Colgan Air

Other then the fact Allegiant is sites as being quite successful at ORH, the response is quite insightful. Looks like commercial airlines see us as a potential years down the road.



Greetings Mr. Randell,

Thank you for your inquiry regarding air service to Worcester, Massachusetts. We are always looking for potential new markets as we continue to grow our expanding route network and Worcester has come up many times in the past. However, after much analysis we have come to the conclusion that Worcester currently doesn’t fit into our business model.

We do fly to other small communities in New England, as you mentioned we fly to Lebanon, NH and Hyannis, MA. Lebanon is an essential air service market, meaning that we receive federal subsidies to fly there. Without that subsidy, service to Lebanon would be a money losing venture. Hyannis on the other hand is a very popular high-yield tourist destination in the spring and summer and that is why we add so much service there in those months, in the winter we reduce their service to the bare minimum, two daily flights to Nantucket continuing on to LaGuardia.

When we look at potential new markets there are many things we look at when determining if a market will be profitable enough to fly. When I look at Worcester it is very hard figure out if it would be profitable; however, history and low-fare competition makes me believe that it would not .
.
ORH has had service to Washington Dulles in the past with Atlantic Coast Airlines operating as United Express, they discontinued the service after several years due to increasing passenger losses to Boston and Providence. This happened when airlines like ValuJet (later AirTran) began serving BOS and Southwest began serving Providence with much lower fares. USAirways Express served Philadelphia for many years; however, they too pulled the service as passengers chose BOS rather than ORH. American Eagle flew to Chicago (O’Hare) and the Delta Connection flew to Atlanta both followed USAirways and they too pulled their serve due to low passenger numbers.

The main problem that Worcester has is its close proximately to Boston and Providence. These two airports have service by every low-fare carrier in the country, jetBlue, AirTran, Southwest, Spirit, Frontier and USAirways. The low fares being offered from those locations makes it hard for Worcester to attract passengers unless ORH can have low-fare service too. This is why Allegiant Air is doing so well in ORH with their low-fares to Florida. Adding turbo-prop service from ORH to New York, Philadelphia, or Washington would be at fares that are higher than those being charged from BOS & PVD to the same destinations. This is due to the higher operating costs per seat on turbo-prop equipment. There are passengers who would be willing to pay the extra $150 per ticket for the convenience; however, there are not enough for us to turn a profit. As time goes on, and Boston Logan becomes more congested low-fare carriers may begin looking for an alternative and if they were to serve ORH with larger aircraft lower fares would be possible and service to major business destinations would become just as profitable as Allegiant’s service to Florida.

I hope this helps explain the situation.

Thanks for your interest,