This has been brought up before, but for the devil of me, I cannot find the topic; I even searched the archives.

Anyway, it absolutely has to do with connecting passengers. Think about it. The destinations served are all major hubs for Delta, United and American. For travelers that live in CHI, DFW and ATL, why would they take CO to get anywhere except EWR? The home carriers from those origin airports can get you to your final destination on a non-stop, so why would you fly CO on a connection, unless you were ONLY going to EWR.

Conversely, you would only be flying CO out of EWR to DFW, CHI and ATL if that was your final destination. If you would be flying anywhere else, you would have to connect on DL, UA and AA. Therefore, you would only fly CO non-stop to those final destination (DFW, CHI and ATL).

Besides, they are maxed out at Term C and I think the satellite they share in Term A has a lot of non-major carriers. They could always grab more gates if they go out of business (or conversely, the others can grab CO gates if THEY go out of business!)

Also, it gives CO a presence in ALL three Terminals at EWR. It's like marking your territory.

Term A: CO - ATL, DFW, MDW, ORD
Term B: CO - LHR and some int'l arrivals (plus fture SkyTeam partners DL and NW)
Term C: CO - ALL

- HobokenFlyer