What are the weirdest US routes you know of?

My two:

BLF-BKW (34 miles)
ORF-PHF (23 miles)

I love puddle jumpers!

My vote goes to SHD-PIT. SHD (Shenandoah Valley, VA) is a tiny airport whose only commercial service is a B1900 to PIT.

Considering that PIT has fewer connecting flights than it used to, I'd think SHD-CLT would be a more logical route. Even nearby CHO lost its nonstop PIT service on J41s back in September.

BLF-BKW-CMH is also a weird one.

My favorites are the EAS routes on Air Midwest that connect out of MCI. Places like Hays, Garden City, Salina, etc. They used to go to Topeka and ICT as well, the latter being the only one I've ever flown, just shortly before they dropped MCI-ICT in late 2002 or so, though Topeka and Wichita probably weren't EAS cities.

Looks like they've dropped Lincoln and Omaha out of Kansas City too, though MCI-LIT still exists. IIRC there used to be a B1900 that went either SHV-LIT-MCI-OMA or something strange like that, maybe doing a SHV-MSY leg as well.

Do they still have MCI-LIT-MSY ... always seemed strange considering none of the cities are EAS or even focus cities (never mind hubs).

Looks like they've dropped Lincoln and Omaha out of Kansas City too, though MCI-LIT still exists. IIRC there used to be a B1900 that went either SHV-LIT-MCI-OMA or something strange like that, maybe doing a SHV-MSY leg as well.

Lincoln was dropped. The flights went out empty most of the time anyway.

Air Midwest presently operates MCI-OMA under the Mesa brand. The flight goes on from Omaha to Brookings and Huron, South Dakota, who chose Omaha as their EAS "hub" instead of Minneapolis on account of lower average airfares.

PIT - PHL on a 757 :)

Here (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=318709&highlight=shortest+route) is a discussion a few months ago about some short flights U use to run.

What are the weirdest US routes you know of?

My two:

BLF-BKW (34 miles)
ORF-PHF (23 miles)

I love puddle jumpers!

As a resident in those parts, the BLF-BKW is to allow Colgan to do the IAD circle trip IAD-BLF-BKW-IAD.

Perhaps weirder (is that a word??) is BLF-BKW-CMH-BLF.

I've commented on this before on FT, since the dehubbing of PIT, our EAS flights in BLF/BKW have been moved to 2X IAD and 1X CMH. "Supposedly" there is more O&D for that routing. I can see IAD... I don't get CMH.

I just drive to CRW, ROA, GSO, CLT or RDU and avoid the whole B1900 mess. ;)

Do they still have MCI-LIT-MSY ... always seemed strange considering none of the cities are EAS or even focus cities (never mind hubs).

I don't see any LIT-MSY nonstops in the schedule, which isn't surprising. I was last in MSY in 2002, and recall seeing the flight then, but I'm sure it got dropped sometime not long after.

What are the weirdest US routes you know of?

My two:

BLF-BKW (34 miles)
ORF-PHF (23 miles)

I love puddle jumpers!

DCA-SBY
Did it last night... took longer to de-ice than it did to fly.

DCA-SBY
Did it last night... took longer to de-ice than it did to fly.

I flew that one a few times when I was based in Salisbury... air time is about 25 minutes or so. Now that I'm based in PHF, I fly the ORF-PHF flight ~2x month... air time on that one is only 8-10 minutes, depending on the active runways, at an altitude of 2,000-3,000'!

Any flight where it takes you less time to drive from that airport to PHL than you spend waiting at PHL for said flight to take off.

A few years back, when I used to fly in and out of Nashville alot, I would often notice a US Airways Express BNA-LIT flight on the board. I remember it often being listed as "Cancelled."

A quick check of the usairways.com timetable tells me its a route they no longer offer.

Not sure if the routing is the same anymore, but US used to have a flight that went PIT-Watertown, NY - Ogdensburg, NY - Massena, NY (the last 3 are relatively small cities). What's worse it was one flight, with 2 intermediate stops, and you only got 500 miles credit for the whole thing.

I just checked, and yup, they still run this. This has to be the craziest. They run it like a bus - checking gates and times for today's flight, they spend 10-15 mins on the groun in between the last 2 stops.

I can only assume the real goal is to serve Massena (where Alcoa, based in PIT has an operation) - but it makes the 2 other stops to grab a few easy pax. I cant imagine the connecting traffic from Watertown to Ogdensburg/etc is significant, esp since US charges $466 for the 20 minute flight. However you CAN save $100 and get a $360 ticket connecting through PIT (yes - the routing is Ogdensburg - Watertown - PIT - Watertown - Ogdensburg - Massena).

Idiots..

It looks like you can book IAD-BLF-BKW as separate flight #s if you don't mind waiting in BLF for a couple of hours (shudders!) for an extra 500 miles :) I've had various travel sites spit it out as such when I've been pricing a trip to visit family who live equidistant from BLF and BKW.

I know the ORF-PHF flight is valid in a WAS-PHF routing and has a separate flight #, giving you something like DCA-PHL-ORF-PHF and PHF-PHL-DCA for hardly any flight miles but 2500 credited miles--and for reasonably cheap for that sort of flight, too (saw $180 for this weekend earlier, which is what brought up my question on weird routes to begin with)

It looks like you can book IAD-BLF-BKW as separate flight #s if you don't mind waiting in BLF for a couple of hours (shudders!) for an extra 500 miles :) I've had various travel sites spit it out as such when I've been pricing a trip to visit family who live equidistant from BLF and BKW.


I could make many WV jokes but I'll be nice. I'm not a native, so I look at things differently.

They should just recode BLF as BFE. ;) (OK, one WV joke.)

I live 15 min from there... and I don't want to wish anyone to have a layover there. BLF is barely a bus station with a runway... and that's being kind. The only "entertainment" is a couple of vending machines... and maybe the car rental agent. The grumpy old airport manager died sometime ago so definitely no live entertainment.

BKW is the better airport if you need to layover. They have a decent restaurant and it looks more like an airport.

Add MGW-CKB to the list at 29 miles ... and I thought MGW-PIT was bad enough (61 miles) on that route! Does anyone actually use Morgantown or Clarksburg airports, or do they drive to PIT or IAD instead?

I'm sure the residents of WV and rural areas in general hope that US stays solvent, as they fly to so many tiny airports. The few times my parents have flown places, it's been from BKW or CRW (the latter of which could end up being among the sole commercial airports in their state since it's got UA, DL, NW, etc.)

There was a time in the mid-90's when I used to fly FLL-MIA-BWI-DCA. The FLL-MIA could be as short as 8 minutes and with one routing you could actually see the runway you just departed and also the one you were getting ready to land on. Not to mention the seg/mile advantages of such hops. :)

There was a time in the mid-90's when I used to fly FLL-MIA-BWI-DCA. The FLL-MIA could be as short as 8 minutes and with one routing you could actually see the runway you just departed and also the one you were getting ready to land on. Not to mention the seg/mile advantages of such hops. :)

I remember doing DCA-BWI on such a hop. A little longer, but same idea.

I wish US would fly some IAD-DCA-BWI type flights these days ... anyone who has had to commute to BWI or IAD during evening rush hour would gladly trade it for a connecting flight from DCA :)

I enjoyed taking BWI-DCA on a Dash-8. Wheels up time was 9 or 10 minutes.

I live 15 min from there... and I don't want to wish anyone to have a layover there. BLF is barely a bus station with a runway... and that's being kind. The only "entertainment" is a couple of vending machines... and maybe the car rental agent. The grumpy old airport manager died sometime ago so definitely no live entertainment.

I was given the grand tour of that airport last month by jimcfsus so I definitely agree! But if someone does have a layover & jimcfsus is in town, then he bring his cute little son over for entertainment.

Not sure if the routing is the same anymore, but US used to have a flight that went PIT-Watertown, NY - Ogdensburg, NY - Massena, NY (the last 3 are relatively small cities). What's worse it was one flight, with 2 intermediate stops, and you only got 500 miles credit for the whole thing.

I just checked, and yup, they still run this. This has to be the craziest. They run it like a bus - checking gates and times for today's flight, they spend 10-15 mins on the groun in between the last 2 stops.

I can only assume the real goal is to serve Massena (where Alcoa, based in PIT has an operation) - but it makes the 2 other stops to grab a few easy pax. I cant imagine the connecting traffic from Watertown to Ogdensburg/etc is significant, esp since US charges $466 for the 20 minute flight. However you CAN save $100 and get a $360 ticket connecting through PIT (yes - the routing is Ogdensburg - Watertown - PIT - Watertown - Ogdensburg - Massena).

Idiots..

ART, OGS and MSS are collectively awarded one EAS grant. If US Airways/Air Midwest tried to cut out OGS or MSS the grant would probably be reduced.

I did fly to MSS once, and I noticed that in both directions, most people got on or off at ART. Also, both ways there was enough time to leave the plane in ART and stretch your legs. The ART-PIT flight is surprisingly long for a B1900!

MSS is also a very tiny airport, and it is the only airport I have ever been to that did not have a rental car counter. The weather was nice during my visit, so I walked out of the airport and accepted a ride on the way back. Didn't have time to visit Canada, oh well. :)

What are the weirdest US routes you know of?



Back when BWI was a hub, I flew DCA-BWI-PIT-TOL because it was only $150 or so. The first two legs of the trip was delayed for weather, so I missed the third one and took a later flight out of PIT. What is a 7 or 8 hour drive turned into 10 hours of airports and planes (and beer).

Similar to DCA-BWI United flys both LAX-SNA or LAX-ONT (all within the LA metro area) and YES it beats the drive on the freeway... :p

Add MGW-CKB to the list at 29 miles ... and I thought MGW-PIT was bad enough (61 miles) on that route! Does anyone actually use Morgantown or Clarksburg airports, or do they drive to PIT or IAD instead?

I just flew CMH-PIT-MGW for an event at WVU. Total cost to my client's travel department was $881!

I know there used to be SYR-ITH Express flights as well. ITH was not an EAS market, but as I recall the schedules seemed terrible. Any number of occasions we ended up driving to SYR to pick up a girlfriend or fraternity brother who didn't want to wait two or three hours for the SYR-ITH segment. ITH is about 60 miles from SYR-- close enough to ask someone for a ride, far enough for it to be an real inconvenience for them to provide it :). At the time, I was a CO flyer and made many EWR-BGM-ITH trips when CO Express used to serve those airports, but never had to "connect" at BGM except for one bizarre post-blizzard trip that also took us unscheduled to ELM.

I just flew CMH-PIT-MGW for an event at WVU. Total cost to my client's travel department was $881!

Sad thing is you could have rented a car, driven it in less total time and spent 1/8 of that amount. ;)

I know there used to be SYR-ITH Express flights as well. ITH was not an EAS market, but as I recall the schedules seemed terrible. Any number of occasions we ended up driving to SYR to pick up a girlfriend or fraternity brother who didn't want to wait two or three hours for the SYR-ITH segment. ITH is about 60 miles from SYR-- close enough to ask someone for a ride, far enough for it to be an real inconvenience for them to provide it :). At the time, I was a CO flyer and made many EWR-BGM-ITH trips when CO Express used to serve those airports, but never had to "connect" at BGM except for one bizarre post-blizzard trip that also took us unscheduled to ELM.


When I was up in ITH -- there used to be a mainline flight ITH-ELM before continuing on to PIT. It was very weird flying at maybe 3000 feet for 5 minutes on a 737 or DC-9 (I think). They never retracted the flaps from take-off rather they added more for landing....

There was a time in the mid-90's when I used to fly FLL-MIA-BWI-DCA. The FLL-MIA could be as short as 8 minutes and with one routing you could actually see the runway you just departed and also the one you were getting ready to land on. Not to mention the seg/mile advantages of such hops. :)

I often did DCA-BWI to somewhere back in those days. It was an easy way to add a few miles and segments.

I flew that one a few times when I was based in Salisbury... air time is about 25 minutes or so. Now that I'm based in PHF, I fly the ORF-PHF flight ~2x month... air time on that one is only 8-10 minutes, depending on the active runways, at an altitude of 2,000-3,000'!

IIRC the express carrier that operates DCA-SBY has a maintence facility for the DHC-8 out there and they use the flight to get aircraft in and out of the shop.

IIRC the express carrier that operates DCA-SBY has a maintence facility for the DHC-8 out there and they use the flight to get aircraft in and out of the shop.

That's correct... The flight (all Dash 8 service now, actually) is operated by Piedmont, and we not only have a maintenance facility at SBY, but also our company headquarters. Both the DCA and CLT flights are primarily for maintenance postioning... the aircraft leave SBY early in the morning to get out for a day of flying, and the inbound flights arrive SBY late at night.

I was browsing through the latest OAG timetable last night and saw another weird US Airways route:

RDU-CHS, flown 3x daily by US Airways Express/Air Midwest on Beech 1900s.

Is there really enough O&D traffic in this market to support 57 seats in each direction per day? I can't imagine that anyone would want to connect at either CHS or RDU, either, considering that any possible connection could be made at CLT on larger aircraft.