Horizon Air to Mammoth: Why the weird schedule?

baldyskier

baldyskier

Member
Flying to Mammoth on Horizon Air for $79. each way sounds like a good deal until you see the schedule: Depart LA at 2:20 PM (So you have to leave work early, but get up to Mammoth at 3:25 PM). Leave Mammoth at 4:05 PM (So you have to leave the slopes early) only to arrive in L.A. at 5:10 PM (rush hour). Who thought of those hours? Maybe they're just trying to make sure they can fly in daylight hours. Leaving L.A. at 4:15 and leaving Mammoth at 6:00 PM would be nice, and still allow 1:45 for Horizon to do the turnaround.

This topic may have already been covered, but a search of Mammoth Horizon didn't yield anything.
 
I feel exactly the same way about those hours. And I bet the daylight hours reason is correct. That airport has to be problematic with Mammoth's chronic winds. I always thought they should have gone for an airport in the benign Bishop climate. Similar distance to the resort as Eagle/Vail, Gunnison/Crested Butte, etc.
 
Has anyone heard what the load factor has been for the flight? What size plane do they use?

I'm sure that Mammoth's administration had to work with what the airline/FAA gave them, but given the fact that it's one of the Top 10 lift-served mountains in North America for terrain and snow, they seem to be making a lot of blunders lately.
 
given the fact that it's one of the Top 10 lift-served mountains in North America for terrain and snow, they seem to be making a lot of blunders lately.
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Given that, it's a knee jerk reaction by outside investors (first Intrawest in 1998, then Starwood in 2006): We can make big $ by turning this into another Vail. That's intended by me as a compliment, as I strongly believe Vail and Mammoth are the 2 best all-things-to-all-people ski mountains in North America

The reality is that the clientele is still 90% SoCal drive-up, heavily concentrated on weekends. The objective should be to develop the destination business without alienating their bread-and-butter customers. My impression is that Whistler is a good example of this, with about half its business being drive-up from Vancouver and other PNW cities. Intrawest introduced the MVP, which has to be the best thing that ever happened to Mammoth regulars from SoCal, not to mention many of the locals. Who's responsible for the village parking fiasco is hard to say: developers and the Town of Mammoth Lakes point fingers at each other.

I'm more critical of the new investors, Starwood for the ski area and CNL for the village. Starwood based skier visit projections on the banner 2005 and 2006 seasons with their 1.5 million skier visits. Both seasons had 500+ inches of snow, ran to July 4th, and of course were during the height of the SoCal real estate bubble. So last year (just slightly below average) they get 1.1 million and this year (well above average and conspicuously best in the state) they are laying off staff in mid-season.

The village parking issue and distress of the merchants there were known issues when CNL came in. They obviously overpaid, and Starwood/MMSA is playing hardball over the parking issue to try to get CNL to sell out cheap.

There are a handful of people on Mammoth Forum who complain about mountain ops, but not me. Compared to a lot of other places I think they have held up very well. Needless to say there are a lot of people on Mammoth Forum who have minimal experience with other ski areas.

The airport expansion attracted vigorous environmental opposition and thus took a decade to get approved. While I think Bishop wouild have been a more logical choice, my understanding is that the local government there was not as supportive as the Town of Mammoth Lakes.
 
FWIW, I've read multiple reports, including from Rusty Gregory himself, saying that the flight averaged around a 70% load factor, thereby nearly covering the guarantee MMSA had to provide to Horizon.
 
Mammoth is better than any single Tahoe mountain.

I love my Squaw and Alpine.....but they need to think about the flight schedule for Mammoth.

Actually, serve your customers in LA and SF first.....maybe connect via them.
 
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