paul514

I think that the $15 fares would be much like their

I don't think Hartford will ever be a hub for any airline. It's not geographically positioned to be a hub, and there isn't enough of a population base. Hubs tend to be in areas that offer good connection opportunities like Chicago, Detroit, etc. Also there's been a tendency by large carriers to trim service the smaller hubs and downsize other cities to regional jets. If cities like Columbus, Pittsburgh, St. Louis cannot maintain hub status then Hartford has no chance. Even as a Northeast transatlantic gateway it cannot compete with JFK, Newark or Boston. It's not a bad thing that Hartford is not a hub, just ask many residents in hubs dominated by a single carrier how much they pay for tickets. What BDL needs is to attract more airlines, for instance Air Tran and jetBlue. Some routes to Atlanta and to Florida by the former and nonstop flight to California on the latter would be good.

I think that currently many people drive or take shuttles to Kennedy, Newark and to a lesser extent Logan. Flying one-stop from Hartford is often $200 or more roundtrip (on economy) leading many people to simply drive. I think if the price is right, many will choose to take Northwest to Amsterdam. Schipol is one of the best airports in Europe for transferring flights and KLM along with Transavia can connect passengers to cities all over Europe, Africa and Asia. However, I think Northwest is targetting business passengers since they will now be able to reach destinations in Africa and Asia with two flights instead of three. If Northwest happens to fill up most of the 22 seats in first and only a few seats in coach it will make money due to being a high-yield route. Also, cargo is an important source of revenue for airlines, so we'll have to see how that does.

Would it be possible to privatise BDL? I know in Britain BAA plc is a private company (actually owned by a Spanish consortium). Perhaps if the airport was run by a private company it could be more efficiently run, also the funds from such a sale could be used to improve other infrastructure in the area (such as building a highspeed rail link linking Springfield-Hartford-New Haven with New York.

You completely missed the point of my post. This traffic is what airlines call low-yield, meaning it earns less per seat mile. There are hundereds of thousands of Italians in Australia and South Africa and Alitalia gave up flying to Sydney and Johannesburg because these flights had high loads (meaning nearly full planes) but very low yield making them unprofitable. However, Alitalia keeps Lagos Nigeria because even though the loads are low (especially in Economy), business class is full of ENI workers and cargo is full. I'm sure as many Italians as there in the area many have little connection with Italy. As for those that do are there enough to fill 214 seats on a daily basis? There are also no major Italian corporations in the Hartford area, killing business traffic. I couldn't see them wanting to fly less than daily, because lower frequency flights kill yields (business travellers prefer frequency). If they're not going to serve Los Angeles, Melbourne, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney (all cities with far more Italians), then Hartford has a snowball's chance in hell. Alitalia has had major problems in the past years. It is a state-owned parasite and for the past years has been strugling with EU legislation that denys state aid to airlines. It's on the verge of bankruptcy and is losing €50,000 per hour! They are certainly in no shape to start new destinations, they've scaled back North America to Boston, Chicago, Miami, Newark, New York and Toronto. A question though, does the Hartford area have any major European corporation that could generate enough business traffic? Raleigh-Durham has a daily 777-200ER flight by American Airlines to London (Gatwick), because Raleigh is the American base for British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline. Apparently this route is such a gold mine for AA that they upgraded it from a 767 just because the 777 has more business class seats, the economy class is many times nearly empty, but high fares and a full cargo load make it one of their most profitable routes.

VFR (Visiting Friends/Relatives) traffic is notoriously seasonal and low-yield for airlines. Flights to Italy would probably have high loads in the summer/holiday season and smaller loads during the winter. Alitalia is in dire straits and if they cannot make money flying to Los Angeles or a number of larger cities in North America, I'm not sure that Hartford would be a great choice. Also Alitalia's smallest plane capable of flying BDL-MXP or BDL-FCO is the 767-300ER which is considerably larger than the 757-200 that Northwest Airlines is deploying on BDL-AMS. Perhaps service by Eurofly to Naples or Palermo would be better, maybe a once a week seasonal flight. I personally think Frankfurt would be a great choice for nonstop flights using a 757-200. With US Airways being a Star Alliance member, this could easilly connect to Lufthansa's megahub. However, US seems to be concentrating on using Philadelphia as a transatlantic gateway. Aer Lingus would be another interesting airline. Ryanair is currently trying to acquire them and turn them into a low-cost transatlantic carrier serving underserved airports, much like they do in Europe. However, I would think that they would need to get 757s, since Aer Lingus' longhaul fleet consists exclusively of Airbus A330-300 and A330-200s.

Actually I find that Hartford and Brisbane have a lot in common. Both cities have downtown areas with highrises that are mainly for work and the cities tend to be a bit lifeless after 6PM and on weekends. Brisbane does have the Queen St. shopping area, but I found that after 6PM many of the shops close. Both metro areas are of a similar size and density and have sprawling suburbs. Both cities are now trying to attract residents to their downtown cores. I did not use the Brisbane public bus service though I did ride into the city from Gold Coast by rail and I noticed quite a few people from the suburbs (some were quite rural) used the rail service. So I'd like to know what makes Brisbane's busway service successful, perhaps it's success can be applied to Hartford.

If United reintroduced San Francisco service that would be great for anyone who wants to fly one-stop to destinations in the Pacific (Hawaii, Asia, Australia). The A319 could be the perfect aircraft for this route since it has the range. If it's successful it could be upgraded to a 757-200.

I'm so glad Hartford finally has got into the act of other major cities by having a highrise residential building. Now all we need is a dozen more with some grocery stores and other businesses that will truly make this a walkable city people can live and work in. Cities like Sydney, Toronto and Vancouver have gotten it right, hopefully Hartford will follow.

What Bradley really needs is a facelift. Although I grew up in the Hartford area I had usually flown out of Kennedy. Recently I flew into the airport from Vancouver (via Toronto). Both of those airports are very clean and modern and I was shocked and at how nasty Bradley looked in comparison. As I descended on a narrow escalator and saw falling stained ceiling tiles I could only imagine what impression this makes to first time visitors to the city. Everything the airport just looks old and cheap, investing in the airport would make a huge difference for the Hartford/Springfield area as a whole, which could use an image boost.