Onward flights in the US with budget airlines

[Flightmapping]

I was wondering how popular the no frills airlines in the USA are with pax from Europe.

Although I would imagine the majority of passengers making connecting flights within the USA will use one of the major airline network hubs, there must still be a reasonable number of people who make their own DIY bookings.

Is this made more popular by the fact that bags must be re-checked after clearing customs at the first port of entry to the US, removing some of the advantage of having a through booking?

Whereas business travellers are obviously going to want to get to their destination as soon as possible, for independent travellers, there must be big advantages in breaking the journey for a stopover, especially in New York or Orlando.

Continuing a journey with Jet Blue would even give the advantage of a 34" seat pitch - much larger than the average transatlantic economy seat.

With NYC nearly always offering the cheapest transatlantic fares, Jet Blue & Song must be amongst the most popular onward airlines, with Air Tran maybe picking up a few pax at ATL, and Southwest offering connections at MCO, PHL, LAX and maybe a few at PHX and LAS?

[Mr @ Spotty M]

The main problem with the low cost airlines is that they are not listed with the likes of Opodo, Travelocity.uk and Expedia.uk.
This means that you can not book with them that easily, as most low cost airline sites and web booking sites will only accept US Bank cards.

[zed3]

I fly every year in November to Las Vegas to visit friends and use Lufthansa to either Los Angeles or (in the past , now no more Phoenix) . Connecting with South West onward was no problem if one left 2 or so hours between flights . By the way the family cleared Immigration at LAX last month in 20 mins !!! Booking online from Europe with a European credit card is no problem and you just turn up with a PNR .

[Sharjah Night Shift]

I've had no problems booking Southwest or Westjet in Canada with a UK credit card.

The downside is that you get no assistance or rebooking if you miss your connection due to your trans atlantic flight being late. To avoid these problems I usually book an airport hotel on arrival and take the first flight out the next morning.

[Flightmapping]

I should have added that I booked JFK to SJU earlier in the year, but used AA because of the timings, although I did check out Jet Blue as an option. I arrived from BHX at EWR on CO, stayed several days in New York for a conference, and then went out through JFK. Coming back, I booked an airport hotel near EWR, so I didn't have to worry about missing the connection. I was quite happy breaking up the journey so that there was at least a night in each place, but obviously could have got a through booking LHR-JFK-SJU with stopover, and then SJU-JFK-LHR without. Going BHX-EWR-SJU was prohibitively expensive.

[OLNEY 1 BRAVO]

Used Jet Blue in 2002 from JFK to Fort Myers ... they were excellent.

Booked over the internet using a credit card ... you can even pre-book your seats at no extra cost.

[eoinok]

You can get a rough guide to all the low cost operator's here....

http://www.etn.nl/lcostair.htm

[CargoOne]

I don't think many European pax doing that. There are few reasons behind it:

1. The airfare (especially discounted Y-class which most of the travellers actually buing) for ORIGIN-HUB-DESTINATION service via carrier's hub is almost the same with the price just for ORIGIN-HUB. Just a quick example: discounted Y-class return ticket on AA from FRA to ATL (via ORD) costs $635. If you buy only FRA-ORD return ticket it is priced $621. You hardly can find a low-cost carrier who will take you ORD-ATL-ORD just for $14.

2. Single ticket. You know what I mean. As soon as you travelling on a single ticket all potential problems (cancellation/delay/weather/etc) are airline problem. If you got a two separate tickets all problems will be yours.

3. FF Miles. It is important for people who flying more or less frequently.

[V12]

IMHO JetBlue are outstanding. Cheap fares and real nice attitude thereafter - none of this extra charging for any changes. I recently flew LHR-JFK on VS, arrived early and found I had 4 hr to kill in T6 at JFK before my connection to PBI. They let me go standby at no extra charge on the earlier flt, so I was a/b JFK in under 1 hr from landing on VS!
New A320, free TV on board (24 channels), free headsets, free drinks and cookies/crisps. On return I again managed standby for an earlier return at no charge. Same excellent service and then to cap it all on pushback ex PBI all the gate staff came down to the extreme edge of the active taxi-way and as we rolled forward to go, they all waved like we were their personal best friends. I couldn't believe it, but felt a million bucks. You have to hand it to them - great airline, great service.
Two other things: in T6 at JFK they give you free Wi-Fi access (most US apts charge you $8 a day); and also their fares can go down nearer to the flt date, unlike FR/EZY. 3 days out the fare was $179, 2 days out it was $120, even though the flight was then showing 95% full.
I've flown almost 1000 flights and these guys were really best value for money ever.
(and NO, I don't work for them)

[Flightmapping]

V12,

Interesting to hear your comments about Jet Blue - I think their mission, however corny, is to be "the best airline in the world". Whatever Ryanair might say about wanting to be the biggest, I don't think they've ever made any claims about being the best.

Out of interest, what was your logic for flying LHR - JFK - PBI, as opposed to LHR to MIA direct - after all PBI & MIA aren't that far apart, and fares to MIA are usually pretty competitive.

Cargo One, I think it really depends on the hub, the cost, and the final destination. Flights to NYC are regularly sub £200, but I don't think you'd get onward connections for just another few quid.

Also, there are plenty of places where the hub & spokes of the network airlines will not match in the same way that the budget airlines routes will.

Of course the majority of people will book through flights for the very reasons you mentioned (and of course the time it would take to work out all the permutations) - my interest is in the (quite possibly significant) minority who do things differently.

[CargoOne]

Flightmapping

Well... NYC and especially JFK is a kind of standalone destination, it is acting as hub as well but not for major carriers & alliances.

Normally you can expect any major network/alliance to bring you from main European cities (like LON/FRA/AMS/PAR/etc) to almost any US destination by maximum 2 connections, and even 1 connection if your destination in US a notable city. I'm not very familiar with US low cost market, but I expect US locos are flying more or less the same destinations (may be close-located cheap airports) like majors, so I don't see the point of choosing major+loco becuase you hardly winning in total airfare.

The only point I can see (apart from the cases when you just want to fly particular airline/equipment for the sake of it) only one advantage you can get: a "free" stopover of the lenght you want.Advantage is applicable to discounted Y-class tickets, becuase C-class ticket normally allowing you a stopover, and I think that full fare Y allowing that as well (never tried it, costs just 2-5% less that C-class :)

Actually, once I've been considering to try such combination.. I wanted to try Lufthansa DUS-EWR service which is operated by Privatair using BBJ in all-business class config (wanted to try just for the sake of flying BBJ, anyway C-class fares are not really different).. So I've been considering to take it to EWR, make a day stopover there and to continue on Jet Blue. However I've checked with LH and been advised that service standarts on this flight are LH business class standarts (:yuk: ), not a Privatair one... So makes no sense, I opted for 2 sectors on BA Club World with connection in LHR.