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    • November 17, 2008

    Virgin America Can’t Get Gates at O’Hare (at least for now)

    Filed under: Airport, Virgin America — Rick Seaney @ 10:25 am

    Virgin America was supposed to be flying in and out of Chicago this fall, but that’s been pushed back to late February.

    Now, according to the Chicago Tribune, officials with the discount carrier are wondering if Virgin America has any future at all in Chicago.

    It’s not the landing rights - the airline already has that. It’s the gates. Other airlines have control of all the gates, through 2018, and talks between Virgin America and American, United and Delta have apparently gone nowhere.

    You would think there might be room to negotiate - after all, the legacy carriers in question have undergone deep capacity cuts this year - but apparently none want to part with any gates, at least for now. And that could lead Virgin America to forget about Chicago altogether.

    Meanwhile, city officials in Chicago are trying to broker a deal for Virgin - so it would be premature, I think, to count Virgin America out yet.
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    3 Comments »

    1. I think VX should walk away. They have a far superior product than the legacy carriers. It’s definitely O’Hare’s loss.

      Although I wonder what’s wrong with Midway? When I go to CHI, I prefer MDW, it’s actually much closer to the real city and connected via rail.

      Comment by Bryan SFO — November 17, 2008 @ 3:29 pm

    2. I wonder if the managers at O’Hare are just being cautious.

      My prediction is that Virgin will soon be in serious financial trouble. It simply isn’t large enough in this new credit crunch age, and I see it making big losses over the next year or two, if not going out of business altogether.

      Comment by Geoff — November 18, 2008 @ 2:31 pm

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