Sunwing summer seat sale $50 YYZ-most cities

[CanadaEH]

Sunwing Airlines has released a batch of seats from Toronto to Canadian cities and Orlando at $50 one way.

The $50 one-way fares are valid between Toronto and: Calgary, Charlottetown, Deer Lake, Edmonton, Gander, Halifax, Montreal, St. John's, Stephenville, Sydney (Nova Scotia), Vancouver, Victoria and Orlando.

Prices are applicable for select departures between May 11-June 21 and September 5-October 31 for travel booked by April 25. As with all travel specials, not all fares will be available on all days, and you may have to do some searching for the very best deals.

[Thebean]

Sunwing Airlines has released a batch of seats from Toronto to Canadian cities and Orlando at $50 one way.

The $50 one-way fares are valid between Toronto and: Calgary, Charlottetown, Deer Lake, Edmonton, Gander, Halifax, Montreal, St. John's, Stephenville, Sydney (Nova Scotia), Vancouver, Victoria and Orlando.

Prices are applicable for select departures between May 11-June 21 and September 5-October 31 for travel booked by April 25. As with all travel specials, not all fares will be available on all days, and you may have to do some searching for the very best deals.

Need........cash............now............

[Fido]

Selling off their placement flights instead of flying empty.

[CanadaEH]

Selling off their placement flights instead of flying empty.

Placement flights??

[proview]

I have trouble seeing this as other than a garden variety promotion. There are 5000 tickets, heavily restricted, available on flights from mid-may to the end of October (but not for end June through beginning September). Since a return is required, this means 2500 $100 tickets during the slow season. I do not know this carriers exact summer schedule, but this seems to amount to about one percent of total summer capacity.

Airlines do this sort of promotion all the time. It lets the world know their flights are available. In this case it is already working. We are talking about it on this forum. Some lurkers will file away in their minds the fact that Sunwing is flying across the country this summer, and some will check them out if they need to travel.

[Fido]

Placement flights??

Ferry flights to place the aircraft into position to operate a charter program or cycle the aircraft back for maintenance.

[Guest woxof]

Selling off their placement flights instead of flying empty.

Does that make sense Bean?

[CanadaEH]

May 11-June 21 and September 5-October 31

Sorry, I call BS Fido. Look at the dates and look at the city pairs; that'd be a hell of an inefficient schedule to operate if you've got two months of "placement" flights.

[Fido]

Sorry, I call BS Fido. Look at the dates and look at the city pairs; that'd be a hell of an inefficient schedule to operate if you've got two months of "placement" flights.

It is exactly because of the random dates and random city pairs that I made the observation. It fits with the style of operation that comes from operating a charter schedule that is not balanced until the peak season.

[Thebean]

Does that make sense Bean?

It makes about as much sense as Skybus's $10 flights or Jetsgo's 2 for 1 deals.

It's one thing to discount inventory on Tuesdays in late November and Wednesdays in January, but we're talking summer shoulder season here, in a marketplace where both established carriers are flying close to economically full and spilling traffic all over the place.

Have you seen Apple discounting the Iphone recently? And if so, at prices 70% below market? Ummm....I don't think so......

This absolutely reeks of selling advance inventory out to raise cash to pay todays bills. How many times have we seen this before by failing airlines? After having seen it, how many of those airlines have survived longer than about 6 months?

Naturally, the Sunwing apologists will be out in force to defend the brilliant businessplan. Before doing so, check out the comments at

http://www.carsurvey.org/air/airline_Sunwing+Airlines.html

They might as well be from Jetsgo. There are a few good ones, but lots of very bad ones. In all, they are pretty much typical for non-descript, fly by the seat of your pants outfits that believes that getting 8 aircraft and cramming in 189 seats on to them with the same as generous pitch as Ryanair, and flying them coast to coast and north and south, without any back up, customer service infrastructure and at bargain basement, need tomorrows cash to pay the bills now pricing is a sound plan.

Will they fill up? Sure they will. Everyone fills up in the summer. Will they get repeat customers? Not to any degree.

The aircraft are spread out hither and yon, so when an irop occurs, the OTP falls into the sewer. There's not much back up when you fly a route 7 times a month.

2,100 mile sectors with 30" seat pitch? On a redeye? That's a recipe for happy, repeat customers. Other than Frankfurt - Tennerife, even Ryanair balks at flights more than 1,600 miles with their 30" seat pitch aircraft.

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/dests.php?flash=chk

How about that unique "check in 3 hours prior to flight" and "flight check in closes 1 hour prior to departure". You know why they do this? They skimp on the contract staff. Customer service with contract staff in customer contact roles? Didn't Greyhound teach anybody anything?

Unless they demand ridiculously early check-ins, there is no way they can process the teeming masses in a timely fashion. They close check in an hour before the flight so they can all run to the gate and deal with that end of the operation. Travelling with kids this summer? There's nothing like adding two hours to the stress by having to check in two hours earlier than a sched carrier. There's another reason not to come back.....

How about the generous 20kg per bag limit? There's a nice surprise at the airport. My new samsonite hardshell weighs 7kg's EMPTY. All those summer travellers loaded up with summer goodies getting a $70 surprise each direction by simply taking the same stuff WJ will carry for free. All of a sudden, that $138 saving on YYZ-YYJ doesn't look that interesting and they have seriously "Naughty Word" off their customers before they've even boarded the flight. Yea, right. They'll be back for more.....

They'll fail and their passengers will all scramble around looking for the other airlines to carry them for free to, "waaaaaaa, get me home!"

We've all seen this movie at Canada 3000, Royal, Nationair, Jetsgo, Skybus, Greyhound Air, Western Pacific, Vanguard, Air South etc etc etc and we all know how the movie ends.

Oh, I forgot. They are privately held and they claim they are making tons of money....

[shockwave]

Need........cash............now............

Didn't you say that last year when they had a summer seat sale and then gave their employees a huge bonus in the Fall ??? Just wondering.........

[Guest rattler]

Bean: I agree it is strange to see an airline discounting fares in the summer shoulder but some are also doing so in the summer peak.

Westjet has "seat sale" fares showing on their web site for travel midweek in July for:

YYC-YVR, YYC-YYZ, YYZ-YHZ etc.

AirCanada Tango fares are pretty good (low) for this period also but not as low as those being offered by Westjet. eg. YYZ-YHZ midweek Westjet July. as low as 99.00. Lowest AC fare for the same dates is 166.00

[CanadaEH]

Rattler you know seat sales are common, even for the peak of the summer. I'm not the least bit concerned about WJ or AC having sales when both are posting profits.

[Thebean]

Didn't you say that last year when they had a summer seat sale and then gave their employees a huge bonus in the Fall ??? Just wondering.........

When you show us Sunwings financials, I'm all ears.

If they were profitable, there would be documents circulating proving it, and chances are someone oin Bay St. would have fired off a copy to me for a look see.

They operate in precisely the same environment as everyone else, and I'll guarantee their ownership / lease costs / reserves are higher than WJ's. Then there's the fixed overhead costs on 8 aircraft vs. 72 aircraft. I could go on. How many aircraft and how many places are they trying to fly them from? When WJA had 8 aircraft, they stuck to YWG-YYJ, and provided a quality, reliable product with some frequency. Not so at Sunwing.

They'll get a lower casm by virtue of cramming in and extra 23 seats with that spectacular 30" seat pitch, but that only works if you fill them all on an ongoing basis with happy, repeat customers. 30" pitch is not a happy situation for North American passengers. Maybe smaller Europeans, but not on this side of the pond.

These outfits are like new restaurants. They hand out coupons for 2-1 deals, free appy's, etc, but at the end of the day, the product is substandard and the customers only come back if it is discounted to a point where they don't make any money.

They crow about huge l/f's, just like Canada3000, jetsgo and Royal did, but they neglect to disclose the 95% - 124% BELF as a result of rock bottom yields.

They keep it open for a while, waiting for busy weekends, peak season and xmas, but that amounts to about 140 good days a year.

Eventually, they run out of cash and stupid investors and they go belly up.

They never seem to learn.

[Guest rattler]

Rattler you know seat sales are common, even for the peak of the summer. I'm not the least bit concerned about WJ or AC having sales when both are posting profits.

Just responding the the comment made by Bean..... However if capacity was reduced, then the need to discount seats would diminish and cost would also go down, so there would be greater profit for Westjet in the long run.

[Guest rattler]

And the rush to discount & expand quickens..... i wonder what effect the cheap fares from SEA will have on Canadian carriers serving the California market. $77.00 ex sea vs 300+ ex YVR will certainly pay for YVR origin passengers to drive down to SEA.

Even as rising fuel costs are grounding weaker airlines -- including three this month -- airline competition is heating up for travelers flying the Pacific coast.

On the runway is JetBlue Airways Corp. with new 100-seat jets that will begin flying next month from Long Beach up and down the coast in a move that financial analysts say may be bold but risky.

Next month, the low-fare carrier, popular with Southern California leisure travelers, is adding six flights from Long Beach to San Jose, Seattle and Austin, connecting some of the nation's top tech-heavy cities. Long Beach passengers can fly one-way to San Jose for $39.

JetBlue rivals aren't standing around fretting. They are fighting back, increasing flights and cutting fares all along the coast.

"You've got a lot of competition out there unlike the East Coast where subpar service allowed JetBlue to make inroads by treating customers well," said Michael Boyd, an aviation consultant in Evergreen, Colo. "Alaska and Southwest are also known for treating customers well."

Another West Coast fare war of sorts might be in the works. Last week, Virgin America began service from Los Angeles International Airport to Seattle with $77 one-way fares while Alaska announced that this month it would offer hourly flights from LAX to Seattle. And Southwest added four flights from LAX to San Francisco and was offering $79 one-way fares from LAX to Austin.

"We've competed on fares and services with all comers for decades and we've always prevailed," said Steve Jarvis, vice president of marketing for Alaska Airlines. "We're no stranger to competition but we're taking this serious. We're going to fight it toe to toe."

Virgin, created by British billionaire Richard Branson, began flying last summer starting with service between Los Angeles and San Francisco. "American airlines have never really cared about quality in the sky," he said at the time.

JetBlue is also expanding to Los Angeles International where it will offer nonstop flights to New York and Boston with fares as low as $129 one-way.

Forest Hills, N.Y.-based JetBlue has typically focused on transcontinental routes flying California passengers across the nation to Eastern seaboard cities including Boston and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

With transcontinental growth slowing and with new flight restrictions at JFK, its crowded home airport in New York, the airline has been looking for opportunities in the West, particularly the lucrative routes along the coastline from San Diego to Seattle.

Eventually, it wants to offer international flights to Mexico and Canada.

For its part, JetBlue says it is financially healthier than other carriers thanks to a recent $300-million investment by Lufthansa Airlines, which took a minority stake in the airline. JetBlue said it had also fully recovered from its winter debacle last year that grounded planes and cost the carrier $40 million in goodwill payments to its passengers.

"It was a gut-wrenching experience, but we're a much better airline as a result of it," said Chief Executive Dave Barger, who replaced the airline's founder, David Neeleman, ousted shortly after the debacle.

With a fare war that is likely to have bargain hunters shuffling from one airline to another, JetBlue is betting that the new planes will give it an edge. It has ordered 100 of the Embraer planes, which are built in Brazil. JetBlue first began flying the planes last year on its routes along the Eastern seaboard but will start using them on the new West Coast flights as they are delivered by the manufacturer.

Barger, lately its ultimate salesman, stood in the aisle of the new passenger jet recently and began rattling off its features.

The Embraer 190 aircraft burns 40% less fuel than older jets, which can guzzle more than 1,000 gallons in an hour, he said. The leather seats with personal video screens are wider and have more legroom than the competition. Better yet, the plane doesn't have the dreaded middle seat, he added.

"So, what do you think?" he asked after taking a breath. "I think it's a huge advantage for us."

But analysts said the airline is taking a risk because the 100-seat jets have about 50 fewer seats than the Airbus A320s that have been the airline's mainstay since it started eight years ago.

By operating two different fleets of planes, JetBlue is also bucking a longtime "mantra" of low-fare carriers like Southwest that has touted the operating savings and efficiencies of flying one type of plane. Southwest, for instance, flies Boeing 737s, so it doesn't have higher costs of maintaining more than one kind of plane as well as hiring and training two sets of pilots. A pilot certified for the 737 would have to undergo extensive training to fly another jet.

The Embraer 190 is a "good plane but you have to be careful" about where you use it because of its size, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with aviation consulting firm Teal Group Corp.

But Barger contends that the added costs of operating two fleets is offset by the fuel savings and the flexibility the smaller jet gives the airline in flying into smaller markets that might not be able to support a larger, 150-seat plane.

"It gives us the ability to open up new markets such as connecting Seattle to Long Beach with less risk," Barger said. "I like to think of this plane as a pathfinder. It's a nice way to move into a new market."

JetBlue acknowledged it also must overcome an image problem with Embraer planes, which prior to the introduction of the larger 190, were mainly known for cramped regional jets with tight seats, narrow aisles and low ceilings. Many airlines fly the smaller Embraers, which typically seat about 50 passengers, on short hops of a couple of hours or less.

The new plane will be in a dogfight with the new Airbus 320s that Branson is introducing with Virgin America. The A320 jets also have personal video screens at each seat as well as mood lights and massage seats in first class.

To tout its new fleet, JetBlue took its Embraer plane on an unusual barnstorming tour last week, starting in Seattle with stopovers in San Francisco and San Jose before ending at Long Beach Airport.

The carrier let a Times reporter fly from San Jose to Long Beach on the plane, which appeared much like its A320 aircraft with JetBlue's familiar gray leather seats and personal video screens. But there was no middle seat, making the plane seem more spacious even though it was narrower in size than the A320. Instead of six seats in a row, it had four.

"People say 'I don't want to fly on a regional jet.' Well, this isn't a regional jet," Barger said, as he returned to his salesman mode. "Once people fly it, they'll love it."

peter.pae@latimes.com

[Thebean]

And the rush to discount & expand quickens..... i wonder what effect the cheap fares from SEA will have on Canadian carriers serving the California market. $77.00 ex sea vs 300+ ex YVR will certainly pay for YVR origin passengers to drive down to SEA.

Virgin America will fail. It's a foregone conclusion. The only solution is how to remove the branding from the failure.

One of the reasons the original Virgin America branding concept, which ultimately became jetBlue, was turned down by DGN is that Virgin wanted the right to remove their branding should things not work out well. DGN said "no way" and that was the end of that.

I'll bet Virgin wishes they could do the same prior to shutting the doors on this version.

Once it fails, the north south West Coast fare war will be over. Consumers are going to get a break for a few months, but not even Branson is going to continue to fund the kind of losses VA is incurring for any length of time. They are so bad that they have petitioned the DoT to keep the Form 41 numbers confidential.

They've picked battles they cannot win.

This, too, shall pass.

[yul07]

Bean you speak about the 30" seat pitch. Skyservice and Transit are not suffering for lack of pax with the same pitch

[Thebean]

Bean you speak about the 30" seat pitch. Skyservice and Transit are not suffering for lack of pax with the same pitch

Show me Skyservice's fully allocated P & L for their passenger operations......

Transat packages up the entire product vertically. Sure the flight might be tight, but the so called 6 Star product at the other end on the Mayan Riviera makes up for it.

All Sunbus has is a seat. They can throw some lipstick at it in the form of "free champagne, hot meals etc", but that all costs money that the others don't have to spend, and frankly, isn't anything to get excited about.

When Sunbus can show us 14.5 cent rasm in 4Q, and a stage length adjusted casm of 12.5 cents over 850 miles, I'll buy into their $259 trans con fares peak summer.

Ryanair can get away with aggravating their customers with petty add on fees, lousy customer care, horrible seat pitch etc because they have a market that's at least the size of the US. They can afford to lose passengers.

Try that in Canada with all of 32m people and the word will spread fast and furious that the product is cheap, uncomfortable and watch out for all the add ons, starting with an additional $150 to take the same bags as on WJA. Once the word got out on JetsGo, they were done.

Consumers, as a collective bunch, are pretty smart and our inventory of PT Barnum suckers is no where near as large as the US and Europe.

[Guest rattler]

Re Skyservice, you would have to go to another source for that. But Gibralt must have thought there was gold in those clouds or otherwise why would they have purchased the charter business?

Gibralt Capital Corporation completes acquisition of majority interest in Skyservice Airlines

    TORONTO, Oct. 19 /CNW/ - Skyservice Airlines Inc. announced today that

Gibralt Capital Corporation has completed the acquisition of a majority

interest in the Skyservice charter airline business, as announced August 27,

2007

    Skyservice's senior leadership team, comprising Russ Payson, CEO, Rob

Giguere, President and COO and Jackie Smalec, CFO, will continue in their

current roles. No changes to the company's current operations and workforce

are planned.

    "The consolidation of ownership under Gibralt marks the start of a new

era for our company," said Rob Giguere. "With a solid and profitable business

foundation, a strong management team and a professional and dedicated

workforce, we believe that Skyservice is perfectly positioned to capitalize on

its numerous opportunities for profitable growth, as well as expanded

opportunities for the Skyservice team."

    The Skyservice Business Aviation Group, which specializes in corporate

aircraft management and sales, business jet charter services, fixed base

operations and an international air ambulance service, was not included in the

sale to Gibralt. These operations will continue to be owned and operated by

Skyservice Investments Inc.

    About Skyservice - Founded in 1986, Skyservice is a Canadian aviation

enterprise serving the needs of Canadian travelers and the business aviation

community. Skyservice operates Canada's premier commercial charter airline,

fixed base operations and a leading worldwide air ambulance service.

Skyservice Airlines' customers include tour operators, corporations,

professional sport teams, governments, relief agencies and travel incentive

companies. The airline is widely recognized for its quality customer service

and the versatility of its charter operations.

    About Gibralt - Gibralt Capital Corporation is private investment company

headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. Gibralt Capital focuses on

private equity investments, mezzanine loans and bridge loans in middle market

companies primarily in North America. Gibralt seeks to make investments in

companies that have experienced management, a leading and defensible market

position and stable and growing earnings. Gibralt's previous investments have

included: The Keg Restaurants (management led buyout); Education Lending Group

Inc. (marketer of products, services and solutions to the federal guaranteed

student loan industry in the United States); AMJ Campbell Inc. (management led

buyout of Canada's largest household goods carrier and corporate office

relocation company); and CE Franklin (oilfield services company).

[Thebean]

Re Skyservice, you would have to go to another source for that. But Gibralt must have thought there was gold in those clouds or otherwise why would they have purchased the charter business?

Fidelity bought into Jetsgo. So what.

[Guest rattler]

So has the better track record Fidelity or ??? Is Gibalt also hedging their bet?

In March 2004, he found a new financial partner, when the Fidelity funds invested $25 million in Jetsgo. Many remained skeptical, and Fidelity hedged by investing even more money in Jetsgo's competitors, Westjet and Air Canada.

[60N30W]

Hello All

For the record it is Air Transat,not Transat ( Transat AT is the parent company) and not Transit, Air Transit was a Twin Otter operation between Montreal and Ottawa nearly 30 years ago.

One other thing,starting this summer all a/c in the Air Transat fleet will see a reduction in capacity which will bring about an increase in pitch, greater comfort.

Regards,

60N30W

[Thebean]

Hello All

For the record it is Air Transat,not Transat ( Transat AT is the parent company) and not Transit, Air Transit was a Twin Otter operation between Montreal and Ottawa nearly 30 years ago.

One other thing,starting this summer all a/c in the Air Transat fleet will see a reduction in capacity which will bring about an increase in pitch, greater comfort.

Regards,

60N30W

Good catch. I forgot about that. I think that is a wise move on Transat's part. Differentiate from the run of the mill, sardine operations like Sunbus....

[DEFCON]

From a Sunwing Pilot; "Go online book two ways with all taxes you will find it to be about 500-600 dollars (comparable to the other “low cost “)."