Why does this flight exist?
Nov 18, 2018, 12:32 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2018
Programs: DL
Posts: 1
Why does this flight exist?
I fly out of Hartford CT (BDL) once a month or so and I've noticed that there's a daily CRJ-900 nonstop from BDL to Cleveland. Why does this exist? There's a Detroit flight every morning too so they're not trying to reduce hub traffic. Out of every random city pair to go point-to-point on instead of hub-and-spoke, they picked Hartford and Cleveland? How many other flights are there like this?
Nov 18, 2018, 2:52 pm
#3
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Doesn't take much to make money off a micro-haul on a -900. The real question is finding an aircraft with the downtime to perform the route. Put the three of them together and it's an easy call.
Nov 18, 2018, 5:01 pm
#5
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Nov 18, 2018, 5:02 pm
#6
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I fly out of Hartford CT (BDL) once a month or so and I've noticed that there's a daily CRJ-900 nonstop from BDL to Cleveland. Why does this exist? There's a Detroit flight every morning too so they're not trying to reduce hub traffic. Out of every random city pair to go point-to-point on instead of hub-and-spoke, they picked Hartford and Cleveland? How many other flights are there like this?
Nov 18, 2018, 6:52 pm
#7
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Nov 18, 2018, 6:55 pm
#8
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Nov 18, 2018, 7:14 pm
#9
Join Date: Aug 2013
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Maybe because AA has a hub, and probably didn't have much need for those flights because of it, they were not interested in paying Republic as much as DL was for the route slots.
Nov 18, 2018, 8:39 pm
#11
Join Date: Sep 2011
Programs: DL DM & 1MM
Posts: 618
From what I can tell, Pellston has an essential air service subsidy, and it requires twice a day departure to the DTW hub. One of those departures has the aircraft originate at APN airport (nearby) at 5:05am, with only a 25 min stop picking up passengers in PLN, before arriving to DTW. This also allows twice a day departure from APN airport (albeit one with a brief stop in PLN). The other flight in the afternoon is DTW-PLN-DTW.
Anyway, a very interesting route, since Pellston has only a population of 800 people!
Anyway, a very interesting route, since Pellston has only a population of 800 people!
Nov 18, 2018, 9:28 pm
#12
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Nov 19, 2018, 4:31 am
#13
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Canada
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Sometimes airlines fly ghost flights because otherwise they'll lose their slot if they don't use it. Slots are expensive. Not sure if this is the case here but it's interesting how airline business works.
Nov 19, 2018, 6:22 am
#14
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