By Francisco Vara-Orta
The U.S. airline industry has been hard hit by the recession, but some of the in-dustry’s few bright spots landed,and
took off,last week at Southern California airports.
At an “only in Orange County” type of event, Virgin America debuted its San Francisco to OC service with a red carpet reception at John Wayne Airport, complete with cocktails, makeovers and cast members from Bravo’s “Real Housewives” series.
The red carpet treatment didn’t stop there for the high-tech airline: Virgin American gave a dozen fliers first-class seats on the flight, stays at Pacific Edge Hotel in Laguna Beach and South Coast Plaza shopping sprees.
Virgin America will run five roundtrip flights between Santa Ana and San Francisco a day. Virgin America also flies to Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Seattle, Las Vegas, San Diego and Boston.
The privately held airline reported a net loss last year, but it expects to hit profitability by 2010.
Air Canada also is planning to come to John Wayne this summer and is expected to offer international flights to Vancouver and western Canada.
John Wayne Airport could use the business,it saw passenger traffic fall 13% during the past year.
At Los Angeles International Airport, Allegiant Travel Co.’s Allegiant Air, a low-cost airline that offers flights from small cities to leisure markets, began service last week.
The 12-year-old airline, which is based out of Las Vegas, has been profitable for 25 straight quarters amid huge losses by established carriers.
Parent Allegiant Travel reported a net income of $28.2 million for the first quarter, a nearly 200% increase from a year earlier. Rev-enues were up about 7% to $142 million.
Allegiant keeps its fares low through minimal overhead, older, less-expensive planes and simple direct flights between eight “focus cities” and small, rural destinations.
JetBlue Airways Corp. also is adding routes this year, expanding for the first time to LAX with flights to Boston and New York starting in June.
These expansions are welcome news for LAX, which saw an almost 15% decrease in passenger traffic in February compared to a year earlier.
Francisco Vara-Orta is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Additional reporting by Orange County Business Journal staff.
