Allentown PA?

Yes, I have to agree that ABE is well-situated geographically (although, as a NY''er, I certainly wouldn''t drive to ABE to catch WN, or ISP for that matter, either... I''ll stick with B6 at JFK). But, for anyone west of the Hudson, ABE isn''t too bad of a hike you''re trying to get a family of four to MCO and a lot can be saved on a fare.

I agree, too, that DAY is ripe for picking for WN or B6. It''s not too far of a drive even for Cincinnati folks (my in-laws, who live in the northern suburbs of Cinci, will fly out of DAY if the fares or schedules are better than DL at CVG).
 
CVG is located south of Cincinnati (CoVinGton, Kentucky.) So for anyone who lives north of Cincinnati, it would be just as quick traveling to Dayton as it would be to Covington. Those who live south of Cincinnati could just as easily travel to Louisville to catch a SW flight.

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On 7/15/2003 12:32:32 PM runway4 wrote:

Yes, I have to agree that ABE is well-situated geographically (although, as a NY''er, I certainly wouldn''t drive to ABE to catch WN, or ISP for that matter, either... I''ll stick with B6 at JFK). But, for anyone west of the Hudson, ABE isn''t too bad of a hike you''re trying to get a family of four to MCO and a lot can be saved on a fare.

I agree, too, that DAY is ripe for picking for WN or B6. It''s not too far of a drive even for Cincinnati folks (my in-laws, who live in the northern suburbs of Cinci, will fly out of DAY if the fares or schedules are better than DL at CVG).

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On 7/16/2003 11:38:42 AM AirplaneFan wrote:


CVG is located south of Cincinnati (CoVinGton, Kentucky.)  So for anyone who lives north of Cincinnati, it would be just as quick traveling to Dayton as it would be to Covington.  Those who live south of Cincinnati could just as easily travel to Louisville to catch a SW flight.

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This is true *if* you live in the far northern suburbs. For Fairfield and anything south, though, (all of Cincinnati proper and the vast majority of the suburbs), and CVG is quicker to get to. Don''t forget DAY is on the north side of Dayton, either.... Basically, there''s enough market for both DAY and CVG - though Middletown would be ideal, if there were an airport to serve.
 
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On 7/12/2003 10:51:12 PM 7.5victim wrote:

Until US decides whether PIT lives or dies, WN won''t go in. CVG doesn''t fit the pattern of using secondary, un congested airports. If I''m not mistaken, DAY has a lot of unused space from their days as a Piedmont hub. DAY would be an excellent slap at DL''s fortress hub at Cinci-tucky....

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Just curious - so what about SW''s current operations in SLC? Is SLC as significant to DL as CVG? Just wondering if CVG may still be fesable.
 
I'm not so sure that ABE would be so successfull for SW, at least as far as drawing customers from PHL is concerned.

I've been to (driven to) PHL a few times and the drive from PHL downtown towards ABE is always hell. The I-76 from downtown PHL to I-476 at Valley Forge is always a parking lot (or at least all the times that I've driven through there). I'm a sucker for cheap fares, but if I lived anywhere south of Valley Forge, the fares would really really have to be rock botton for me to take the 60 or so mile drive to ABE.

How is the drive, traffic and road conditions from Newark to ABE? (PA turnpike is such a crappy highway compared to OH turnpike or NY Thruway - but I digress).
 
To get from EWR to ABE would take about 1Hour 15Minutes with mininal traffic. Just take route #78West thru NJ, pay the Toll into PA and then take the exit for Rt 33. The aiport is withing 5minutes for the exit. CO markets ABE-EWR via Bus. The best things about ABE, are the parking and NO ATC.
 
Much has been made of going to a secondary airport to take advantage of a large metro area. SW has really done that in two instances (MHT, ISP). Manchester is a city of about 90,000. However the state of New Hampshire is 1.2 million and 2/3rds of that population lives within 45 minutes of the airport. Also Boston is not a typical U.S. city. By population it is a small city (500K). Its metro area is large (6M), meaning that 90% live oustide the city proper. For those in the northern and western suburbs, MHT is equidistant to them as is BOS.

Islip is a town (30K), but it is the closet airport in Suffolk county and part of Nassau county. The total population in those two counties is around 3 milllion.

In both cases, SW is primarily going after the suburban traveler and not counting on many people to commute from Boston and New York to go to those airports (though some do). I would imageine anyone who lives close to Philadelphia and wanted a low fare would just drive to Baltimore instead of Allentown. The question is how many live within a 30 - 45 minute radius of Allentown.
 
It's not just PHL customers that would consider switching to ABE. People living in NJ along the I-78/I-287 corridor would have easy access to ABE. That would include the Bridgewater-Somerville area, Plainfield, Bedminster, Morristown, etc.

The few times I've flown out of EWR instead of ABE, the plane usually has to wait on the tarmac for about 45 minutes before departing. Planes departing from ABE usually back out from the gate and depart quickly.
 
AirplaneFan & rvolkcpa ,

I understand why SW uses secondary airports. While MHT works for Boston and ISP works for Long Island, I'm just a little skeptical that ABE would be able to draw customers from PHL. Can't comment about Newark/NJ since I'm not too familiar with the area.

Like I said, the drive from Philly to Valley Forge (I-76 to I-476) always seems to take forever because of heavy traffic, so I don't know how effective ABE would be in drawing customers from PHL.

Maybe it was just my bad luck on the I-76 to I-476 stretch, but perhaps somebody from the PHL area would chip in: would you be willing to put up with the traffic to drive from Philly to ABE for a SW flight? How much lower would the fare out of ABE (compared to PHL) have to be for you to make the trip out there?
 
While all of this talk of ABE is nice I think it is down on the list. Next year I think that you will see Ft Meyers & Pensacola in FL & either Columbia or Charleston in SC. ABE probally won't happen for at least 3 years. With all of the new gates at BWI SWA is going to need flights that uses those gates. ABE is to close to BWI for that.
 
The problem with Allentown is that there aren't enough people in Allentown to support the service. SWA would have to draw passengers from Philadelphia and elsewhere. On the other hand, RIC, for example, could do very nicely drawing just from Richmond and not need to pull pax from elsewhere. For that reason I have to believe that ABE is way down on the list and airports like RIC are at the top.
 
The main point here, is that ABE is located between 2 major Hubs. There may not be another city out there that has this selling point. The ABE area has a growing population along with a lot of corporate growth. ABE draws from as far west as the RDG area ( Which is going to lose Express servce), North to the AVP area( Which has no Mainline service by any carrier), and into the western NJ suburbs. Many of the NJ people can go to EWR or ABE depending on the availibility of flights. I am not saying that people from Center City PHL are going to come, but many from the North side of town will. I know that passengers are driving from the MDT area to fly SWA out of BWI. When US had MCO flights, passengers drove in from all over the place. At this time they still do for Southeast to LAS and Florida.
Please remember that driving to ABE to avoid the congested and ATC burdened airports of EWR & PHL, is well worth the trip.
 

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On 7/30/2003 4:37:05 PM wings396 wrote:

The main point here, is that ABE is located between 2 major Hubs. There may not be another city out there that has this selling point.
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Why is that a selling point? Most other WN cities (save JAN and possibly PVD/MHT) are large enough on their own without having to draw on nearby markets for traffic. For other WN cities, the overflow traffic is above and beyond what the immediate point can generate. For ABE, it sounds like it would have to rely on PHL/EWR traffic.

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The ABE area is a large area, and growing more each year. To be able to have that traffic plus draw people from EWR & PHL is an added plus. We all know that for the Hub's to be prosperous they must have a large O&D market along with the connecting traffic. Has it not been the SWA theory to set up shop near a major airport to draw traffic from that area without going in another carriers hub? ISP and PVD may be larger areas than ABE, but they were chosen to draw from LGA,JFK and BOS weren't they? ABE is a smaller less congested airport that is within a 80 mile radius of 2 major hubs. If that is not an ideal situation, I don't know what is.
 
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