Less-Than-Daily Service: The New Thing?

A nationally recognized reporter, writer, and consumer advocate, Ed Perkins focuses on how travelers can find the best deals and avoid scams.

He is the author of "Online Travel" (2000) and "Business Travel: When It's Your Money" (2004), the first step-by-step guide specifically written for small business and self-employed professional travelers. He was also the co-author of the annual "Best Travel Deals" series from Consumers Union.

Perkins' advice for business travelers is featured on MyBusinessTravel.com, a website devoted to helping small business and self-employed professional travelers find the best value for their travel dollars.

Perkins was founding editor of Consumer Reports Travel Letter, one of the country's most influential travel publications, from which he retired in 1998. He has also written for Business Traveller magazine (London).

Perkins' travel expertise has led to frequent television appearances, including ABC's "Good Morning America" and "This Week with David Brinkley," "The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather," CNN, and numerous local TV and radio stations.

Before editing Consumer Reports Travel Letter, Perkins spent 25 years in travel research and consulting with assignments ranging from national tourism development strategies to the design of computer-based tourism models.

Born in Evanston, Illinois, Perkins lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife.

See recent posts by Ed Perkins

Frontier just announced that it’s resuming nonstop flights from its Denver hub to Fargo, with three-times-weekly flights. And my friend Don in the North Carolina High Country reports that come fall, US Airways will switch is daily summertime Charlotte-to-Portland nonstops to three flights a week.

Clearly, two isolated schedule changes don’t make a trend. But you have to wonder if this does, in fact, signal the start of something like a trend among the network airlines.

For as long as I can remember, the network airlines’ gospel has been to serve each domestic hub-and-spoke route at least once daily. Where traffic wasn’t enough to support these frequencies with mainline equipment (these days, 737s, 319s, and MD80s), airlines would keep frequencies up by switching to smaller regional jets or turboprops. But those small planes are becoming increasingly uneconomical to operate, so switching to less-than-daily flights with bigger planes looks enticing to the bean counters.

The question is whether less-than-daily flights will also look enticing to the marketplace. To be sure, Allegiant has developed a cash cow with its special business model of infrequent flights from smalltown U.S.A. to blockbuster tourist destinations. But Allegiant caters strictly to leisure flyers looking to spend a few days in popular destinations, while traditionally the network airlines have found they also need some high-fare business travelers in their mix to make a profit. And industry conventional wisdom is that those business travelers demand good frequencies.

Industry watchers will no doubt take a close look at these and any other routes downsized to less-than-daily flights. If they work, you can expect more. And that means if you traditionally fly on a relatively low-traffic route such as Charlotte-to-Portland, be warned that you may face some combination of no-fly days and the need to change planes rather than fly nonstop.

You Might Also Like:

We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.