Everytime I fly the CHO-LGA route the fare is always at least $500 - sometimes nearly $700, the planes are always late and plus its all these prop planes. Its easier to get to Florida or Europe (and cheaper from NYC) that CHO! Is there any chance they will ever put some jets on this route or that the fares will drop or is Richmond considered too close (even if it is a 1 hr 20 minute pain to get to!)

Small town, rich people, deep pockets...

Wahoo (not)! (I know, bad pun). I understand your pain since I fly from small airports all the time. Props and higher fares.

Everytime I fly the CHO-LGA route the fare is always at least $500 - sometimes nearly $700, the planes are always late and plus its all these prop planes. Its easier to get to Florida or Europe (and cheaper from NYC) that CHO! Is there any chance they will ever put some jets on this route or that the fares will drop or is Richmond considered too close (even if it is a 1 hr 20 minute pain to get to!)

And I must say I feel your pain. In fact, the fares on this route have been climbing steadily of late from their already insane levels: $808 r/t has been the price lately. UVa and most of the significant employers in the CHO area have contracted rates for this route, but they're not inexpensive at all, still well over $500 r/t.
The flight usually is heavily delayed - the flight that's supposed to arrive at 8:50 last night got in after 12am due to weather I would imagine. And if it's canceled, they usually route you through CLT if you don't want to travel to RIC!
Now that JetBlue is flying RIC-JFK, fares are down so much on RIC-LGA that CHO-LGA just doesn't make sense anymore, even with the 1hr+ drive. Plus the higher frequencies just make it more likely that you'll actually get to central VA. And the E145s just are nicer planes than the crappy Colgan Saabs.

$800 - they have to be kidding at that point for an hour and a half flight. Given the market it might make sense to just start a CHO-Teterboro charter company (a bit like the Linear Air, NYC-Nantucket route)! I agree Richmond is much more reliable but it is a pain because it is a good 1hr20-1hr40 door to gate. I have a feeling US Air won't change these flights for a long time until those planes get retired as I think those flights are run through one of those US Air express subsidiary companies and sadly it seems unlikely that any type of discounter would ever come in given the market size.

Your right about the Jetblue flights though - I took one into Richmond recently and it was great.

Given that CHO is Piedmont crew base, I find Colgan flying the LGA flights to be offensive.

Then again with the regularity our Dashes are breaking these days, it might be better for travelers that we're not doing it.

I went to law school in CHO and during interview season was flying this route back and forth weekly. It's grim. Almost always close to two hours of time in the air on a miserable little plane. And I never had a ticket for less than 689, though thankfullly law firms were footing the bill for those trips. You can take a cab from CHO to DCA (about 120 bucks), take theshuttle to LGA and get their for half the price and only slightly slower. Less money and faster if there is any bad weather. Appalling. BTW sometimes the nondirect routing through pittsburg is a few hundred bucks cheaper than the direct, if you really enjoy the Albermarle regional airport so much.

Given that CHO is Piedmont crew base, I find Colgan flying the LGA flights to be offensive.

Then again with the regularity our Dashes are breaking these days, it might be better for travelers that we're not doing it.

I feel you on the offensive. If they are going to go prop, at least let the airline with the crewbase do it. The Dash is a tank, what's going on?

How are you by the way? Actually I'll just email you.........

On topic, is that $800 walk up or advance notice? Granted it shouldn't be that high either way, but they dropped a lot of the Charlotte cities, looks like they need to do the same to LGA.

Looking like $450 for 3-weeks out, which is fairly low for this route. As for Piedmont vs. Colgan, I would LOVE to have Piedmont and the Dash 8s flying this route - Colgan flies the Saab in from Manassas every morning and the Colgan Saabs aren't exactly the picture of reliability. The Piedmont crews are top notch.

CHO LGA is a Colgan Air route that is why it is expensive.

Looking like $450 for 3-weeks out, which is fairly low for this route. As for Piedmont vs. Colgan, I would LOVE to have Piedmont and the Dash 8s flying this route - Colgan flies the Saab in from Manassas every morning and the Colgan Saabs aren't exactly the picture of reliability. The Piedmont crews are top notch.

Thanks for the compliment!