US: Where are all the start-up airlines to save you money?
In these heady days for airlines, when they “own” hub cities and can charge US$500 to change a ticket, one might wonder what happened to all the entrepreneurs. The kind of people who sketch route maps on cocktail napkins or split from their former airlines and started new ones. Despite cheap fuel and financing, almost no new, well-capitalised airlines with national aspirations have appeared since the wave of bankruptcies and consolidations of the past decade. And Virgin America, which began flying in August 2007, is planning to merge into Alaska Air Group. It’s largely because the US has become an ocean of whales, with scant space for small fry. Anyone who wants to launch an airline faces high hurdles, given the scarcity of gates and terminal facilities at most airports, not to mention the capital costs. <br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2016-04-21/general/us-where-are-all-the-start-up-airlines-to-save-you-money
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US: Where are all the start-up airlines to save you money?
In these heady days for airlines, when they “own” hub cities and can charge US$500 to change a ticket, one might wonder what happened to all the entrepreneurs. The kind of people who sketch route maps on cocktail napkins or split from their former airlines and started new ones. Despite cheap fuel and financing, almost no new, well-capitalised airlines with national aspirations have appeared since the wave of bankruptcies and consolidations of the past decade. And Virgin America, which began flying in August 2007, is planning to merge into Alaska Air Group. It’s largely because the US has become an ocean of whales, with scant space for small fry. Anyone who wants to launch an airline faces high hurdles, given the scarcity of gates and terminal facilities at most airports, not to mention the capital costs. <br/>
