Quote:
Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
I would LOVE to be able to fly out of ACY since it's 15 minutes....but instead I drive to Philly because I am NOT flying Spirit, which nickels and dimes you for everything from checked luggage to carry on luggage to picking your seat, until your $200 flight is $300 or $400. When they get Southwest in there, I'll be first in line, but as long as it's just Spirit I don't think it's going to do much better than it currently is.
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They do nickel and dime, but the trick is to pack lightly, fitting everything one needs in a backpack that can fit under a seat. If traveling alone, an idea is select an aisle seat (one fee). The big front seats are a lot better, but it'd make things more expensive.
Then when in Florida or the visited city, the next step would be to buy things like toothpaste, etc. down there and do laundry at the hotel. If variety of clothes is important at destination, one can then buy clothes at the stores down there, wear them, and then find a post office and get a flat rate box, and mail it with clothes (hopefully washed) back home. Or, if traveling in a family, just pay for one checked bag but use a huge suitcase.
Southwest won't come to ACY as it acquired AirTran that pulled out. US and AA won't either with the PHL hub not far. The only small chance of alternate carriers are Allegiant with service to SFB, once again Florida, and maybe United to CLE and IAD for connections. These are reasonably close hubs, unlike Delta at ATL. If Delta returned and offered service to ATL and DTW, Spirit would counter and offer much lower fares. Spirit pretty much owns ACY. However, Spirit doesn't fly to CLE so United offering Cleveland service wouldn't have to worry so much about Spirit. However, I doubt United would have offer low fares between CLE-ACY and ultimately those planes would be empty or not profitable. It'd wouldn't do wetll unless the connection fares were reasonable. That is, if United is selling ACY-CLE-MSP for example for $600, and a nonstop out of PHL is $300, people would drive to PHL. However, if connections were priced competitive to what PHL fares were, it might be sustainable.