Quote:
Originally Posted by nickodemis
I agree 100%. There are not enough private fliers out of HSV. Most people that live here would rather drive 14 hours to Orlando and save $100 vs flying. Plus lets face it, the HSV locals simply don't travel anywhere beyond 300 miles. How many local actually make it beyond DC or Texas in their life time. Not that many people flying to Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, etc for vacation.
In regards to BWI. There are a large amount of government jobs in northern DC and Maryland area. The NSA for example is close to BWI. A lot of the gov. contractor companies are based in the Maryland area. There are quite a large amount of travelers from HSV to BWI. Most of them didn't fly Airtran directly but instead choose to connect through Charlotte or Atlanta for the FF points.
At the end of the day, if you can't beat them, join them. I'll guess I start flying Delta again. If I really want to save money, I'll just drive to Nashville or Atlanta and fly non-stop on Airtran/Southwest. 3 hour drive or 3 hour connection with layover, it's all the same if I can save $200+.
|
Huntsville, and also Chattanooga, suffers from its location. But, it also greatly benefits from it. It's near the center of this big square created by Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, and Knoxville. The thing is, while this makes it very easy to get products to market and to have easy access to brainpower, it also drives down the need for the most likely air routes.
It's not all a bad thing. Huntsville has a HUGE GDP for its size; a GDP that many cities would be happy to have. Airliners aren't the only indicator of economic might.