US LCC stocks slip; Frontier climbing at Milwaukee; Bestfares.com warns of weak autumn 2010 demand
Shares in JetBlue declined 4.0% yesterday, while AirTran, Southwest and Allegiant all slipped, by 3.2%, 2.7%, and 1.5% respectively.
Meanwhile, Bestfares.com warned of weak autumn-2010 demand, stating Southwest Airlines' three-day sale, which offers fares from USD39 per sector between 08-Sep-2010 and 17-Nov-2010, came approximately two weeks earlier than its corresponding autumn sale in 2009. Bestfares.com CEO, Tom Parsons, stated airlines are "having trouble filling up seats this fall", with American Airlines and United Airlines already matching the sale prices.
Frontier climbing at Milwaukee
Midwest Airlines, over the past few years, has seen a decline in its home market of Milwaukee. But now that it is rebranding to Frontier, it is recovering, increasing market share in April by 3 ppts, according to figures released by General Mitchell International Airport. Interestingly, it also reported a clerical error that double-counted some passengers and slightly inflated AirTran's market share since the beginning of the year.
For April, AirTran's share stood at 28.8% compared with Midwest/Frontier's 35.3% share. The airport erroneously reported AirTran had broken the 30% mark earlier this year. In March, AirTran market share was well short of the 30% mark at 20.3%.
Southwest, with only eight flights in the market, and with dismal ticket counter facilities, trailed the two rivals at 8.5% of market share.
Selected LCCs daily share price movements (% change): 22-Jun-2010
Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, Yahoo! Finance & Reuters