Start-Up Airlines Aim for the Sky
As a red-and-white Boeing 737 from the Midwest emerged from cloudy skies and landed at Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday, it marked an event that’s notable these days: the birth of a new airline.
AccessAir, a tiny start-up that began service from its base in Des Moines to Los Angeles and New York, took to the skies at a time when many consumer advocates, state officials and federal regulators are complaining that there’s a dearth of new entrants in the airline industry.
But AccessAir, analysts say, heads a line of several new airlines that could be launching service in the coming months.
One is National Airlines, a Las Vegas-based discount carrier that’s being started by two casinos and plans to start flying this year. And there are applications for 11 more airlines that are either pending or being prepared, up from just one last year, according to Darryl Jenkins, who heads the Aviation Institute at George Washington University in Washington.
“The suggestion that there are no new entrants is incorrect,” said Jenkins, who issued a report last year that cited mismanagement as the main reason new airlines fail.
Many others blame the major U.S. carriers for the shortfall in new airlines, contending that the big airlines’ domination of many metropolitan airports and their operating tactics amount to unfair competition that dissuades others from starting new airlines.
The U.S. Department of Transportation last year proposed a new policy aimed at deterring big airlines from slashing fares or taking other actions aimed solely at driving start-ups out of business. That policy is still being reviewed by Congress.
The existing carriers deny claims that they’re stifling competition. And Jenkins and other analysts assert that the lack of successful new airlines mainly reflects the carriers’ poor management and the crash of a ValuJet Airlines DC-9 in the Florida Everglades on May 11, 1996.
That crash, which killed all 110 people aboard, put a chill on new entrants during the next two years because ValuJet was a relatively young, low-cost carrier. (ValuJet now operates as AirTran Holdings Inc.)
Still, there’s evidence that a niche airline, if operated correctly, can survive and prosper among the industry’s giants. One example is Midwest Express Airlines, which serves Los Angeles and two dozen other cities from its base in Milwaukee. The carrier, the main unit of Midwest Express Holdings Inc., began as the company fleet for paper-products giant Kimberly-Clark Corp. before becoming a commercial airline in 1984.
AccessAir believes it can profitably serve a niche market by providing low-cost, daily direct travel from Des Moines, Peoria, Ill., and other Midwest cities to Los Angeles and New York--even though it’s starting with just two airplanes.
“We’re starting to provide service to communities that don’t have service to major East Coast and West Coast cities,” Frank Rosenberg, AccessAir’s interim chief operating officer, said as AccessAir celebrated with ribbon cuttings and champagne at LAX Terminal 6. “The community needs [direct service] for the community to grow and Iowa to grow.”
Travelers currently can fly from Los Angeles to Des Moines on several carriers, but nearly all require at least one stop.
Indeed, some of the $29 million that’s funding AccessAir’s start was provided by corporations such as Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., because they’re frustrated that employees can’t get direct flights from their headquarters to the two coasts.
“Des Moines is known for having some of the highest fares in the country,” said Shane Percival, AccessAir’s district sales manager. “We’ve selected these particular markets that are underserved--Des Moines, Moline and Peoria.”
Rosenberg said AccessAir would succeed because it’s not competing with the large carriers head-on. “Our intention is to stay away from the big guys,” he said. “We’re not going to operate out of their hubs.”
AccessAir hopes to have up to six planes by the end of the year. It plans to expand service to Colorado Springs, Colo., later this year, and hopefully to Reagan National Airport in Washington and San Francisco next year. Possible future markets include Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Miami; and Sioux City, Iowa.
The average cost of a round-trip AccessAir fare between Los Angeles and one of its Midwestern destinations is about $300.
Some of AccessAir’s inaugural customers were certainly pleased. Allen M. Richards, of Montour, Iowa, said trips to Los Angeles normally meant driving 200 miles to Omaha and flying to one of the major carriers’ Midwestern hubs before reaching LAX.
But on Thursday, AccessAir’s direct flight got him to Los Angeles in three hours. “It saves half a day,” said the lawyer, on his way to an American Bar Assn. conference.
Whether AccessAir can prosper will depend in large part on “whether Des Moines is large enough to support it, whether it has enough people flying those routes to make it profitable,” said Jenkins of the Aviation Institute. “That’s the great unknown,” he added, “and there are people willing to risk money to find out the answer.”
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Renewed Liftoff?
The airline industry has been a tough one to breake into. Of the airline wannabes that apply, most are authorized by federal regulators, but few actually start service--and stay in business. However, applications are up so far this year, and new carrier AccessAir began service from the Midwest to LAX on Thursday.
Applications:
Through Jan. 31: 5
Authorized*
Through Jan. 31: 0
Actual Start-Ups
Through Jan. 31: 0
* included authorizations that were later revoked.
Source: Department of Transportation.
