Spirit Goes Head-to-Head With the US Majors

US budget carrier Spirit Airlines is to fly in direct competition with American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, US Airways and low-cost pioneer Southwest Airlines when it launches flights between Los Angeles and Las Vegas from May 5. In what is certainly a surprise move and an aggressive statement of its business intent, Spirit will offer a five-times daily schedule on the route, one of the busiest in the US domestic market. It is the carrier’s first link across the US west coast, although it does already serve both destinations from Detroit and Fort Lauderdale and will add a Los Angeles – Chicago route from April 1 and Las Vegas – Dallas from May 5.

Source: Flightbase (August 14-20, 2011)

As the table above shows, once Spirit Airlines launches flights there will be more than 520 weekly flights between the two destinations. Southwest Airlines currently dominates the route and although Delta and United offer more weekly frequencies than American and Spirit, the use of smaller regional jet types on some of these services means that they offer much less capacity. In 2010, more than 990,000 O&D passengers travelled on the route and the table below shows the traffic split by operator. But, Los Angeles is not the only market in the region served from Las Vegas with JetBlue Airways and Allegiant Air also entering the marketplace when you consider the likes of Burbank, Long Beach and Orange County too.

Source: IATA BSP (January - December, 2010)

Elsewhere, Spirit Airlines has announced that it will introduce a twice weekly service between Fort Lauderdale and Mexico City, where it will serve Toluca International Airport, around 30 minutes from the capital city. There are currently now flights on the route, nor from Fort Lauderdale to Mexico City Internacional Benito Juarez, although around 3,500 O&D passengers did travel on the route mainly using the indirect services of Continental Airlines via Houston.