Over the past few months, we’ve seen a few airlines announce their intention to carefully stick their foot into the DFW market.  First it was Virgin America with flights from both San Francisco and Los Angeles to DFW.  Next up, Spirit Airlines decided to try things out a la Allegiant style to Las Vegas and Fort Lauderdale.

I think Virgin America has every chance of making a go at this and, frankly, may be just a bit late in their timing.  This is the perfect time to go against American Airlines with a superior service product and Virgin has it.  The trick will be in enticing business customers in the DFW area and with the right kind of local advertising, they’ve got a shot.

Spirit Airlines has visited DFW, briefly, once before.  This time they’re offering flights to Fort Lauderdale where passengers can connect to their Caribbean flights.   Then they have their Las Vegas run which should potentially do OK given the current fares to Las Vegas from American Airlines.  I suspect that with any challenge from AA at all, they’ll drop that route like a man pulling weeds who finds his hand full of rattlesnake.

The real question is will Dallas embrace an Ultra Low Cost Carrier?  Maybe.  This is a fickle city that has firm ideas on what airline service is.  Southwest has spoiled us and I don’t know if Spirit’s “Ryanair-like” attitude will go down well here.  I’m personally intrigued by Spirits offerings because if they schedule things right, I might be interested in trying them out all the way from DFW to Colombia.

I’m glad to see some new airlines show up but let’s not get carried away.  These airlines are simply sticking a toe into market to see the temperature is right.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax