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So in May we were going to Los Angeles for my wife's family reunion (I'm a dude using my wife's account) and back in Feb, I started looking for tickets for the 4 of us, my wife, myself and our 2 young daughters. From GSP it was about $1300 with a connection; not bad, but I checked Charlotte, from there it was $1000, again with 1 connection. I was about to buy those but something inside me said, "let me check Atlanta" just for the heck of it. $659 r/t non stop for 4 people! No, that wasn't a typo. That included choosing our seats, 1 50lb check in bag and joining Frontiers Den Deals club. I'm 46 and have been buying tickets for over 25 years and this was by far the best deal that i ever got. We knew going in that it was "no frills" but we all brought backpacks at no charge, both flights were smooth, on time, the flight attendants were pleasant and the passengers were very friendly. I am a Frontier Airlines convert.
Flying GSP to LAX looks like around $250 per ticket round trip. A flight on the same day ATL to LAX is only around $180, so it looks like GSP would be around $70 more per ticket. I hope they do well at GSP - I'd love to see them expand their service.
Right now for the flight we need to SFO, the flight back is a redeye to make it possible to catch the early morning flight out of Denver back to GSP. I could pay ~ $40 more per ticket for a flight the evening before into Denver but then I'd also have to pay for a motel room.
Flying GSP to LAX looks like around $250 per ticket round trip. A flight on the same day ATL to LAX is only around $180, so it looks like GSP would be around $70 more per ticket. I hope they do well at GSP - I'd love to see them expand their service.
Right now for the flight we need to SFO, the flight back is a redeye to make it possible to catch the early morning flight out of Denver back to GSP. I could pay ~ $40 more per ticket for a flight the evening before into Denver but then I'd also have to pay for a motel room.
I'd fly out of GSP for that difference. $70 extra to save about 5 hours drive time and avoid dealing with Atlanta? Worth it.
But.. You multiply that times 4 if you had a family of 4 flying.. Atlanta doesn't seem quite so bad. Until you get there.
Independence Air also, briefly, had direct flights to Las Vegas back in 2005.
Now, that's an airline I miss. Low cost, access to many areas, convenient flights, great staff, nice planes (even if they were all CRJ's other than to Vegas). I actually got into work one morning at about 8am not expecting to go anywhere, was on a plane to Dulles by 10am and returned on the 9pm flight.. and it cost less than $200.
Aint that the truth.. They used to have Fare Sales.. and I would snap up a few round trip tickets to Dulles.. It was a cool quirky airline with their celebrity guest flight attendant voice overs giving you your safety instructions...I would assume the FAA would have gigged them on that since they often made jokes that danced around the notion of how behave (scream) if you were crashing...
Aint that the truth.. They used to have Fare Sales.. and I would snap up a few round trip tickets to Dulles.. It was a cool quirky airline with their celebrity guest flight attendant voice overs giving you your safety instructions...I would assume the FAA would have gigged them on that since they often made jokes that danced around the notion of how behave (scream) if you were crashing...
Independence Air must have not been that great seeing how they no longer exist.
I'd fly out of GSP for that difference. $70 extra to save about 5 hours drive time and avoid dealing with Atlanta? Worth it.
But.. You multiply that times 4 if you had a family of 4 flying.. Atlanta doesn't seem quite so bad. Until you get there.
Atlanta starts to seem bad about the time I hit Milemarker 126 on I-85. I don't understand how anyone can enjoy living there with all of the accompanying traffic. Ill gladly pay an extra $70 a ticket to avoid Atlanta, especially since the airport is on the far side of the city. At least the Charlotte airport is on our side of Charlotte.
Independence Air must have not been that great seeing how they no longer exist.
They came along at the precise wrong time. Operating a fleet of CRJs in 2005 when gas prices skyrocketed. They didn't have a chance.
If that airline, with its infrastructure had come along in the late 90's and gotten a foothold prior to 9/11, or had come along in 2010 or so.. I think they would have made it. Even if they had started a couple of years earlier in 2002, they'd have had a shot. But.. 2004 to 2009.. Just wasn't going to work.
I'd fly out of GSP for that difference. $70 extra to save about 5 hours drive time and avoid dealing with Atlanta? Worth it.
But.. You multiply that times 4 if you had a family of 4 flying.. Atlanta doesn't seem quite so bad. Until you get there.
It really depends upon the connections and flight times (and cost).
Our son used to fly up from Tampa when we lived in Greenville, and we often used ATL instead of GSP. With connections in weird places the extra flight time was often 3+ hours, so we'd save the extra cash and spend the day in ATL.
My parents last flight from GSP to Tampa connected through Houston, and was almost 14 hours door to door. I routinely made that drive in 10 hours. But they used a bunch of points and flew for almost nothing so they were happy to waste the extra time.
But in other situations I could find flights that were timed and priced right, and we'd fly him directly into GSP.
It really depends upon the connections and flight times (and cost).
Our son used to fly up from Tampa when we lived in Greenville, and we often used ATL instead of GSP. With connections in weird places the extra flight time was often 3+ hours, so we'd save the extra cash and spend the day in ATL.
My parents last flight from GSP to Tampa connected through Houston, and was almost 14 hours door to door. I routinely made that drive in 10 hours. But they used a bunch of points and flew for almost nothing so they were happy to waste the extra time.
But in other situations I could find flights that were timed and priced right, and we'd fly him directly into GSP.
As I said before.. Flying out of Charlotte? Probably if I saved $50 i'd do it. I love the Charlotte airport.. The drive is nice (Well, until they decided to drop a bomb on I-85 in Spartanburg)..
It takes alot to get me to go out of Atlanta. I have done it a few times in recent years, in fact, most times i've flown in recent years, because of various reasons. In 2015 and 2016 I went out to Vegas with a teen each time and getting the direct flight was a factor. This year, going to Vegas, i'll have folks from Alabama traveling with me, so, Atlanta worked the best.
I went to see my dad in Des Moines last year, flew out of Charlotte.. Saved about $100 and, as I've said.. I don't mind Charlotte at all.
When the boy and I went to see him back in 2010 or so, we flew GSP to Kansas City as that was cheap and convenient.. Until USAirways cocked up flights out there and back and I wound up returning... To Charlotte and renting a car because they cancelled all flights back to GSP.
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