Figures they would do that... They pulled the ONLY profitable flight that they had to SLC in May.... The afternoon flight is a terrible flight, they knew that and PURPOSELY took it away to justify removing Bakersfield. 

We build this fancy schmancy airport terminal that cost ALOT of money and airlines start pulling out?   Express Jet was how my sister usually comes into Bakersfield from Oklahoma, and I believe that's now gone or going.

It'ss a sad state of affairs but in all fairness, this one isn't our fault.  Airlines won't run at a loss.  I saw they're watching carryons now to make sure you don't take one on that's oversized since they're charging for checking bags.

All the airlines will be gone by December, at least those departing from Bakersfield. We don't seem to generate enough revenue for them, and in this economic state... well, who can blame them. I wish we could keep them, but I just don't see how!

The move out of Bakersfield by Delta is yet another example of the utter ignorance of those who manage in the airline industry.  Like Continental, Delta enjoyed virtually full flights to this market and airfares that yielded some of their highest revenue per passenger mile.  Delta's profitability expanded beyond just Bakersfield as its passengers connected to various lucrative international flights, so in cutting off Bakersfield, they have cut off a secondary source of badly needed revenue.   Meanwhile, Delta continues to serve other markets in its system that do not pay their way. Those who will gain if they are smart enough to see it are United and USAirways.  At some point, some airlines will realize that pulling out of Bakersfield  was a dumb move and come back.  Hopefully, Meadows Field Officials can talk some sense into them.

What an unfortunate cycle this creates.  Fewer choices and (likely) higher fares out of BFL will force fliers to out-of-town airports.  Lower local usage will lead to . . . wait for it . . . airlines reducing even further the number of flights out of BFL.

I have said it many times before on these blogs.  BFL finally has a nice airport.  It's so much more convenient to use than going out of town.  When I'm traveling by myself, I usually do fly out of BFL.  But when the family flies, it's usually cheaper (a LOT cheaper in some instances) to use either LAX or Burbank, and one's options for flights/schedules are much greater. 

I purchased tickets in February for my family to fly to Indianapolis in August.  My preference would have been to fly out of BFL, but the cheapest fares I could find on the limited carriers available were in the range of $500-$600 per ticket.  I ended up purchasing 3 tickets on Northwestern out of LAX with trip insurance for $919.50.  A night in a hotel with free breakfast the next morning, free parking for a week and free shuttle service to the airport will be $129.00.  The extra days of parking will be $5/day for $30.00.  The cost for a tank of gas which will take me beyond the round trip to LA and back, approx $65.00.  That comes to a total of $1143.50.  Even if I'd been able to find someone to take us to the airport in BFL and pick us up, the price of the plane tickets alone would have been over $1500 and closer to $1800.   And the flight times are ideal for us both in terms of departure time on the west coast (not too early) and arrival time in Eastern Time Zone (not too late).  Oh, one other thing -- it's a direct flight, no multiple take-offs and landings for the two with me who get queasy.

My grandkids flew in from Phoenix and back a few weeks ago and even with the Airport Bus fee it was cheaper for them to fly in to LAX.   They would have saved a lot of time by flying in here but they didn't have the extra money to spare.  They joked about how it would have been as fast for them to drive the 8 hours but their car isn't that trustworthy.  Trapped by costs and that's just crazy....flights in and out of Bakersfield could have had the money if it had been reasonable.

This is just another example of why government should not be meddling in business. A bunch of public money was ponied up to bring in these airlines. Look at the Mexicana deal we offered a bunch of incentives and as soon as they were used Mexicana left and we were left with what $70,000 in unpaid runway fees? If it was profitable for the airlines to fly in and out of Bakersfield they would be here. We shouldn't expect them to stick around if it isn't.

Now we have a terminal that just like its name sake will have a legacy of government waste and bloated budgets.

I fly 100,000 miles a year mostly to the midwest and east coast and am Platinum Elite and Million Miler on Delta. Since 2001, I've driven to LAX which, of course, adds at least two hours to every trip - not so pretty good especially if you've worked an 18-hour day ending at 2 a.m. and catching a 6 a.m. flight back to the west coast. Needless to say, when Delta returned to the market going a few miles and navigating a short Security line was outstanding. It's easy to rain on Delta's parade; the only reason it - and other legacy carriers - are still flying at all is their international service that subsidizes domestic routes. That's why USAir likely will be the next to join National, PanAm and others in the history books. So at some point Bakersfield can probably kiss that service good-bye as well. America West, after reorganization, was a nice carrier. Thanks to consolidation, it's a rerun of USAir's takeover of Pacific Southwest. Bakersfield is held hostage by geography. It's too close to the LA basin and there aren't enough frequent business travelers here to support the kind of service the community would like. So - what happened to Continental and Houston? One would have thought the petroleum industry would have made that a slam-dunk. Wrong. End of report. Bottom line - it's sad, I don't like it but for a myriad of reasons that's the way it's going to be and nobody can do anything about it. Well, the government could by re-regulating the airline industry. Let's see - based on what the going rate for tickets was before deregulation, you'd probably pay $2,000 for a BFL-SLC ticket.

Owen A. Kearns

You can take the Airporter buss to LAX,, But the schedules are not in tune to the international traveler,, the earliest buss gets you to LAX only 1/2 hour before most international morning flights... Becoming isolated from the world again we are....

This is just to corrrect some misinformation in another post. Mexican Airlines does not owe any money to Meadows Field Airport. They were exemplary in their business practices. Unfortunately, in light of current fuel prices, they had to make a tough business decision to discontinue their Guadalajara service from Bakersfield.

I worked for Skywest when they were ground handeling Continental.  They pulled out after Express Jet decided to go out on their own and start their own airline.  Continental started Express Jet, and Express Jet in 2003/2004 went out as their own corp.  Continental was upset as they were paying for their (Express Jet's) aircraft until they reached a certain number.  Once the number was hit, Express Jet assumed the leases on the airplane, all the while pocketing huge profits.  Look back at their stock from 02-05 XJT is their ticker.. Continental wanted a bigger piece of the pie.. Express Jet didn't want to give it up. 
 

Express Jet approached Continental in 06 to operate as an idependant along with their Houston service, Continental said no way, and pulled the plug on their flying to Houston..  Rumor speculated at the airport that Continental was going to come in and fly the routes, it never happened.  Skywest which operates the Delta and United flights from here (SKYW) is an exemplary company, offered to by Express Jet, they said no way, Continental has begun pulling the plug entirely on Express Jet....   Express Jet will be sorry they turned down Skywest's offer...

Mesa which operates USAirways is such a cruddy airline, just like their mainline partner... inept management... They are caught up in the fiasco in the Hawaiian islands that basicaly forced Aloha into BK..  They are also the company where the pilots fell asleep and overshot one of the islands by 30 minutes... They are near bankruptcy...  Standby folks.. it is going to get worse when it comes to airline service... 

Only positive thing is United is happy with the yeilds that Bakersfield is obtaining

I recently flew with my family in and out of Bakersfield on Delta/Skywest and they were absolutely horrible to me. We missed our flight and all I asked was when did they make the call for the flight and why is the flight leaving 10 minutes early? The ticket agents raised their voice to me and berated me. Of course you cannot raise your voice back or even argue because they hold your expensive, non-refundable, family vacation hostage. All they have to do is call security and you are finished. All I could do was stand at the counter and cry. I say "good-bye".  I told the ticket manager at the SLC airport what happened and she told me that they didn't care because they were pulling out of Bakersfield. Nice...