Will travelers seek out no-frills Skybus?

By JOHN GILLIE
Thursday, April 26, 2007

If you think some things are too good to be true, consider this: Beginning May 29, you can fly on a new airline, Skybus, from "Seattle-Vancouver" to the East Coast and back for as little as $40 plus taxes.

You'll fly on a new Airbus A319. You can make your reservations online. And parking at the airport is just $6 a day. All true. All good.

But now, the inevitable fine print:

_ You'll be stopping and probably changing planes in Columbus, Ohio.

_ The airport Skybus calls "Seattle-Vancouver" appears on most maps as Bellingham. On the East Coast, "Boston" is Portsmouth, N.H.

_ You'll be making your reservations on the Internet, because Skybus doesn't sell its tickets any other way. It has no reservation phone number and no ticket offices. It doesn't sell tickets through travel agents.

_ There are no assigned seats, not even A, B and C boarding groups like Southwest uses. For $10 extra per flight, however, you can board right after the passengers with small children and passengers with disabilities and before your fellow passengers.

_ There is no complimentary food or beverage service, not even peanuts. The airline forbids bringing food or drinks aboard. It does sell refreshments, however.

_ Checked bags cost $5 each for up to two. After that it's $50 a bag.

_ Forget airborne entertainment. The airline advises "bring a book."

_ Not all tickets are the promotional $10 per segment. Once the cheapest tickets are sold out, fares range from $30 to $50 per segment. Since all flights stop in Columbus, you'll have to book two segments to reach any of the airline's present eastern destinations, "Boston," Richmond, Va., Greensboro, N.C., or Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

_ Pillows and blankets cost extra, but you get to keep them.

_ Short legs will be helpful. The distance between seats is just 29 inches. That's two or three inches less than most major airlines. The Airbus 319 typically seats 124 passengers in a mixed class configuration employed by other airlines. In the all-coach Skybus configuration, the plane will hold 156 passengers.

The idea behind Skybus, says Skybus Chief Executive Officer Bill Diffenderffer, is keeping things simple.

"We know how to take the complexity out of air travel while making it very affordable," he said.

Taking the complexity out means eliminating the frills, flying from less-traveled airports, automating tasks where possible and making money on the extras.

The Skybus formula has proved highly successful in Europe, where Irish discount carrier Ryanair has pioneered bare-bones flying. While U.S. discount airlines and even legacy carriers have borrowed some strategies from Ryanair such as selling meals aboard, none has gone as far as Skybus, built from scratch on the Ryanair model.

Some airlines say the spare, no-extras formula won't work in the United States because flying distances are greater and the competition is more agile than the big flagship airlines that Ryanair took on in Europe.

U.S. airlines have already pared down costs, and their fares have dropped dramatically from levels of just a few years ago.

The question, say experts, is how much U.S. airline passengers are willing to sacrifice for low fares.

Whether Skybus will become another failed airline or the next Southwest remains an open question. But Skybus reports huge traffic on its Web site (www.skybus.com) since it began accepting bookings Tuesday.