For the third time in six weeks, a new discount airline is announcing plans to offer service from Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
MarkAir, an Anchorage, Alaska-based carrier, will shift its operation from Washington-Dulles International Airport and instead begin flying daily from BWI to Cincinnati and back, opening up yet another market for low fares.
Service from BWI is scheduled to begin Jan. 1.
The Cincinnati fare is expected to be comparable to MarkAir's current $64 one-way, or $128 round trip, fare from Dulles.
The airline is the latest in a series of low-cost carriers that have launched discount service at BWI since Southwest Airlines spearheaded the trend more than a year ago. On Nov. 15, Air South began daily service from BWI to Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Columbia, S.C.; and Atlanta. Next week, American Trans Air, a small, Indianapolis-based carrier, will begin nonstop service from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Los Angeles.
MarkAir and its predecessors have served towns in Alaska for more than 40 years. Three years ago, it expanded its service into the lower 48 states and now provides about 100 flights a day to 27 locations, using Denver as its hub. The company also is expected to soon relocate its headquarters in Denver.
In the lower 48 states, MarkAir flies Boeing 737s, seating from 120 to 179 people, and offers only coach service.
The carrier has offered the daily flight at Dulles for several years. On the East Coast, it also serves LaGuardia Airport in New York. Flights from BWI will connect in Cincinnati to Denver and from there to destinations such as Reno, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Officials at BWI predicted that MarkAir's success at BWI will hinge on its longer-haul service to those Western cities.
Rosaleen Presley, a spokeswoman for MarkAir, said the carrier decided to shift operations from Dulles to BWI because "it was a reasonably located facility with easier access for the general public."
The competition at BWI also could be considerably better for MarkAir. Delta Air Lines offers several flights a day from BWI to Cincinnati.
At Dulles, MarkAir was competing directly against the airport's hub carrier, United Airlines, which offers extensive service to Denver and West Coast cities. USAir, the hub carrier at BWI, is more heavily focused on East Coast service.