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For travelers in some small towns, it's time to Go Greyhound. It could be their only option.
Desperate to deal with rising fuel prices that just won't quit, airlines are aggressively slashing flights to smaller cities. They're cutting deep, and in some markets eliminating service altogether. Most of these flights are flown using small regional jets or turboprops, and are important because they funnel traffic from small communities into hub airports like Chicago O'Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Detroit. The hundreds of people boarding tiny Cleveland-bound Continental Express planes each day aren't flying in for an Indians game; most are connecting to other Continental flights.
But with airlines realizing that they can lose less money by parking planes rather than flying them, they've begun pruning their route maps in a major way.
So which cities lose?
From Rick Seaney comes the list of 28 markets are losing all of their commercial service this year. Most of them you've probably never heard of, but there are some well known names in the mix, among them the largest city in Delaware (population 72,600), the home to an ivy league university, and the birthplace of Elvis. Here it is:
- New Haven, CT
- Wilmington, DE
- Marathon, FL
- Rockford, IL
- Topeka Forbes AFB, KS
- Bedford-Hanscom, MA
- Hagerstown, MD
- Ironwood, MI
- Manistee, MI
- Tupelo, MS
- Glendive, MT
- Glasgow, MT
- Havre, MT
- Lewistown, MT
- Miles City, MT
- Wolf Point, MT
- Sidney, MT
- Winston, NC
- Pinehurst-Southern Pines, NC
- Santa Fe, NM
- Boulder City, NV
- Watertown, NY
- Massena, NY
- Ogdensburg, NY
- Youngstown, OH
- Lancaster, PA
- Brookings, SD
- Bluefield, WV
Of course, many of these towns have larger airports just down the road (Santa Fe is an hour from Albuquerque, Lancaster is 38 miles from Harrisburg and 80 miles from Philadelphia) but it's not just tiny towns that are feeling the pain. Some medium and even large markets are also seeing dramatic reductions in service:
- Pittsburgh - down 22%
- Islip - down 17%
- Oakland - down 17%
- Knoxville - down 17%
- Providence RI - down 15%
- Cincinnati - down 14.5%
- Syracuse - down 14%
- Orange County - down 13.6%
- Colorado Springs - down 13%
- Albany - down 12.5%
- Reno - down 11.6%
- Columbus, OH, down 11.3%
- Manchester, NH- 10.7% -
- Hartford - down 10.6%
- Little Rock - down 10%
- West Palm Beach - down 10%
- Sacramento - down 9.5%
- Tampa - down 9%
Even just a few years ago, these cities could feel confident that a low-fare carrier -- Southwest or JetBlue or maybe AirTran -- would fill the void when big carriers pulled out. But now even the discount guys are scaling back. Expensive oil is sucking the life out of everyone.
*Photo from Flickr user reinholdbehringer. *
