March 01, 2007

JetBlue

I just went on their website and checked out a ticket from P-Town to Boston an then on to Fort Myers. The cost was $149!!!!! I would book this ticket everyday of the week. In fact I would easily pay $199 and maybe $249 for this flight out of ORH.

How did ORH miss out on this shuttle while P-Town, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Hyannis did get a shuttle to Boston on Cape Air, who has a code sharing arrangement with JetBlue. ORH is:

  1. 2nd largest city in New England
  2. catchment area of over 2,000,000
  3. $100,000 of readily available DOT grant monies
  4. relatively new empty terminal
  5. MassPort (owner of Boston) is our partner is the destination of these flights
  6. our consultant, IMG, has been paid over $200,000 to help recruit and retain an airline, actually identified Cape Air in their original report about 18 months ago.

How did we miss this opportunity? Imagine being able to drive up to ORH and catch a flight for $149 to Fort Myers for Spring Training on JetBlue.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go Red Sox!!!

Harry Tembenis
Worcester, MA

Anonymous said...

"How did we miss this opportunity?"...simple Massport is running ORH into the ground to pick it up on the cheap in July.
That's my conspiracy theory and I'm sticking to it!

Harry Tembenis
Worcester,MA

Anonymous said...

The issue that arises is that folks in P Town, MV, Hyannis, & Nantucket have NO OTHER CHOICES if they want to fly anywhere. I.e. they have to take a connector flight, right?

Is the catchment area for connector flights anywhere near as large as the entire ORH catchment area of 2M? I think I disagree..

Customers south of Worc will opt for Greene before taking a connector flight from Worc

Those customers east of Worc, likewise will opt for Logan

Those to the north "MAY" opt for Manchester.

Those to the west, Bradlee.

But I do believe there is still a market for these smaller connector flights, but it is mainly the immediate Worc area, maybe Worc and 1 town out at best? Maybe 2 towns to the north & west?

If I live near downtown Shrews, for example, and I am headed to Fla, I really dont think that I would back track 20 or 25 mins to catch a connector from Worc. Would you folks? 25 mins from Shrews to the east and I am already at the Natick rest area??

Bill Randell said...

Jahn:


People in P-Town, Hyannis, Nantucket or Martha Vineyard who want to take JetBlue need to drive to Boston. You really are missing the point here.

If you lived in Shrewsbury, how are you going to get to Logan?? You can drive and park your car, hire a limo or have someone drive you.. There is a cost associated with all of these and how do you get home.

If I lived in Shrewsbury and I could catch a flight for $149 to Fort Myers out of Worcester on JetBlue, I would get dropped off at ORH!!!! By checking in at Worcester, I avoid all the lines at Logan.

Harry, I am with you on this one.

Anonymous said...

Bill, thats my point. These cape air passengers have no other viable alternatives to get anywhere w/o being shuttled into logan. They are a captive audience and HAVE to take cape air to really fly to Fla or prob anywhere for that matter.

The worc catchment area has other viable alternatives to coming to ORH and shuttling to logan to get to Fla.

Bill Randell said...

Jahn:

you still miss my point.. You make it sound like someone in Hyannis can not get to TF Green?

Jahn, right now I can drive to Boston, TF Green, Bradley or Manchester. If we had the code sharing agreement between Cape Air and JetBlue out of ORH, it would be my first choice.

I feel many others would do the same as me. I do not know how much clearer I can explain this?

Anonymous said...

BILL, IF i am Flying to Fla. from Hyannis it is 1 3/4 hrs drive to Logan and to Greene, so obviously there is a great argument for the cape air servce to logan and then onto Fla.

P Town to logan is well over 2 1/2 hrs drive and likewise to greene, so again the cape air service looks great. P town to the canal bridge is over an hour alone.

MV and Nantucket to Logan or greene by car.....it s not even worth considering from a time & money perspective...cape air is obvioulsy THE only answer.

But Cape air is not the ONLY answer for most of ORH's so called catchment area from a time perspective, esp the more populated catchment area. If I am east or south of Worc I have to cross the entire city to get there. Even If I live under the Lake Quinsig bridge which is the closet part of Shrews to Worc, it is still 20 mins to ORH even at night. In 20 mins I can be on the PIke in Framingham at night. Move one town out to northboro, westboro, grafton, millbury, or sutton and the cape air altenative just does not cut it.

Bsides we all know that we s/b trying to reel in another Allegiant type carrier

Bill Randell said...

Jahn:

If you had 10 people who lived on Lake Ave and they were flying to Florida and you asked them if they would be interested in a JetBlue flight from ORH to Florida for $149, avoid the traffic to Boston, avoid the long lines at Boston--I say 8 or 9 would take the flight.

The only reason I say 8 or 9 is because 1 or 2 may be afraid of the smaller Cape Air plane.

Anonymous said...

I tend to Agree, but my point is that Worc is the catchment area for cape air. Once you"re 1 town out, it's at best a toss up between the other airports and ORH and IMO opinion the other places win out.

I guess my point is that cape air has a limited market in central Mass.

Plus Add in:

1. the small plane factor that frightens some,



2. the fact that on the haul back who knows how long you'd have to wait at logan to get cape air back to Worc and

3. the ever present preception that one may not be able to fly in/out ORH due to weatehr conditions.

If I am in Northboro, I am calling Thomas's limo service to get me to Logan (or maybe even to Greene?) for that $99 (?) flight to FLA.