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New Plattsburgh airport may squeeze Montreal area hubs

New Plattsburgh airport may squeeze Montreal area hubs

Old May 6, 2007, 9:08 pm
  #46  
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Originally Posted by CZBB
Ah, but from Brighton, You'd be silly to travel all the way into [north] into London, back out again [west] and fly from heathrow for 5x the price of any other UK airport.

I would offer the following as being A LOT faster than LHR-FRA (and a heck of a lot cheaper). From Brighton;
Train to Southampton, SOU-FRA on FlyBE
Train to Gatwick, LGW-CGN, train to Frankfurt

The bottom line is there's almost always a better, cheaper deal with the LCCs if you do your homework.
Ok, so when I was in Brighton, SOU-FRA didn't exist. So that's a viable option now and that's great.

But my point still stands. People don't always make the most rational decisions when it comes to air travel. That's why many of the LCCs survive. They get them hooked on the cheap fares. And then they sell bus tickets too. That increases their revenues. At the end of the day, the traveller is usually almost no further ahead in terms of significant savings.
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Old May 6, 2007, 9:16 pm
  #47  
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Originally Posted by Ken hAAmer
How do you figure?

The population of the greater Vancouver area is a little over 2 million. The population of Seattle is a little bit more. Throw in the various small communites in between and you're probably looking at 5 million.

Now what's the population of the greater Montreal area? And all those smaller but still significant centres like Cornwall and surrounding area? All those communities in northern NY, Vermont, and New Hampshire? Even in the rural communites south of Montreal there are a lot more people than there are in the area outside Greater Vancouver. Past Whistler or Hope there ain't nuthin! Go a couple km north of my office in North Van and you'll find nothing but mountains for hundreds of km.

And forget Federal Way, WA -- even people in Renton/SeaTac are a lot, lot further from BLI than anyone in Montreal is from Plattsburg.
The access roads to PBG aren't as good as BLI. Look at the map. Very few people on the east side of Lake Champlain would drive around the big lake and then cross at a very limited points just to get to PBG. So there are probably ferries, but I bet you they cost money.

There are many small airports in the NY and some probably receive some sort of federal or local subsidy for air service. So they will have cheaper airfares and thus people wouldn't drive to PBG just to save a few dollars.

Oh, and people from Cornwall would probably drive to OGS, Massena, Norfolk or other airports instead of PBG, which seems to be more than an hour away on highways and not freeways.
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Old May 6, 2007, 9:38 pm
  #48  
 
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A) Fly YUL-SEA. Let's say total flying time is 8 hours including connections and being there on time. 600$ CAD airfare (using it as a figure to illustrate example). Salary time at say $70/hr (cash+benefits+vacation pay)=$578. Total 1238$.

B) Fly PBG-SEA. Let's say total driving time is 1.5 hr and flight time including connections and being there on time is 8 hours. Airfare is 400$. Rental car for trip (let's say four days)=$175 after all fees. Parking is free. Salary costs=$735 for straight and OT. Total 1310$.

So, are savings really that great for the business person? Now I know you're going to argue that some people don't get paid for OT or get time in lieu of pay. Fine. But my point still stands. It's not that black and white.

(Oh, and not to mention your comfort may be at risk because of the extra time it takes.)
Notwithstanding that you're numbers are all made up, it's still a bogus argument. Why for example does someone need to rent a car for 4 days in example B, but not A? (Not to mention that I wouldn't even pay $175 for 4 days even in Europe -- last week I rented a "standard" vehicle for 178 per week, or about CAD $38 a day. In North America I'd pay even less.)

Are you suggesting that someone would have to rent a car to get to the US? Why not then to YUL? Or what would a taxi cost? I've paid over $50 for a cab ride to YUL on more than one occaision, and many years ago.

But let's use a real live example -- my example. And we'll go even further, to SEA instead of just to BLI. Econo ticket on AC for YVR-EWR was about CAD$971, flying time was 7:40 YYZ-EWR would be on a sardine plane, and even if I was lucky enough to snag a gate upgrade, it would most likely be on a domestic 767, with the notorious econo-J seating.

Alternatively, the alternative I took, was SEA-EWR for about CAD$597, flying time 7:38 (essentially identical), and I'd be in paid F the entire way. Unrestricted F, so the invariable changes in the return flight would not incur charges of up to $200 for each change, there'd be no worries about having to up-fare, no upgrade certificates, no worries about your upgrade falling through or a duct-taped 767, and as a bonus 50% COS status miles and point. (And yes I realize that no one actually really cares about points. That probably why Aeroplan only has 6 or 7 million members, and no one carries an Air Miles card.)

With a single night stay (U$79) at my chosen hotel in Renton I get free parking which would have cost ~$C100 at YVR, so that's at least a wash, if not a slight benefit. ('Course then there's the status qualifying hotel stay, which often as not corresponds to one of Hiltons 5/10/15/20K or other bonus programs.)

So for me, the 3hr + 3hr drive to an from Seattle results in a more comfortable and more pleasant ride, more benefits such as points and status, fewer worries and headaches, and a cash savings of almost $800.

And of late, upgradable at time of booking M fares out of SEA that are half the cost of B fares from YVR to SYD are making me think about driving (or even flying) to SEA just to turn around and fly back to YVR before continuing on to SYD.
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Old May 6, 2007, 9:52 pm
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The access roads to PBG aren't as good as BLI. Look at the map. Very few people on the east side of Lake Champlain would drive around the big lake and then cross at a very limited points just to get to PBG. So there are probably ferries, but I bet you they cost money.
Yep, ferries. 24 hours a day, depatures about every 8-10 minutes, $9 car and driver.

There are many small airports in the NY and some probably receive some sort of federal or local subsidy for air service. So they will have cheaper airfares and thus people wouldn't drive to PBG just to save a few dollars.
Then I guess these wouldn't be those people that wouldn't spend a "measly dollar", right?

Oh, and people from Cornwall would probably drive to OGS, Massena, Norfolk or other airports instead of PBG, which seems to be more than an hour away on highways and not freeways.
Cornwall to Plattsburg is under 2 hours on roads that never have traffic jams. About the same amount of time as Seattle (part of that "significantly more" population than that around PBG) to BLI. Only that would be on I-5, notorious for delays all the way from Tacoma to Mount Vernon.

So if Cornwall is "out" then I guess Seattle is as well, which pretty much disposes of the population argument.
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Old May 6, 2007, 10:06 pm
  #50  
 
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But like I said, your typical business traveller will not go through such inconvenience
There was a time when I might have believed that. I always thought that I was special, the exception, the one who would try things others wouldn't. But of late, with pretty much all of the other travellers in my company as well as so many others, it's becoming more clear every day that many, many business travellers will happily incur some "inconvenience" if the payoff is big enough. And these days, it doesn't take much for a "pay off."

you would need a significant number of leisure travellers to do this before such an impact is felt on the bottom line of Canada's air carriers. In other words, not enough people do it. Sure, some do. But not enough. That's the point I'm making. For years everyone has known that BUF and SEA are cheaper to fly out of. Well, if price trumped absolutely everything, then why do YYZ and YVR still have people flying in and out of them?
The question is not whether a small US airport can put a large international Canadian airport out of business. It's a) can they attract enought business to be successful, and b) will they have any impact on fare/airport fees/etc in Canada?

I don't know, but I suspect that it at least helps keep the Canadian airports "honest." Given the example of BLI (and in fact all of Bellingham, which probably circulates more CAD currency than USD) it can be done.

But your various arguments seem to amount to there might be some tiny impediment which reduces the perceived savings ever so little or there may be some minor inconvenience. They might not know about Nexus. They might have to take a ferry. They might have to drive for more than a single hour. There might be a Shriner on a tiny motorcycle in front of them.

They're not very compelling arguments.
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Old May 7, 2007, 8:08 am
  #51  
 
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I have been following the Plattsburgh situation since they closed the base in 1995 and am anxious to see this project succeed... I have a stong hunch that it will; while it will take some traffic from the Montreal Area Airports it would never put any of the airports there out of business... I suspect the situation will be more of a reliever for Montreal and it will take some bite into BTV's traffic as a susbstantial amount of their traverlers come from the NY side of the lake...

In terms of not having a suitable access road, that is nonsense, the exit for the airport is off of the Adirondack Northway and will be a short 1.5 Mile drive on a main road to the entrance of the airport... I really do not see it being any more convenient than that...

Anyway, I am hopeful that someone will announce service to and from this aiport on or before the day it officially opens for business...
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Old May 7, 2007, 8:27 am
  #52  
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As a point of clarification to my first post , #6 in this thread, I took the descriptions of taxes and fees from a hypothetical ticket YUL-MIA-YUL as shown by ITA software. Whether YUL's CDN15 is a tax or not doesn't change the demand for its payment. Ken pointed out that U.S. equivalents 'PFCs' are capped at a much lower rate. This was the language I used, new emphasis added.

For Montreal travelers with a US destination, this would avoid a lot of the cross-border and YUL airport fees. Please forgive the co-mingled currencies.

Tax: Canadian Air Travelers Security Charge C$7.94
Tax: US International Arrival Tax $15.10
Tax: Quebec Sales Tax C$1.19
Tax: Canadian Goods and Services Tax C$1.38
Tax: Montreal Airport Improvement Fee C$15.00
Tax: US Immigration Fee $7.00
Tax: USDA APHIS Fee $5.00
Tax: US International Departure Tax $15.10
total $42.20


Further, I had deleted two lines of Canadian GST as I don't know if this would be payable on purchases in Canada for tickets U.S. to U.S., as with a hypothetical Plattsburgh-Miami.

Tax: Canadian Goods and Services Tax C$15.99
Tax: Canadian Goods and Services Tax C$7.35

These amounts may not correlate to the fare basis used in the example a few days ago.

The point was to show that savings from avoiding both Canadian and U.S. taxes and fees for cross-border air traffic are non-trivial. This is particularly true for larger traveling parties. How Montrealers view the value of their time and preference for U.S. land border crossings vs. interrogation at YUL I can't quantify.
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Old May 7, 2007, 8:46 am
  #53  
 
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Originally Posted by YOWkid
The access roads to PBG aren't as good as BLI. Look at the map. Very few people on the east side of Lake Champlain would drive around the big lake and then cross at a very limited points just to get to PBG. So there are probably ferries, but I bet you they cost money.
To second what Ken HAAmer has said, the ferry from the downtown Burlington dock is to Port Kent NY, about 15 minutes drive south of Plattsburgh; it's $30 round trip including car. If one is cheap, they can drive to Grand Isle, about 30 minutes north of BTV, for $16 round trip, and it drops you 5 minutes from downtown Plattsburgh. The road connections are ridiculously easy; the current Plattsburgh airport is 5-10 minutes drive from I-87 (as ChrisNLI stated - welcome to Flyertalk, BTW); the new one is similarly located. BTV has no Southwest (JetBlue is the LCC there), so if WN can offer lower fares at an airport with free parking that's less than an hour away....

Originally Posted by YOWkid
There are many small airports in the NY and some probably receive some sort of federal or local subsidy for air service. So they will have cheaper airfares and thus people wouldn't drive to PBG just to save a few dollars.
These small airports have trouble selling fares because everyone drives to the reliever airports (SYR, BTV, ALB etc) since the fares are signficantly higher than at the EAS airport. The sad thing is the EAS airports are often cheaper than the Canadian airports...

Originally Posted by YOWkid
Oh, and people from Cornwall would probably drive to (...) Norfolk (...) which seems to be more than an hour away on highways and not freeways.
Norfolk (VA) is over 600 miles away? I'm a bit confused as to why this is one you brought up?

Last edited by billybob123; May 7, 2007 at 10:55 am Reason: Wrong highway #
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Old May 7, 2007, 10:39 am
  #54  
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Maybe he meant Norwood?

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Old May 7, 2007, 6:45 pm
  #55  
 
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Originally Posted by Ken hAAmer
Even in the rural communites south of Montreal there are a lot more people than there are in the area outside Greater Vancouver. Past Whistler or Hope there ain't nuthin! Go a couple km north of my office in North Van and you'll find nothing but mountains for hundreds of km.

There is life beyond Hope.

You'd be amazed at how many people drive from the Okanagan valley or Kamloops to Vancouver or Seattle to save some money on air fares, particularly when they are paying for their own airfares.

As an added note, you'd be amazed at how many people drive (3-5+hrs) from the Kootenays to either Calgary or Spokane for flights because of the ridiculous airfares to/from Cranbrook.

<note this next part isn't aimed at Ken, just trying to avoid starting a new reply>

Several people have been talking about the time cost of driving from wherever to some U.S. airport and using that as an argument for why it wouldn't be worth it to fly from elsewhere. I would argue that for the typical person who is taking a trip, with or without family, the time cost is a non-issue. Most companies just don't seem to want to pay you to spend time with your family. Sadly, families won't pay you $70/hr to drive them to the airport either.

Whether you fly from Vancouver, Montreal, Platsburg, or Bellingham, you are probably making the drive to the airport on your own dime (and won't be getting paid for it) and it will probably have a negligible effect on your total time available for a vacation. If you fly from the U.S. you pack up after work and drive over to the airport and catch the flight late that night or very early the next morning. If you fly from Canada, you pack up after work and drive over to the airport and catch the flight late that night or very early the next morning. The only difference is whether or not you sleep at a hotel or in your own bed. And as others have noted, staying at the hotel make cancel out the parking costs.
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Old May 11, 2007, 6:21 am
  #56  
 
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Airline Passengers especially ones that are leisure travelers are extremely cost sensitive as noted with the sucess of LCCs in the US and Europe... I myself have driven from NW New Jersey to JFK (1.5 Hour drive on a good day) to hop on a Jet Blue flight to BTV simply because I did not want to pay $500 for a RT ticket on COEX out of Newark... However, if I was travelling on business somewhere I would choose the most convenient point of departure as I have because somebody else is paying for it...

With the whole border crossing thing getting to and from PBG I have a feeling since the US GOV'T has over $20 Million invested in this through the MAP Program (Military Airport Program) there might be an expedited crossing process somewhere down the road...
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Old May 11, 2007, 1:44 pm
  #57  
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There's already Nexus, I don't know how much more expedited it can be.

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Old May 11, 2007, 1:55 pm
  #58  
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Originally Posted by 3Cforme
Further, I had deleted two lines of Canadian GST as I don't know if this would be payable on purchases in Canada for tickets U.S. to U.S., as with a hypothetical Plattsburgh-Miami.

Tax: Canadian Goods and Services Tax C$15.99
Tax: Canadian Goods and Services Tax C$7.35
Pretty safe to do. I've never paid Canadian taxes on U.S.-U.S. flights, or U.S.-Canada flights.

One other tip: If you buy Canada-U.S. tickets OW instead of RT, you save on GST on the return portion (assuming the airline prices Rt as 2 OWs).
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Old Jun 9, 2007, 4:38 pm
  #59  
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Please note, passenger service will start flying out of Plattsburgh International Airport on June, 18 2007.
That's from www.plattsburghinternationalairport.com and I'm wondering if any airline has announced. Perhaps CO's feeder (which flies out of Clinton County Airport now) would be one.

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Old Jun 9, 2007, 4:44 pm
  #60  
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Well it's going to be a soft launch I think. Expedia never heard of PBG (and has PLB as Clinton County) and neither Southwest nor JetBlue mentions Plattsburgh.

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