Quote:
Originally Posted by neilson
Why won't AirTran come to Huntsville? We'd appreciate flights to Atlanta, Orlando, Houston, and one of the DC Airports(preferably Reagan, but BWI would work too).
Come on AirTran, don't let Southwest hog all the LCC traffic from North Alabama by making us drive to either BHM or BNA.
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AirTran will be more likely to begin service to HSV during the time frame of late 2010 and 2011 because by then the bulk of the BRAC transfers will have been relocated and they will provide a substantial boost to the passenger count at HSV - particularly on the routes to Washington D.C.
If you look at the HSV website (
www.hsvairport.org) you will see that Washington National (DCA) is the #1 destination and Orlando (MCO) is #2. Just recently, AirTran negotiated with USAIR to get more gates at DCA so it appears that things are falling into place for AirTran to strongly consider service to HSV as they could offer service to both DCA and MCO as well as their ATL Hub. Today, in USA Today, there was an article stating that USAIr is reducing service and will only have flights to its hubs in Philadelphia and Charlotte - this would mean that USAIR will eliminate its HSV to DCA route and this would present an opportunity for AirTran to fill. Also, they might consider service to Baltimore (BWI) as that is the #4 Market with 37,000 passengers (HSV-MCO has 38,000) and AirTran has a mini-hub in Baltimore to its Northeastern destinations.
AirTran will not offer direct service to Houston as they presently only have connecting service through ATL.
AirTran could be a big improvement and a strong competitor as they only have full body jet service (717 and 737) whereas, with the exception of American's service to DFW, all HSV flights are on regional jets.