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Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp
County practically has letters in hand promising real commercial service McClellan-Pallomar if they expand the runway. Airlines aren't generally willing to publicly make these sort of commitments far in advance, but there is a proven interest.
800 feet might not seem like much, but a 5000 foot runway essentially limits commercial service to the the smallest of regional jets, and then only within the southwest. It's a very limited market, so limited that the economics of it don't really work out. A 5800 foot runway though could allow all sizes of regional jets to operate with enough range to cover the entire continental US. It could in theory even accommodate 737s although the constrained airport landside makes this unlikely. I would expect to start seeing service to some of the western hubs (LAS, PHX, DEN, SEA, possibly DFW) fairly soon after the expansion. CRQ is never going to be a major hub, or even a minor focus city like SNA, but it could see a lot of utility as an alternative to SAN for regional flights.
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I didn’t realize that this expansion puts the runway at 5800ft, slightly more than SNA. That is terrific for the reasons you mentioned. I remember in Carlsbad’s heyday back around 2006 when it had service from both American and United via Skywest. The markets were LAX and PHX as feeder traffic to these two airlines’ hubs. AA was killed by the recession and United lasted until Skywest decommissioned the Brasília aircraft. This left no service until the upstart Airlines like Cal Pacific came along, with service to places like PHX, LAS, OAK, etc.
I’m not sure how long CP Air will last financially, but they obviously tapped into an underserved market. Good news for Carlsbad seems that either CP Air will succeed or another airline(s) will enter the market. The hope is that whoever enters the market can add some point to point service or at least feed multiple hubs.