What is going on with Independance Air?

[Niagara2]

I read on another thread that a Washington DC newspaper predicts that Independance Air will be out of business by Spring. Does anyone know why or have a link to that story?
Yiks - we booked for this Thanksgiving. I hope they last that long. Actually I hope they stay in business and thrive. It is nice to have another low cost carrier in town.

 

[NCRedding]

I am not computer savvy enough to post a link. Go to washingtonpost.com, click on business and do a search of "independence air" I read nothing in the article that indicated that they would not be around next year. What the article mentioned was two negative credit reports. Standard and Poor's has put them on "credit watch with negative implications" (whatever that means) They already had a b minus credit rating. The articled did say that someone gave Independence a 65% chance of filing for Chapter 11 next year.

 

[Captain Blue Sky]

Independence Air is in dires straits. Their load factors on most flights hover around 40%. That means, on a 50 passenger regional jet they are filling about 22 seats. Hardly enough to even approach the break-even point. In Charlotte, where they started scheduled service on October 1st, there is talk of them being out-of-business as early as December. This is definitely NOT the time to start an airline! Oil prices as high as they are, coupled with excess capacity with air carriers results in falling prices for seats and no way to recoop the price of fuel. They are supposed to be putting AirBus A318s into service soon, but it is doubtful that they will if they can't even fill a regional jet to operationally break-even. Very gloomy outlook for Independence Air...

 

[cruise-o-matic]

I hope they can stick it out. When they started selling flights (beginning 11/3) out of GSO, Delta's prices dropped dramatically. They're the only two carriers out of GSo with direct flights to MCO.

Oh well, RDU has SW and it's only 75 minutes away.

 

[Regina]

We flew I Air to Charlotte on the first day that they had service there. Our flight was delayed and we missed the 11:40am connection in Dulles. They rescheduled us for the 8:50pm flight since that was the first that had seats available. (Fortunately, we were able to get onto the 4:30, but that's a whole other "fun" story.)

Both DH and I commented on how busy their terminal was. It was crazy. There were always tons of people going in and out. Meanwhile, we went to another terminal to get some lunch and it was so empty you could hear a pin drop.

Back to Charlotte, the Friday and Monday flights that we took were full. Not saying that's the case for all flights, but it was for ours.

I'd try them again. The local airport that we prefer is usually too expensive. You can't beat I Air's prices.

 

[sanilacjack]

I was all set to book 4 one way tickets from MCO to Detroit.

Yesterday they were 89.00, today they are 199.00

I was kicking myself til I read this thread. The flight was for April.


-Kim

 

[Niagara2]

Thanks for the info - today they annouced a big sale too!!