I have been searching for months now to get good fares out of Mobile. Pensacola if half the price. Who%26#39;s getting rich off of us? The airlines or Mobile Airport Authority? I%26#39;ve contacted each airline and MAA and have been given completely different responses. I think it is a scam and they are taking advantage of the locals and visitors. Stop the maddness!
Airfare Rip Off!
Two words make Pensacola cheaper to fly from: Air Tran. Since they don%26#39;t fly out of Mobile there is nobody to keep the prices down. You might check Gulfport. Sometimes it%26#39;s cheaper than Mobile. I always use Pensacola.
Airfare Rip Off!
What Mobile needs is South West. Prices would come down. They fly out of New Orleans, but who wants to drive three to four hours to get there or worse yet, leave your car parked there. Gulfport/Biloxi does have Allegiant Air flying directly to Las Vegas now.
Mobile is expensive for domestic flights, as already noted, due to the lack of a true ';low-cost'; carrier. To answer the question, the airlines are making the money... not the Mobile Airport Authority. But none of the Gulf Coast airports have an international low-cost carrier -- something that really hasn%26#39;t been done in the US anywhere. Thus, Mobile%26#39;s prices to Europe are competitive with every airport on the Gulf. Domestically, I use New Orleans... the cost difference is staggering and definitely worth the 2-hour drive. Don%26#39;t waste your time on MSY when flying to most international destinations, as Mobile will do just fine. (PS -- Don%26#39;t be married to Southwest either. While they help bring down prices, the better airlines like Continental usually beat their prices -- at least from New Orleans. And Continental was the first to fully restore service to that city, something SW hasn%26#39;t bothered to do. Sorry, a bit of a soapbox, but a commitment to the community should be worth something!)
I understand the thing with Air Tran out of Pensacola, but their fares are higher than the other airlines out of PNS. Air Tran also serves GPT and their fares are still a lot more that P%26#39;cola. Competition with having a low-cost carrier may help, but it doesn%26#39;t seem to be the total solution.
I would rather chew on a razor blade than fly Southwest, even if some of the FAs are funny.
Another reason I don%26#39;t use Mobile is that it%26#39;s such a pain to get to. Airport Blvd is awful and, frankly, I find the airport totally without warmth and just not very nice.
mobileskier, you are right about the Air tran fairs out of Pensacola. I travel from Pensacola to many places and I can%26#39;t figure why they wanted to lure Air Tran here. They have never had any low prices to anywhere I wanted to go and when I wanted to go, so I always ended up using US airways.
I agree that it isn%26#39;t the total solution, but keep the horse in front of the cart. One of the reasons other airlines%26#39; prices are cheaper than AT%26#39;s ex-PNS (and that%26#39;s not always the case) is BECAUSE AirTran is there. If there was no LCC at PNS then the legacies could (and would) charge MOB prices or higher. I think the GPT issue has more to do with volume than anything else.
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