Are fares reasonable here when consumers can shop around and drive to Little Rock or Nashville?
Yes, but it’s hard to convince folks of that. We are so fortunate in Memphis to have the hub here. If you look at the number of nonstop destinations, which I think is 93, it’s because of the hub. Well, if Northwest wasn’t here, if we were exceedingly lucky, we might have 20, because Memphis isn’t large enough to support nonstop service to more than a handful of cities. The hub allows us to manufacture connections. We wouldn’t have International Paper moving here without it. And it would be very difficult for FedEx to do the business they need to do here from a corporate standpoint without the hub here. We have the opportunity to grow the hub with more international destinations. So, do we pay a bit of a premium in some markets because the hub is here? Sometimes yes, absolutely. So the hub is good for the city, but why are some fares higher here? Because the infrastructure that it takes to run a hub is far greater than what it takes to go point to point. The term “low-cost airlines” is
