ATA finished at MDW

[Alex T]

ATA Airlines to Discontinue Scheduled Service at Chicago's Midway Airport
Thursday March 6, 1:30 pm ET
Will Redeploy Aircraft into Charter Market

INDIANAPOLIS, March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- ATA Airlines today announced that it will discontinue domestic scheduled service at Midway Airport effective April 14, 2008, and international service will cease effective June 7, 2008. The affected ATA domestic markets include Oakland, Calif., and Dallas/Ft. Worth, and the international routes include Cancun and Guadalajara, Mexico. Flights between the West Coast and Hawaii destinations are not affected.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080306/clth069.html?.v=101


Alex

[T-Bird76]

Man ATA is slowing dying...what a shame. I wonder how long until they close up shop on the west coast?

[SengaB]

I remember when they dominted MDW next to southwest.
Senga

[PhilDernerJr]

ATA is not doing well, but I see this as part of their recovery.

Fuel costs are getting tougher and tougher for airlines to operate scheduled service, and pulling back from that to conentrate on charters is a much smarter thing to do to cut all kinds of costs. The expenses with having to maintain a staiton, its employees, gate space, office space and so much more....its EXTREMELY expensive. Meanwhile, with charter work, you can pay contractors for a lot of work on a flight by flight basis, and the customer absorbs a lot of the overhead related to fuel and similar expenses.

I'm shocked that they are still keeping Hawaii actually.

[Alex T]

I see this as a re shifting of things to prepare for the intl code sharing taking place in 2009 for Southwest Airlines.

Unless Global disagrees, I am not sure if a contract was signed between WN and ATA, but I'd hardly say dying or anything. They are focusing on the charter as Phil said.

As for Hawaii, you can thank SWA for that, but don't know how profitable it is for ATA if it is. I know that the planes run absolutely full, and many many non revs cannot get on board the flights. But of course loads mean nothing if the yield is horrendous.

On a side note, WN has officially released a new booking program in AMA which allows intl bookings and code sharing for set up with ATA, I wish I was back at work so I could take a peek at this and see what cities are showing up :twisted: .

Alex

[T-Bird76]

I see this as a re shifting of things to prepare for the intl code sharing taking place in 2009 for Southwest Airlines.

Unless Global disagrees, I am not sure if a contract was signed between WN and ATA, but I'd hardly say dying or anything. They are focusing on the charter as Phil said.

As for Hawaii, you can thank SWA for that, but don't know how profitable it is for ATA if it is. I know that the planes run absolutely full, and many many non revs cannot get on board the flights. But of course loads mean nothing if the yield is horrendous.

On a side note, WN has officially released a new booking program in AMA which allows intl bookings and code sharing for set up with ATA, I wish I was back at work so I could take a peek at this and see what cities are showing up :twisted: .

Alex

Like you won't be asking around to see what cities are showing up Trude....

[Alex T]

Like you won't be asking around to see what cities are showing up Trude....

*shrugs*, I don't know anyone that works at AMA LOL

Alex

[Lezam]

From what I heard through the pipeline, hawaii service will end by summer