The AZO loss may be a bummer for anyone who lives in the city proper and they have to switch to DL. But for anyone say 20min/20miles or more away from AZO it is no real loss.

In my case:

Half the time I used ORD and a rental car instead of AZO when the cost was $200 more and the 2 hours extra for connection.

With an hour layover and an hour flight/taxiing you could get from ORD to Niles or St Joe by car like was said up thread. With direct SBN service now, the options are even better than AZO.

FAY-CLT-SBN or RDU-DFW-SBN beats FAY-CLT-ORD-AZO or RDU-ORD-AZO

Looks like the 12 cities are no longer available for booking from October 7 through November 3.

eightcone wrote:

The AZO loss may be a bummer for anyone who lives in the city proper and they have to switch to DL. But for anyone say 20min/20miles or more away from AZO it is no real loss.

In my case:

Half the time I used ORD and a rental car instead of AZO when the cost was $200 more and the 2 hours extra for connection.

With an hour layover and an hour flight/taxiing you could get from ORD to Niles or St Joe by car like was said up thread. With direct SBN service now, the options are even better than AZO.

FAY-CLT-SBN or RDU-DFW-SBN beats FAY-CLT-ORD-AZO or RDU-ORD-AZO

Yeah - I worry about AZO going forward. With GRR only 45 min away, it might be hard to justify AZO returning to prior service levels at least for awhile. I think your argument is correct - my folks live 10 min away from AZO so the convenience can't be beat (and I was usually more than happy to pay a premium to fly there and save time). But looks like GRR might be our airport of the future.

9w748capt wrote:

eightcone wrote:

The AZO loss may be a bummer for anyone who lives in the city proper and they have to switch to DL. But for anyone say 20min/20miles or more away from AZO it is no real loss.

In my case:

Half the time I used ORD and a rental car instead of AZO when the cost was $200 more and the 2 hours extra for connection.

With an hour layover and an hour flight/taxiing you could get from ORD to Niles or St Joe by car like was said up thread. With direct SBN service now, the options are even better than AZO.

FAY-CLT-SBN or RDU-DFW-SBN beats FAY-CLT-ORD-AZO or RDU-ORD-AZO

Yeah - I worry about AZO going forward. With GRR only 45 min away, it might be hard to justify AZO returning to prior service levels at least for awhile. I think your argument is correct - my folks live 10 min away from AZO so the convenience can't be beat (and I was usually more than happy to pay a premium to fly there and save time). But looks like GRR might be our airport of the future.

Frequency is really important for a lot of these not-too-isolated airports. For business travelers two important schedule questions are which flight allows us to arrive earliest and leave latest. Frequency of 2-3/day often doesn’t accomplish that for airports with other better-connected options nearby.

So DL already suspended SWF, now AA is suspending it. I think that leaves B6 and G4 so there are no more network carriers there. I’m glad ISP is safe.

evank516 wrote:

So DL already suspended SWF, now AA is suspending it. I think that leaves B6 and G4 so there are no more network carriers there. I’m glad ISP is safe.

ISP at least has a relatively dense population surrounding it and the next best option is slogging through one of the oh-so-lovely east-west highways on Long Island to get to JFK or LGA.

SWF is in a relatively rural area and on the other side of the river from the more populated areas of Westchester. There's enough there for Florida demand from Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.

deltairlines wrote:

evank516 wrote:

So DL already suspended SWF, now AA is suspending it. I think that leaves B6 and G4 so there are no more network carriers there. I’m glad ISP is safe.

ISP at least has a relatively dense population surrounding it and the next best option is slogging through one of the oh-so-lovely east-west highways on Long Island to get to JFK or LGA.

SWF is in a relatively rural area and on the other side of the river from the more populated areas of Westchester. There's enough there for Florida demand from Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.

I don’t disagree. I live on Long Island so I’m well aware of the population density here. Definitely justified. I’m pretty sad to see HVN close though. They were on a roll before all of this happened.

So glad to see that ROW has been spared. As has been said many times throughout this thread and other news sources, ROW really stands out as having the most to lose of all the 15 cities that AA announced would be suspended. JLN and SUX have also been spared due to being EAS and I dont understand why ROW isn't classified as EAS due they were served by Texas International (with DC-9's) when airline deregulation began in 1978. They've never needed funding that I'm aware of but they can't be left high and dry like AA had proposed. AA has been the only carrier serving ROW since 2007 and before that it was all independent commuters since TI left in 1979.

Chuska wrote:

So glad to see that ROW has been spared. As has been said many times throughout this thread and other news sources, ROW really stands out as having the most to lose of all the 15 cities that AA announced would be suspended. JLN and SUX have also been spared due to being EAS and I dont understand why ROW isn't classified as EAS due they were served by Texas International (with DC-9's) when airline deregulation began in 1978. They've never needed funding that I'm aware of but they can't be left high and dry like AA had proposed. AA has been the only carrier serving ROW since 2007 and before that it was all independent commuters since TI left in 1979.

AA knows the aliens will come after them if they discontinue service

deltairlines wrote:

SWF is in a relatively rural area and on the other side of the river from the more populated areas of Westchester. There's enough there for Florida demand from Newburgh and Poughkeepsie.

The real problem for SWF with respect to Westchester is that HPN (or even LGA) is more convenient for just about any given location in Westchester. If you're getting on the Cross-Westchester to cross the new bridge replacing the Tappan Zee you might as well just go east to HPN. If you're getting on the 684, HPN's terminal is less than a mile off the freeway. Peekskill is the closest place in the county to SWF and the drive to HPN is shorter.

I could see FLO, PGV, HTS, IPT, SWF, and HVN all possibly getting UA service to IAD and maybe ORD too in a few years. UA has been adding a lot of routes similar to these from IAD & ORD in the last few years.

The airlines could play a bad game of subsidy hunting all each others exits. Some of these exists will be devastating for the airports and they will offer incentives.

I still think this is just the beginning. Not even close to large enough with no end in sight

A good breakdown why AA dropped these cities. They had economical reasons for doing so.

https://crankyflier.com/2020/09/03/a-cl ... e-to-drop/

Stillwater will not be cut in October.

DFW-SWO is already bookable again during the Oct/Nov suspension period

http://flystillwaterok.com/news/view/id/230

Ishrion wrote:

Stillwater will not be cut in October.

DFW-SWO is already bookable again during the Oct/Nov suspension period

http://flystillwaterok.com/news/view/id/230

Nice to see that several of the communities that were on the chopping block have been able to convince AA not to abandon them (yet). I have to think all of the airports/markets involved now understand the true cost, and of course value, of maintaining the commercial air service that they are at risk of losing. This sets an interesting precedent should other airlines - AS, DL and UA spring to mind, but surely B6, HA, NK, WN and even G4 - seek to cut smaller or otherwise weaker stations in their own networks.

SurfandSnow wrote:

Ishrion wrote:

Stillwater will not be cut in October.

DFW-SWO is already bookable again during the Oct/Nov suspension period

http://flystillwaterok.com/news/view/id/230

Nice to see that several of the communities that were on the chopping block have been able to convince AA not to abandon them (yet). I have to think all of the airports/markets involved now understand the true cost, and of course value, of maintaining the commercial air service that they are at risk of losing. This sets an interesting precedent should other airlines - AS, DL and UA spring to mind, but surely B6, HA, NK, WN and even G4 - seek to cut smaller or otherwise weaker stations in their own networks.

I think in regards to the smaller communities losing AA, DL, or UA service... that a drop by one airline will actually make it less likely that one of the competitors follows.

Using the AA dropping AZO example, while it is true that some pax will opt to make the drive to SBN/GRR/ORD, others may simply just choose to fly UA or DL instead. And using that example, the small increase in pax for DL or UA will make it less likely DL/UA also drops AZO. I expect AA will also benefit at other small airports that see DL or UA drop service.

So unless the market is so small that it is borderline EAS (which I know can’t expand to new airports), I doubt there will be many airports that lose multiple US3 carriers.