think about it was probably last served from MSY before Delta de-hubbed it, probably before like 2012/13 then.

The Embraer 190/195’s are great regional aircraft.