Legend shutdown reduces Vegas travel options a bit

Monday, Dec. 4, 2000 | 10:59 a.m.

The Sunday bankruptcy filing of Dallas-based Legend Airlines won't put a huge dent in the number of visitors to Las Vegas, but it will eliminate an option for Texas gamblers who want to fly here.

Legend, which filed for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas-Dallas Division, was one of six carriers that offer nonstop service between Dallas and Las Vegas.

But Legend was the only one that flew directly from central Dallas' Love Field while the other five -- American, National, Delta, America West and Sun Country -- fly to and from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Legend's one daily round-trip flight between Dallas and Las Vegas was discontinued Saturday.

"It's really a shame," said Harry Kassap, manager of air service development at McCarran International Airport. "They did a really nice job, they had a first-class product. A lot of naysayers said from Day 1 that they would be hard pressed to make a first-class-only airline work economically, but I thought they had gotten it right.

"Every single person that I knew that flew them raved about the service," Kassap said. "I never heard a negative comment about them."

But the economics of flying planes with fewer seats heavily laden with extras was what resulted in Legend's downfall.

Legend spent millions retrofitting a fleet of seven used McDonnell Douglas twin-engine DC-9 jets. The 56-passenger planes featured leather seats, live satellite TV service on individual screens at each seat and first-class meals.

The MGM Grand hotel-casino attempted to fly a first-class luxury airline linking Los Angeles and New York with Las Vegas in the early 1990s. That venture failed after a year.

Legend's bankruptcy filing came a day after it shut down operations following $44.7 million in losses since its launch in 1996.

A link from McCarran's Internet site for Legend directs passengers to a statement from T. Allan McArtor, president and chief executive officer of the airline, who told passengers holding Legend tickets to try other carriers who offered to make transfers on a standby basis.

McArtor suggested transfers to American, America West, Continental and Continental Express, Delta, Frontier and National.

McArtor said Legend would fly again, but a McCarran spokeswoman said the airport has not been notified of the airline's plans.

"We are doing our best to assemble the necessary resources to get our airline back in the air with service for our customers," McArtor said in a statement. He said the company was talking to venture-capital firms, other airlines and individual investors and hopes to resume flying by the end of the year.

McArtor said he has not ruled out selling the airline, but said he hoped to avoid that option.

McArtor, a former director of the Federal Aviation Administration, said the airline was hurt by high costs of fuel as well as retrofitting its planes.

The 56 seats on Legend's jets are the maximum number allowable on planes that can fly from Love Field to destinations beyond Texas and adjacent states. The Wright Amendment, which governs air traffic at Dallas' two major airport, has a restriction on planes operating from Love Field and was implemented to spur growth of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport when it was built.

The restriction is still in effect and is the primary reason Southwest Airlines, the largest carrier serving McCarran, doesn't have direct service to Dallas.

Passengers who want to fly Southwest to Dallas can buy separate tickets from Las Vegas to another city and from that city to Dallas and the airline will accommodate people who make the inquiry. But it doesn't have a Las Vegas-Dallas route in its schedule. Travel agents say it's rarely an economical option to use such an itinerary.

But National, which is based in Las Vegas, helps keep fares low on that route with its three daily flights to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

Dennis Casteel of Carlson Wagonlit Summerlin Travel said the route is dominated by American, which averages seven flights a day between Dallas and Las Vegas, and Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, which uses Dallas as a connecting airport for travel to the southeastern United States and internationally.

Delta has three daily Las Vegas-Dallas flights and America West and Sun Country offer one each.

Casteel said Legend generally matched the low fares offered by other carriers between Dallas and Las Vegas, even though it had the larger seats and upgraded service. But the flights, which operated from McCarran's D gates, arrived and departed daily after midnight, making it less appealing to many travelers.

"But I had some customers who wanted to use it because of the convenience of flying into Love Field," he said.

Fares on the route currently range between $228 and $258 a seat for a nonstop, restricted seat.

Because Legend had less than 1 percent of the market share on the route, the airline's absence isn't expected to have a major impact on Las Vegas tourism, said Bill Mahaffey, manager of transportation for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

"Anytime we lose a carrier for any reason, it impacts Las Vegas," Mahaffey said. "But they had to fly on such a restricted basis with few seats, so the impact will be minimal."

LVCVA researcher Kevin Bagger said Dallas is the 10th largest market for visitation to Las Vegas and in 1999, that city accounted for an estimated 292,500 air travelers to Las Vegas.

Legend began flying on April 5, starting its Las Vegas service in the summer.

Last week, Legend reported it lost $25.6 million during its first six months of service. The airline had just $184,522 in cash on hand as of Sept. 30 -- enough, at its current rate of drawing down cash, to last until Christmas week.

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