Here is some information on extremely cheap airline tickets. The newly launched Skybus Airlines is offering $10 one-way deals for flying between Columbus, OH and a few other cities across the country. Your flight has to either originate from, or terminate at Columbus (you can’t fly between City A and City B without stopping at Columbus).Nice deal. But first check out the quirky requirements.
Outside food and drink are prohibited (good luck enforcing that one. I’m sorry sir, we’re going to have to turn this plane around if you don’t dispose of your sandwich).
Customer service: “We don’t have a phone number. Seriously. We’d love to chat, but those phone banks are expensive. And a good website like skybus.com is even more convenient.”
Hmm. Interesting. Check out the full list of Skybus Airline’s “Rules of Flying“.
Just for kicks, I tried booking a Skybus roundtrip ticket between Seattle, WA and Columbus, OH and here is what I got:
Now that’s called a “cheap ticket”. 
On Expedia, for the same dates, the minimum airfare is currently $242 between the two cities. In fact, notice that Skybus actually operates from Bellingham, WA near Seattle (@ 90 miles from it)….from Bellingham to Columbus, Expedia is currently $402!Yeah…I can live without eating on the flight if it’s going to save me at least $200. 
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Good Find, the only catch, they do not fly everywhere
Bellingham is nearer to Canada than it is to Seattle. You may actually need a Canadian visa to travel that North
Seriously, good find. But like I said, anyone traveling from Seattle will have to travel either in own car or bus or find a friend who can travel 200 mi odd both ways to drop you at the airport. So unless you happen to stay near that place, it will be finding the balance between saved $$ and convenience.
But if I was staying near Bellingham, it would have been like gold mine!
I like having more options, but it would be nice if they let you book through to your next destination. For instance, I fly from SF to BOS a few times a year, but they don’t seem to provide and easy way to set that up. I have to book 4 one-way flights incurring over $40 in taxes. If the legs of the flight are $50 each (it seems like most are that or more), it’s going to come out to little in savings. That’s $240 not to mention the costs of gas and rental car from the far away airports that you might not otherwise need.
Yeah…right now they are pretty restricted. But considering that they haven’t yet started flying (it starts flying on May 22nd - scheduled), we may expect more routes and convenient airports in future.
It looks like they won’t move to operating on *major* airports, but hopefully there will be more direct flights..so there won’t be any break-journey headache.
I am looking forward to have them in my area..as it is we travel about 100 miles for the nearest reasonable airport (flying from the one we have in our town is just impossibly expensive).
Hey golb, remember the post you wrote sometime back along the lines of “are you wary about free/cheap stuff?” - well this one reminded me of that! It looks too good to be true! The fuel costs alone will probably be equal to the price of the fare! They must be compromising *somewhere* - and if there is even a chance that they might have compromised on some of the safety features, I don’t even want to get on that plane!
This could be a good deal, if done correctly. Personally, I think it’s dumb that they won’t let you bring food on the plane. It also sucks that you can’t book a whole flight if you don’t want to go to/from Columbus, OH. But, I would probably try it out if it worked.
As for the cheapness, they only over a few $10 tickets, and then the price goes up from there. So you have to get your ticket early for it to work out.
For location, some of their destinations aren’t too bad. Oakland can be doable, depending on what you’re doing. Burbank, CA is a lot better than LAX or Long Beach. Kansas City and Fort Lauderdale also aren’t too bad.
I agree, save the $200
But hey, those rules are definitely ridiculous beyond all belief!
if it’s too good to be true then……well, you know the rest.
great post. for kicks i looked to see if they flew to california. you can stop laughing now
When an airline comes up with a deal for Sioux Falls, South Dakota — everyone in that state will use it. South Dakota is the largest city in the state, but we have to fly out of or arive to an airport in either Sioux City, Iowa, Omaha, Nebraska, or the Twin Cities or pay twice as much. Let me know when I can go home to visit my family in the prairie lands. Thank you
Hi, Skybus,
I would like to fly for $10 to and from Columbus to Seattle/Bellingham on January 6, 2008, returning January 124, 2008. I will be attending a writing residency, and I really need help financially. What can I do to get the $10 tickets? Thank you very much.
Sue spirit
Unfortuanaly Skybus has discovered that they can’t make any money flying people across the country with $10 fares, so they quickly canceled all Columbus / Seattle flights. I know because I *had* a $40 roundtrip ticket and got an email that my Jan flight was canceled.
Sure, I got a complete refund of my fare, However when I wrote them a letter explaining that if *my* plans changed, they would have imposed a $75 per segment, per person “change fee”. So, using their rules, I suggested that they extend me a $150 Skybus credit due to *their* change in plans (again, using their rules).
Perhaps the local Columbus (where Skybus is based) newspapers would love my ‘wink wink’ sarcastic story about change fees?
Needless to say, I’m still awaiting a response from Skybus. I guess their customer service is as lame as their business planning. Perhaps “Sky-bus-with-a-flat-tire” might be a more fitting name for this new airline that’s off to an impressive start?…
So, bottom line: My first impression with Skybus is that yes, they do indeed suck! I’ll stick to the “less-sucky” airlines.
Kindest Regards,
Columbus-Based Frequent Flyer
Steve - ouch, that hurts. I have never heard of just getting cancelled for no reason. What a crock. I can’t count on an airport to take my money, cancel my flight, and ruin my plans to get home and see my family.
As it is to get from this hellhole work site in New Yuck to my family in central Florida I would have to buy 4 one-way tickets, lie, pray to God that no leg gets cancelled, and rent a car from Jacksuckville to home. And vice versa.
Well, maybe if they don’t do any airplane maintenance they can cut costs, too. Like only flying on one engine.
You can do without that, right? Or flight plans. You don’t need that, right? Or trained pilots. Maybe they could recruit some nice Saudi guys to…(i digress)….
Skybus phone number is 614-947-3200 I am sure you can figure out what t do, want a hint ask for Bill Diffendorfer. Also people skybus encourages there employees to answer colom ads like this one with good info about skybus….Also here are some e-mail address you can try…Bill.Diff@Skybus.com; April.Shereda@skybus.com; Floyd.Nickerson@skybus.com; Jean.Mitchell@skybus.com; Tom.Sauer@skybus.com
SKYBUS has the worst customer service… they cancelled my flight on Wednesday, there solution was to use the kiosk to rebook, but the earliest available was Sunday… When I asked to Counter clerks for help they all acted/were stupid… said they couldn’t help! Said they didn’t know the cause of the delay… yeah right… a skycapp knew and told us all! THEY SUCK!
hey i need to fly from miami,florida to columbus, ohio for under $100 dollars for 2 adults i need to be there on march 6 at night till sunday march 8 at what ever time i can return i really need a miracle this is for a good opportunity trip i need to go on to help my family so if you can please help me thank you god bless
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