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Midway between San Diego and Columbus, Ohio, on Skybus Flight 241, attendant Olivia Champ had had enough of "the $10 question."

Yes, there were people who had paid only $10 for a seat on the July 16 flight, she announced to the cabin. And for those who were still skeptical, Champ asked the lucky few for a show of hands.

Nine arms shot up, including mine. A few rows ahead, Mary Engelhardt of San Diego turned back toward me. "You too?," she said over the seats and flashed a sly you-devil look. "Welcome to the club."

The handful of $10 seats were the lowest fares on Skybus Airlines, the new bargain-basement carrier that in May began flying between Burbank and Columbus. In July it added flights between San Diego and Columbus, and now has routes from Columbus to 11 cities nationwide.

It's the ultimate "no-frills, low-cost" airline. And I mean no-frills. For rock-bottom fares, passengers have to pay for almost everything. No movies, no music and no complimentary coffee, tea or milk.

It's a la carte flying taken to the extreme as one airline industry consultant put it. But if it stays in business, Skybus could be the future.

For now, Columbus is the center of the universe for Skybus. The airline offers flights from Columbus to smaller airports near major metropolitan areas, including two cities in Florida and places like Portsmouth, N.H. (60 miles from Boston), and Bellingham, Wash. (between Seattle and Vancouver.)

I couldn't resist checking out the 10 buck bonanza even though there was no reason whatsoever for me to go to Columbus -- personal or business.

Columbus (pop. 773,000) is the capital of Ohio and the state's most populous city. It's the home to popular apparel company Limited Brands, with clothier Abercrombie & Fitch and fast-food restaurant chain Wendy's International Inc. based in the suburbs.

The journey to Columbus actually began in April when Skybus announced it was beginning service and that it would offer 10 seats on every flight to and from Burbank for $10 each. Other seats wouldn't be as cheap but many of them were still half the price of other airlines.

After the $10 seats, the one-way fare starts at $50 and rises in $25 increments to $175. The airline won't say exactly how many seats are sold at which price, but the average fare typically runs $100.

In a lightning-fast Internet society, I was too slow. Within hours, the $10 fares on every flight for the entire year had been sold out online. Business commuters and couples in long-distance relationships were hoarding them, buying up a dozen tickets at a time. "It was like a feeding frenzy," said Carmen Hulbert, director of marketing for Skybus.

But one night in late May I got a call. The tipster said that next morning Skybus would begin selling tickets for a new service from San Diego to Columbus. It felt like insider trading but I wanted that $10 fare.

Engelhardt, the woman from San Diego, said she had a tipster of her own. Her sister-in-law in Columbus checked the Skybus website every day for a week before calling her in the middle of the night.

"She woke me up and told me I had to get it right away," Engelhardt said. Engelhardt and I had a problem: We couldn't get a $10-return fare. The time difference gave Columbus residents a three-hour advantage to grab all the Columbus departures. So we ended paying $10 one-way and $50 coming back.