OKC/Will Rogers Air Service Discussion 2011

[SkyWestOKC]

Cancun would have the greatest potential. As far as Canada goes, Calgary would probably be our best bet (the Canadian Houston, of the oil/energy industry). Devon also has a large Canadian, and specifically Calgary presence.

But, with that said, don't count on it tomorrow. We need integrated FIS at Will Rogers, which we don't have. The flight would need to stop at another airport to clear customs. I think Calgary might have pre-clearance. But I am not sure.

[ljbab728]

I know it's fairly far off, but I just wanted some other opinions... How long do you think it will be before an airline adds an international route out of Will Rogers? Say maybe a tourist spot like Cancun. Or simply a route to Canada?

OKC has had regular charter flights in the past to both Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. They had to be seasonal because the year round support just wasn't there. I would expect it would be at least 10 to 15 years before anything like that is considered again. As SkyWest mentioned, those flights were nonstop from OKC to Mexico but had to make a stop elsewhere for customs and immigration before coming back to OKC. Those kind of facilities absolutely have to be planned for in the next expansion at Will Rogers.

[venture]

Destinations are going to be limited to those with US Customs pre-clearance. Right now I don't think CUN provides this, but most Canadian cities do. However, Canada is either going to be WestJet or Air Canada (the other airlines don't serve the US that much except for Porter which doesn't have the aircraft to reach OK). WestJet likely won't come to OKC anytime soon. Air Canada is the best chance, but they server the market over United Airlines thanks to the Star Alliance code-share.

We need the facilities to process international flights before we'll start to pick up nonstop flights to such destinations.

[OUman]

Porter's main goal is to cater to business travellers in the northeast region and regional connection to its Toronto City Center hub. I doubt it will ever go far from that business line, at least in the near term anyway. In the longer term, who knows. Southwest, again, is a great example.

Yeah, I think OKC's international venture should be focused on CUN for now. YYC is a possibility, but highly unlikely unless a profit is guaranteed. YYC does have Canadian pre-clearance though.

[venture]

Porter's main goal is to cater to business travellers in the northeast region and regional connection to its Toronto City Center hub. I doubt it will ever go far from that business line, at least in the near term anyway. In the longer term, who knows. Southwest, again, is a great example.

Yeah, I think OKC's international venture should be focused on CUN for now. YYC is a possibility, but highly unlikely unless a profit is guaranteed. YYC does have Canadian pre-clearance though.

Right. Porter just isn't happening this far south. Plus the Q400s fit their model perfectly out of Toronto City Centre. I'm just not sure on any Canadian destination working when you can get up there pretty easily through Star or Oneworld airlines.

CUN probably would get the highest number of passengers, but it is going to be incredible seasonal and low yield. I would almost rather try to get Aeromexico Connect to MEX (Mexico City) to provide more options throughout the country and other Latin America connections. Again though, it can be argued existing airlines already take care of this. However, with the growing Hispanic population in OKC the opportunity may finally arrive to offer such service. It also helps Skyteam is the group Aeromexico is part of, which in the US is Delta. With no direct southward option from OKC (instead of a jog over to MEM or ATL) it might make it attractive. I just don't know if it would be enough to dedicated an Embraer 190 to the route since the ERJ-145 isn't going to have the legs to make it here.

[swilki]

OKC has had regular charter flights in the past to both Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. They had to be seasonal because the year round support just wasn't there. I would expect it would be at least 10 to 15 years before anything like that is considered again. As SkyWest mentioned, those flights were nonstop from OKC to Mexico but had to make a stop elsewhere for customs and immigration before coming back to OKC. Those kind of facilities absolutely have to be planned for in the next expansion at Will Rogers.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong or enlighten me - but aren't the next expansion plans more or less drawn up and they include some sort of customs area? The reason this isn't being built is funding/demand.

Maybe I dreamt all of this up.....

[OUman]

Someone please correct me if I am wrong or enlighten me - but aren't the next expansion plans more or less drawn up and they include some sort of customs area? The reason this isn't being built is funding/demand.

Maybe I dreamt all of this up.....

Phase III of the expansion is essentially the east concourse and the main terminal east side expansion. Back when this was announced, it never mentioned the inlusion of a sutoms facility, whether that has changed or not is not too clear.

[ljbab728]

Phase III of the expansion is essentially the east concourse and the main terminal east side expansion. Back when this was announced, it never mentioned the inlusion of a sutoms facility, whether that has changed or not is not too clear.

I've never seen any firm plans for the expansion but I believe that a customs and immigration area has at least been discussed and considered.

[GoThunder]

I've never seen any firm plans for the expansion but I believe that a customs and immigration area has at least been discussed and considered.

I've heard the same thing. It would be smart to add immigration during the next expansion; that way the airport will be ready if an international route is added down the road.

[SkyWestOKC]

Pretty sure that integrated customs/immigration is in the plans for the east concourse. If not, they will be programmed for easy installation for when/if the need occurs.

[Richard at Remax]

http://www.flyokc.com/releases/UA%20...%20Service.pdf

[OUman]

Nice, finally here.

[Kerry]

That is huge news Worthy Cook.

[venture]

About time. Now to get Seattle, Miami, Charlotte, or Philadelphia. :-)

[swilki]

Great to see the addition, little disappointed it is on a regional jet though. What increase in passenger numbers would we have to see before larger plans begin flying into and out of OKC?

[venture]

Great to see the addition, little disappointed it is on a regional jet though. What increase in passenger numbers would we have to see before larger plans begin flying into and out of OKC?

Increase in yield is the big thing. If they can get plenty of premium fares on the route, which will be possibly with the flights having the 3-class layout, then they will increase the aircraft size. However, if the flights get filled with too many low fare pax, they'll kill the route.

[chrisok]

Increase in yield is the big thing. If they can get plenty of premium fares on the route, which will be possibly with the flights having the 3-class layout, then they will increase the aircraft size. However, if the flights get filled with too many low fare pax, they'll kill the route.

The size of the aircraft might increase, but it would still likely be a regional jet. The CRJ-700 is Skywest's biggest offering, and if yields did warrant more capacity, then we'd probably just see an increase in frequency on the same sized jet. Still, Skywest is a good regional carrier (in my opinion), and any new destinations are fantastic.

[SkyWestOKC]

Great news for OKC.

Interesting to note that this was in fact an independent route addition, and not a batch addition. Meaning, this route wasn't part of a large expansion of SFO. For example, we gained our AA OKC-LAX because AA added about 13 or so routes all at the same time out of LAX. We just happened to have been one of those, and we probably would not have gained that service had they not done a batch. This was an independent addition, so that means there is growing interest in serving OKC. This year has been tremendous so far in airline additions.

Delta is adding capacity to MSP, and ATL is gaining a second mainline flight.
American just added OKC-LAX
Frontier is adding a mainline flight to DEN in July.
United is adding OKC-SFO.

Next up is Southwest, the only airline that hasn't added any capacity this year at OKC. We will most likely see them (or AirTran) add OKC-ATL late this year or sometime next year as the merger moves forward.

Again, great news for OKC!

[HOT ROD]

Definitely good news.

Now, OKC has non-stop flight coverage to all of United's heritage US hubs: Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington Dulles.
That is 'at least' what I'd like to see, OKC having at least one daily non-stop to the hub airports for every airline that the city has service.
Hopefully, there can be an upgrade to mainline once the route becomes more mature (as I'd expect).

I'd really love to see a route schedule that has mainline service connecting United's cross-country hub via OKC (perhaps at a somewhat lower cost than non-stop coastal). The possible routing, IAD-OKC-SFO (begin early am EST), LAX-OKC-ORD (begin mid afternoon PST), ORD-OKC-LAX (begin mid afternoon CST), SFO-OKC-SFO (begin afternoon PST). Could be a good venture, offering seats to OKC (mainline hopefully) but also a more cost-effective pricing offering than nonstop between the coasts - allowing the nonstops to cator to business and the OKC connects to catch leisure and any cost conscious business. United is set up beautifully for this, and it could work using Airbus A319 aircraft (with break even at 80-88 pax) since it is basically an additional hub-to-hub flight (just stopping in OKC).

But this is great news and hopefully a great 'start' at inproving United's share of OKC.

[redrunner]

http://newsok.com/united-adds-nonsto...adlines_widget

Growing bioscience sector in OKC helped persuade United to add nonstop between OKC and SFO.

[venture]

I'd really love to see a route schedule that has mainline service connecting United's cross-country hub via OKC (perhaps at a somewhat lower cost than non-stop coastal). The possible routing, IAD-OKC-SFO (begin early am EST), LAX-OKC-ORD (begin mid afternoon PST), ORD-OKC-LAX (begin mid afternoon CST), SFO-OKC-SFO (begin afternoon PST). Could be a good venture, offering seats to OKC (mainline hopefully) but also a more cost-effective pricing offering than nonstop between the coasts - allowing the nonstops to cator to business and the OKC connects to catch leisure and any cost conscious business. United is set up beautifully for this, and it could work using Airbus A319 aircraft (with break even at 80-88 pax) since it is basically an additional hub-to-hub flight (just stopping in OKC).

Likely to never happen and I pray it doesn't as well. We do NOT want leisure and cost conscious people to be throw onto the seats going in and out of OKC. Yes passenger numbers are nice, but it would destroy yields and cause flights to become less (un-) profitably. Let's just be happy to have the spokes getting connected. Enjoy the high yield O&D traffic and leave the low fare junk revenue to the hubs. Granted, I'm sure there will be some who will try to do what you suggest but that will be limited to mainly just mile runners needing extra segments.

[soonerguru]

http://newsok.com/united-adds-nonsto...adlines_widget

Growing bioscience sector in OKC helped persuade United to add nonstop between OKC and SFO.

Oh, quick, maybe our legislature will ban more science experiments.

[dmoor82]

Oh, quick, maybe our legislature will ban more science experiments.

haha lol,come on!

[SkyWestOKC]

http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/Apr...nplanement.pdf

Could be better...., not "bad" though.

[SkyWestOKC]

I live in Denver and SW is killling Frontier. What time of day?

Sorry missed your post, the flight will leave Denver for OKC at 1045am arriving here at around 115pm. Departing here for Denver around 155pm. It will be on an Airbus A319. Also, the schedule update that got uploaded to the system on Saturday night moved the start date from the 14th to the 17th of July.