Brigri

Has anyone else noticed the buildup at White Plains? 15 daily flights, which is very signifigant. They are using a good mix of 190's and 320's here. I think it's fair to say they own the airport.

Seat13c

They saw an oppurtunity and are capitalizing on it. Honestly, I think they would have more operations there if there wasn't such tight slot controls there. With a lot of execs living in Westchester County, HPN would provide a lot of BOS, ORD, and DUL commuter traffic if there was so few slot there (think of a smaller version of LGA being a large scale NYC to East Coast commuter airport).

Spaceduck

There already are flights to ORD on AE and UX and IAD, which is what I assumed you meant by "DUL", on UX. Granted, all are express flights and none are JetBlue, but they already exist. US Airways ended BOS flights in 2008, all of which were on props. I hardly see why JetBlue would want to fly any of those routes on an E190 or A320.

JetBlue and AirTran serve the same role at HPN as Southwest at ISP, they cater primarily to the leisure crowd, flying to the Florida Five, where there is a good amount of demand. Thankfully no airline has the dominance at HPN that Southwest has at ISP; it's nice to have options, though I'd rather have JetBlue than Southwest as that dominant carrier.

Seat13c

I totally agree with you about why JetBlue is frying to the Florida Five from HPN instead of DUL, BOS, and ORD. Its a better demand with better returns. However, there is a certain demand in the Tri-State area, primarily in this case Weschester County, of people going to those business heavy centers. IMHO, 2x E190's on these routes would have been ideal. Now, obviously, Florida is what is in higher demand.

As far as what US flew to BOS, They flew turbo props which are not really too comfortable and a premium was usually charges.

somedude24

A family member just flew PBI-HPN this week, the first time I've been to Westchester White Plains airport. The reason we chose that route (rather than JFK, LGA, or EWR) is not only that White Plains is about equidistant from northern New Jersey as JFK, and has convenient Florida flight schedules, but mostly for the insanely low last-minute fares.

Next-day (and even same-day) flights were going for only $129 on this route...on AirTran. Now, I see they're going for as little as $107, also only on AirTran. JetBlue doesn't quite match, but rather seems to charge $132 and up (more typically, $199) for last-minute flights. PBI to EWR, LGA, or JFK typically goes for $319 for last-minute one-ways on any airline.

There are UP TO 6 DAILY FLIGHTS from PBI to HPN between AirTran and JetBlue, and it seems to me like they're duking it out with ridiculously low airfares. I have to imagine that the market will eventually settle out a little bit, with last-minute fares increasing somewhat, or capacity being reduced, or one of the two airlines abandoning the route (my impression is that AirTran also ramped up Florida service at White Plains, but retreated a bit from the competition with JetBlue).

But, while it lasts, NY metro area people should definitely look to White Plains when booking flights to Florida with little advance purchase.

sbm12

It is terribly inconvenient to mass transit and pretty bad to park at the airport. It is great if someone can pick you up or drop you off.

whitedoor

Last time I checked, I could not find any off site airport parking facilities. The on site lot can be oversold and is expensive.

owen61

Does anyone have any idea how the yields have been for B6 on these routes so far?

Brigri

http://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_Sele...Air%20Carriers

Per the transtats site above, for July I just have the load factors for the HPN routes, this is no indication of yield but they are certainly full flights:

FLL HPN 84.50%
MCO HPN 86.52%
PBI HPN 86.22%
RSW HPN 89.82%
TPA HPN 89.69%

Seat13c

Those are great numbers. I am suprised to see FLL is the lowest out of all of them, but then again, it probably is the one that tops the list with the most amount of competition (right up there with MCO).