For passengers on Skybus debut, it’s all about the price:
While other US airlines have been trimming frills and edging into a-la-carte pricing for once-free services like checked baggage and extra legroom seats, Skybus takes frugality to new levels. The airline promises at least 10 $10 fares on every flight — although by Tuesday afternoon those were all gone for June and July on the Portsmouth-Columbus route. Skybus’s website offered only $30 to $150 one-way tickets, which were still significantly less expensive than other airlines.All any of the Skybus tickets buy, though, is a seat on the plane. Passengers have to pay $5 to check a bag, $8 for a blanket, $15 for a pillow, and $10 to wait at the front of the line, since there are no assigned seats. Except for babies and people with medical needs, passengers are forbidden to bring food or drink on board so Skybus squelches any free competition for its $5 Budweisers and $10 meat loaf plates.
There are no movies. And by eliminating first-class seating, it squeezes 144 coach seats on a model of plane that has 124 or 126 seats in two classes on most other carriers — although Skybus’s 30-inch coach ‘‘seat pitch,’’ or spacing between seats, is the same as Northwest Airlines and US Airways in coach.
Also holding down costs: There is no phone number customers can call. All tickets are sold online, and the only access to Skybus customer service is the gate agent at the airport. One big revenue stream for the airline is making its jets flying billboards for Nationwide Insurance, which pays an undisclosed fee to get its name and website on the fuselage and inside the cabin.