Low-fare carrier Song to add transcontinental flights

Monday, Feb. 21, 2005 | 10:36 a.m.

Delta Air Lines' discount subsidiary Song made a big splash in Las Vegas when the lime green-scripted Boeing 757 jets first rolled into McCarran International Airport in July 2003.

Song was Delta's entry in the low-cost carrier arena and Las Vegas represented the prototypical destination for the fledgling airline.

Today, Song is on the move, expanding its route map. But there's no reprise of "Viva Las Vegas" on Song's playlist. The airline will stand pat on existing flights linking the city with Boston, New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Instead, Song is adding transcontinental flights between New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle in May.

In June, the airline will add two round trips a day from New York to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in July, weekly service from New York to Aruba.

The company also has a new president, Joanne Smith, who says while Las Vegas represented a good start-up destination, that it doesn't have enough originating traffic to warrant nonstop flights to some of Song's exotic Caribbean destinations.

"We're coming into our peak season for Vegas and would love to get more originating traffic there," Smith said in a telephone interview.

But Song is what it is -- an airline built to provide low fares and popular amenities for East Coast residents looking to escape to a resort destination. It isn't likely Song will soon offer nonstop flights to the Caribbean because there simply isn't enough traffic in the two resort destinations to warrant it.

"Anything is possible," Smith said. "We don't have any plans, but our goal is to fill up every plane we currently fly, including those to Las Vegas."

Song currently has two daily round trips to and from New York and one each to and from Boston, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. Those five flights represent one-fifth of Delta Air Lines' presence at McCarran where the airline completed 2004 as the No. 4 commercial passenger carrier at the airport with 2.8 million passengers. McCarran does not separate Delta and Song statistics.

Smith said Song, which has 36 jets in its fleet and will add 12 more through its expansion later this year, delivers one of the most comprehensive inflight entertainment systems in the air, with 24 channels of free Dish Network TV, 24 channels of digital radio and 10 movies on demand that can be stopped and started at a passenger's convenience.

Passengers also have digitally streamed MP3 programming that can be programmed to play 32 songs from an inventory of 1,600 selections, 10 video games and an interactive trivia game that allows play between passengers and an iXplor moving map program that tracks the flight.

Song's food offerings also have become passenger favorites. The airline offers a buy-on-board menu that includes a variety of healthy choices as well as signature cocktails.

Smith said a cost structure of unrestricted one-way fares ranging from $79 to $299 has been the biggest magnet for Song.

"It's single-class and a huge all-coach product, but we believe we have the best coach product in the market," Smith said.

Mike Boyd, an aviation consultant with the Evergreen, Colo.-based Boyd Group, said Delta has done a good job differentiating the Song product from the Delta mainline flights.

"(Song's) focus is almost entirely on carrying low-fare traffic to Florida," Boyd said.

A critic of United Airlines' Ted low-fare offering, Boyd said Song works because Delta does not mix the two products. While Song flies between population centers and resort destinations, Delta is a hub-and-spoke operation that moves traffic through its Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati and Salt Lake City hub airports.

Boyd said Song's new transcontinental service is designed "to throw a couple of rocks at JetBlue," a similarly positioned low-fare rival.