Things in the Sky

Whenever new service is added onto a route, it’s not uncommon to see a bit of a fare war erupt, and it appears that Boston-Baltimore, which will be serviced by JetBlue and Southwest later this year, is no different. Take a look at this graph I made with FareCompare’s website:

Click here for a larger version.

I think it’s safe to say that the additonal competition on the route is at least partially responsible for the fare decreases.

According to this thread on Airliners.net (found via FlyerTalk), Delta has decided to drop the route. What’s interesting is that Delta is just giving up right away. After playing around with their timetable, it looks like the last day of service is August 17. Southwest launches on August 16, and JetBlue on September 9.

The move makes sense to me. It’s not like Baltimore offers a lot of connection opportunities for Delta passengers, so the flights were probably full of O&D passengers. So, the drop in revenue that Delta would probably experience makes the route uneconomical for them. So, those seven flights on CRJs are gone.

Will any other carriers drop the route? Probably not. While Southwest and AirTran might be hurt in the O&D department by JetBlue’s flights, the airport is very important for connecting passengers for both carriers. The JetBlue service still confuses me a bit, though. Since both Southwest and AirTran get connecting passengers on the route, JetBlue can only do so much. I really don’t see it making sense unless JetBlue is planning a further expansion at BWI.