Originally Posted by
awayIgo
You are suggesting markets based on the number of Jews. Do you realize that a huge amount of tourists are non-Jews. Speaking in generalities American Orthodox Jews come to Israel frequently--usually visiting relatives/parents/children. Non-Orthodox come in numbers far below their representation in the US. Non-Jews are the big tourists! It seems irrelevant where Jews are located in terms of having flights. What is relevant is where tourists are coming from. I 'd look first for fundamental Christian populations since they are huge supporters and make loads of trip.
Also if LY actually had a competitive business product (hard, soft, ground, price), they could look at where that kind of traffic is being under-served. Oh well!
If you're looking at general population, Jewish community, and diplomatic travellers, I'd have thought BWI was a pretty decent choice. It's close enough to Philly to compete with EWR for any O&D traffic, and is no less convenient than IAD for most Washington traffic. Baltimore itself has a huge Jewish community.
Just the Israeli embassy traffic would probably account for a pretty high proportion of seats at the pointy end, albeit they are cannibalising their NY traffic, but when they start replacing 747s with 787s shortly, they might do better to optimise point-to-point like that anyway.
BWI/Maryland are also known to offer decent incentives for international carriers, and with a $100m capex programme to improve this aspect of the airport, they're going to be looking for new markets...