The Buffalo-Niagara region is very unique and distinguishing factor is that the metropolitan area with only 1.1 million people is able to sustain two successful commercial airports. Granted, much of that can be attributed to Buffalo's position near Toronto and the population rich southern Ontario market, but it still begs to question if the new terminal that opened in Niagara Falls in 2009 was worth the investment. Not all of the flights are to shuttle people to "sun" destinations, some are vacation flights to the Falls as well.
I noticed this article from last year:
http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/n....html?page=all
Quote:
Buffalo airport traffic flat while Niagara Falls soars
Niagara Falls International Airport continued to report a large spike in outbound fliers, with passenger counts increasing by 2.3 percent to 11,514 this year in March from 11,251 in March 2011. That number would have been higher except for the sudden shutdown of Direct Air on March 12.
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As it stands, the Niagara Falls airport now has roughly 200,000 passengers a year with its two flagship airliners: Spirit and Allegiant.
Source:
http://www.transtats.bts.gov/airport...&carrier=FACTS
As you can see from the source, that is almost doubled the traffic in just one year, and this means increased tax revenue and tourism for the area.
Buffalo Niagara International Airport (and its notoriously similar name) is still doing well, averaging between 5-6 million passengers a year since JetBlue, Southwest, and Airtran became large players, although its largely peaked and is flat at that rate without much growth.
When I first moved to Buffalo, I thought the investment into a terminal in Niagara Falls was an utter waste, but its been beneficial to the Niagara region, and the Buffalo airport hasn't suffered a drop since Allegiant and Spirit are mostly just vacation airliners that hop to Florida or other "sun" destinations.
It appears that its given people more choice and cheaper flight options... So, I thought I'd start a discussion if other people in the region think having the second airport is worth the investment. There is a lot of competition in the region, within less than 2 hours of downtown Buffalo there are now 6 commercial airports: Toronto-Pearson, Hamilton, Niagara Falls, Buffalo-Niagara, Rochester, and Erie, PA. Using some of the other airports isn't really in high demand, but Toronto is a good airport if you want to fly to other points in Canada or a non-stop to an international destination instead of connecting, which usually takes longer than the drive from Pearson airport (I did this myself opting to fly Pearson to Europe last year, was a much better experience than connecting to BUF and the added time that takes). Rochester and Erie are only beneficial in that some routes may be cheaper by a few hundred if you get lucky, so may be worth the drive since its not far. Hamilton is not as attractive as it once was since WestJet opted to move most of its operations to Pearson, but I suppose if you can snag a cheap price for Canada to Canada flights or vacations with their charter flights its worth the 50 mile trip. Does Niagara Falls International fit into this picture or is its temporary success going to subside and will it become another empty, useless building that is blight?
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