GSP International

[crescentmoon]

OMG!!!! That is the funniest thing (or most sad, depending on your perspective), I have seen in some time. Poor thing. As someone said in the comments section, she better marry rich!

Come on guys, give the kid a break. It's a high school girl on national TV for the first time in her life and she gets flustered. The poor kid was on the Today show this morning and explained she was so nervous she didn't even really hear the question. Sounds more than reasonable to me. How many of us can be sure we wouldn't have reacted similarly as a teenager? Personally, I think what's sad here is the news media and how they are overplaying this humiliating incident in this young lady's life. Why the heck was this even covered by news media? (I saw it on a FoxNews program last night.)

[gvillenative]

Being from South Carolina we don't have a reputation for having the greatest education system in the country and they figure this is a prime example of that, and quite frankly I'm a bit ticked off by the reaction because I'm a product of that system and I'm not an idiot but because I'm from SC people tend to take things like this to say how stupid we are. I say leave it alone I probably would have been petrified myself. Lets just hope she doesn't take this horrible experience and let it destroy her life. She isn't at an age were this kind of negativity wouldn't mess her up. I couldn't even watch it, I felt so bad for her. However back on subject, I guess it all depends on your destination as far as how much it'll be out of GSP. On the other hand for me, your case is obviously different, but for me even $120 is not enough to make me want to drive to either Charlotte or Atlanta to catch a flight. It takes $50 these days to fill up my truck. It would probably be at least a half tank there and back, so there I cut out half of the savings I would have gotten. In my mind it's just not worth it. However only once have I paid over $400 for a ticket, that was like 10 years ago. It's probably worth it for you and not trying to change your mind, my hope for the future is that they lower the prices across the board at GSP and try to draw these people back to use their own airport. Theoretically it would start a chain reaction of more direct routes and so on and so forth as to where I can get a direct flight to where I want to go instead of connecting every time. Only time will tell if they ever figure it out. I think they are starting too.

Edited August 28, 2007 by gvillenative

[StrangeCock]

However back on subject, I guess it all depends on your destination as far as how much it'll be out of GSP. On the other hand for me, your case is obviously different, but for me even $120 is not enough to make me want to drive to either Charlotte or Atlanta to catch a flight. It takes $50 these days to fill up my truck. It would probably be at least a half tank there and back, so there I cut out half of the savings I would have gotten. In my mind it's just not worth it.

You're right. "Worth it" means a lot of different things to different people. Two factors that work out for me...I live in Taylors, so it really only takes me about an hour and 20 minutes to get to CLT. I probably wouldn't consider the trip if the airport were all the way on the Concord side of Charlotte. Also, I have a Civic Hybrid, so it's really only about $10-$15 for the roundtrip for me. But I would never drive down to Atlanta for a flight, that's just way too far and too much traffic and hassle.

I hate to have such a negative opinion of our hometown airport, but the reason I don't go there (price) is reinforced every...single...time that I go to book a flight. Nothing would please me more than to one day start finding competitively-priced flights out of GSP. But until that day, I'll just laugh about those GSP billboards on I-85. Sure, I'd be home by now, but my wallet would be at least $100 lighter, too.

[distortedlogic]

A couple new announcements from Allegiant, none for Gville though. One could be forthcoming, they even added a Tri cities/Ft laud flight.

Jetblue now has their new additions listed all the way out to 1/10/08, no mention of the upstate. I resubmitted my suggestion in the "tell us where to fly next" space for the heck of it.

Between Jetblue and Allegiant, FT Laud is going to be a busy airport. It will serve as a "hub" for both airlines.

Anyone ever hear anything about the grant GSP applied for for frontier? We were supposed to hear sometime in August?

[gvillenative]

Let me say however that even though I pay the prices to fly out of GSP I do agree that $300-$400 price range is still ridiculous with a capital RIDICULOUS! Hopefully it'll change in the not too distant future.

Sorry for all the edits lately, grammatical errors.

Edited August 30, 2007 by gvillenative

[distortedlogic]

Allegiant to add a flight from Greensboro to Ft.L starting in Nov. At this point, I would almost be surprised if Gville isn't one of the new cities, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Here is a current route map for Frontier. If Gville did get some service, looks like it would be for Denver only, but I would take it. Also, looks like GSP would be one of the smallest markets served. Also, I checked out the flight schedule, and they seem to operate on a daily flight schedule (ie 1 or 2 or ... flights/day, as opposed to Allegiant's several/week schedule). Keep those fingers crossed!

Edited September 1, 2007 by distortedlogic

[gvillenative]

Before I start I realize this is all out of the blue, but was looking on AirTran's website at the route map. I saw something that I must say is very intriguing. Now I remember having discussions about yeah AirTran has been looking at GSP for possible routes and well the reason they are reluctant is because of Delta and I remembered another argument and there was the same argument about JetBlue and just about everything else we can't get down here, which was well we are just too close to ATL, or CLT, or RDU, so on and so forth. Why does that matter here and in DC AirTran serves Dulles and Reagan. To me the too close justification is just malarkey. They are just scared because it is not a huge airport and they think they would lose money and figure they can make people believe whatever they want to. All praise be to Allegiant for having the courage to do what they are doing here, and going against their own grain by going to Vegas from here. Hopefully there is more to come. Would like to see the airport live up to it's International billing with at least a regular flight to like Canada or like Cancun or Cozumel, then in the future Europe. Would be nice but the way things go here won't happen because we are just "too close" to everything.

[gs3]

It's official guys. Allegiant will be starting non-stops to Ft. Lauderdale!

Allegiant is loving GSP.....nonstops to Las Vegas, Tampa, Orlando, and now Ft. Lauderdale.

http://www.allegiantair.com/aaNews20070903a.php

Edited September 4, 2007 by gsupstate

[Greenville]

It's official guys. Allegiant will be starting non-stops to Ft. Lauderdale!

Allegiant is loving GSP.....nonstops to Las Vegas, Tampa, Orlando, and now Ft. Lauderdale.

http://www.allegiantair.com/aaNews20070903a.php

Awesome news! This is great. Hopefully other airlines will realize the hidden gem that is GSP.

[gs3]

I get the feeling that Allegiant had some insight into the now defunct Independence Air. In the South, four of Independence top performing stations were Greenville, Knoxville, Greensboro, Hunstville....they did really well in these 4 markets. Allegiant seems to be adding the most flights in these 4 markets and seems to be doing quite well in each.

[gs3]

An article from the Greenville News on Allegiants new service to Ft.Lauderdale with flight times and fares.

http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/...6/1003/BUSINESS

[gs3]

This bodes well for GSP's newest carrier....passenger numbers are up over last year (they should be with the airlines expansion), but more importantly, load factors are up. Article below:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articl...504092007-1.htm

[gvillenative]

Having said what I said before the last announcement about Ft. Lauderdale, I said I wouldn't be surprised if we got that route. Low and behold we got it. I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say they same for Phoenix-Mesa. Not saying it's gonna happen, but with all the success Allegiant is having at GSP it just wouldn't surprise me. Distance isn't a factor because it's a few hundred nautical miles (as the crow flies) maybe closer to us than Las Vegas is.

[mikeinphx]

Having said what I said before the last announcement about Ft. Lauderdale, I said I wouldn't be surprised if we got that route. Low and behold we got it. I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say they same for Phoenix-Mesa. Not saying it's gonna happen, but with all the success Allegiant is having at GSP it just wouldn't surprise me. Distance isn't a factor because it's a few hundred nautical miles (as the crow flies) maybe closer to us than Las Vegas is.

I've had my fingers crossed for a Phoenix/Mesa route since I read about this. I'll be flying to GSP from Phoenix in December with my three year old son. A direct flight would be nice.

[gvillenative]

I only say this because Phoenix-Mesa is the only hub or focus city (or whatever they are calling it) that we don't have a flight to. We got flights to the other 4: Las Vegas, Orlando, Tampa/ St. Pete, and now Ft. Lauderdale. I would love to have the route as well. Maybe they read this forum and see there is interest. Who knows. Could be wrong but going by the most recent goings on, now a GSP to Phoenix route doesn't sound so unreasonable. We have more allegiant flights(according to the route chart) than any other non-hub airports for Allegiant. The only ones that have more than us are the 5 hubs.

[gvillenative]

I was wrong earlier there are other airports with four or more Rockford and Peoria, Illinois have service to all five Fort Wayne Indiana as well and Knoxville has four along with GSP, still its a good thing that we have service to four out of the five destinations.

[Lexy]

Bases, not "hubs" Allegiant doesn't operate banks of flights nor does it allow for connections. LOL!! Many wished they did, but they are strictly an O&D airline. And THAT bodes well for your airport. It shows that it has a good O&D, nice catchment area, and good marketing.

[gvillenative]

Well alright, thanks for clearing that up for me. That's probably why I said I didn't know what they called their main destination airports. I know now they aren't hubs, rather "bases". So that is clear now, what is an O&D airport?

[Lexy]

Well alright, thanks for clearing that up for me. That's probably why I said I didn't know what they called their main destination airports. I know now they aren't hubs, rather "bases". So that is clear now, what is an O&D airport?

No problem.

O&D stands for Originating and Destinating passenger at an airport. In other words, it describes the number of passenger that originate from your airport and those that end their travels at your airport. It's a way to tell just how good your airport really is and how well the local market reacts to the service offered from it. It's one of the main attributes that airlines look at when deciding to add, or start, service(s) from your airport.

For example, I will use my hometown airport here in Nashville to show you a break down. The total passenger count (2006) for BNA is around 9.5 million, but the O&D passenger count is around 6 million. So in other words, the other 3.5 million passengers were just simply connecting passengers typically on Southwest and American Airlines respectively. Those passengers either stayed on the aiplane and never got off or got off and onto a seperate aircraft to continue on their journey.

[gs3]

With August passengers numbers now announced, GSP is up in both passenger numbers and cargo numbers over this point last year. With the busy holiday seasons ahead and the addition of the new Allegiant flights, GSP should finish the year up a good amount.

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20070912/...9120314/-1/LIFE

[hub-city]

Saw on WSPA that Allegiant is canceling thier Las Vegas flights after Dec. 3. Not enough passengers. This is a huge bummer. I had planned on going during the Christmas holidays,.

[distortedlogic]

Saw on WSPA that Allegiant is canceling thier Las Vegas flights after Dec. 3. Not enough passengers. This is a huge bummer. I had planned on going during the Christmas holidays,.

Ok, that sucks! They really haven't even given that route time yet, it just started a month ago. I wonder if any advertising was don in western NC, or midlands SC, i'll bet some people in those regions would use it some too.

[Lexy]

Saw on WSPA that Allegiant is canceling thier Las Vegas flights after Dec. 3. Not enough passengers. This is a huge bummer. I had planned on going during the Christmas holidays,.

WOW! That was fast. Perhaps it's more of a seasonal type flight and will return next summer?

[gvillenative]

I emailed Rosylin Weston a few days ago and asked about the cancellation of that route, and the status of the grant which they applied for and here was her response:

Dear Mr. Owens:

Thank you for your email and your concern about the Allegiant Air

Service. Yes, Allegiant has announced that they will stop service to

Las Vegas. Airlines can and do stop service to a particular market for

a whole host of reasons and sometimes those reasons have nothing to do

with the flights being full or not. Unfortunately, service decisions

are made solely by the airlines and not the airport.

The airport has applied for a grant to assist in the recruiting of an

airline to provide direct service to the mid-west - Frontier is an

example of such an airline. We are waiting on grants to be awarded.

We

are told these awards will be made prior to the end of September.

We'll

keep you posted.

Thanks again for your support and your concern.

Sincerely,

Rosylin Weston

Director of Public Relations

GSP International Airport

[distortedlogic]

I emailed Rosylin Weston a few days ago and asked about the cancellation of that route, and the status of the grant which they applied for and here was her response:

Dear Mr. Owens:

Thank you for your email and your concern about the Allegiant Air

Service. Yes, Allegiant has announced that they will stop service to

Las Vegas. Airlines can and do stop service to a particular market for

a whole host of reasons and sometimes those reasons have nothing to do

with the flights being full or not. Unfortunately, service decisions

are made solely by the airlines and not the airport.

The airport has applied for a grant to assist in the recruiting of an

airline to provide direct service to the mid-west - Frontier is an

example of such an airline. We are waiting on grants to be awarded.

We

are told these awards will be made prior to the end of September.

We'll

keep you posted.

Thanks again for your support and your concern.

Sincerely,

Rosylin Weston

Director of Public Relations

GSP International Airport

So it sounds as if they expect the grant to come through, no? But Allegiant's failure in Vegas may not bode well for luring a new western destination. On the other hand, I would think Denver would be a more sustainable destination, with LA better still.