BRO (Brownsville, TX) has an announcement on Thursday, 2.23, per a post on their Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... tid=Nif5oz

Any guesses? Or anyone know anything?

My guess is XP to MCO and/or BUR.

pitintl wrote:

My guess is XP to MCO and/or BUR.

I don’t know if their a/c are suited for an extremely small market that doesn’t even have service outside of 2 destinations in Texas, but you never know

BA744PHX wrote:

pitintl wrote:

My guess is XP to MCO and/or BUR.

I don’t know if their a/c are suited for an extremely small market that doesn’t even have service outside of 2 destinations in Texas, but you never know

You mean like HVN was with their 2 flights to PHL?

BRO is a very unique market. It’s small and very poor. Not a lot of people have extra income for a flying vacation in large numbers. It’s the poorest part of America.

There is a significant tourism demand to south padre island but it’s very seasonal summer and spring break. Demand in the off seasons is very limited. I would think a LCC seasonally is the best guess. Coming from somewhere people want to golf or beach vacation. Allegiant comes to mind. The vast majority of traffic is coming in for golf/beach vacations. Originating traffic has aa and ua to the huge portfolio of their destinations: The demand to any single destination is going to be super low. It’s a super destination oriented airport. No elons nearby rocket pad does not generate much traffic in the big picture. The traffic it has wants aa and ua to their large hubs to connect and it’s small.

The airport has not been doing so great. Most of the year it supports like 5 flights total iah on emb145s and Dfw on crjs.

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

BRO is a very unique market. It’s small and very poor. Not a lot of people have extra income for a flying vacation in large numbers. It’s the poorest part of America.

There is a significant tourism demand to south padre island but it’s very seasonal summer and spring break. Demand in the off seasons is very limited. I would think a LCC seasonally is the best guess. Coming from somewhere people want to golf or beach vacation. Allegiant comes to mind. The vast majority of traffic is coming in for golf/beach vacations. Originating traffic has aa and ua to the huge portfolio of their destinations: The demand to any single destination is going to be super low. It’s a super destination oriented airport. No elons nearby rocket pad does not generate much traffic in the big picture. The traffic it has wants aa and ua to their large hubs to connect and it’s small.

The airport has not been doing so great. Most of the year it supports like 5 flights total iah on emb145s and Dfw on crjs.

I think most south padre island tourism flies into HRL. Even then it’s a small niche that it attracts.

The RGV has seen service to places like ATL, MSP, and PHX. And F9 has done some weird ones like TYR. A ULCC is what I'd put my money on.

F9 or G4 seasonal.

evank516 wrote:

BA744PHX wrote:

pitintl wrote:

My guess is XP to MCO and/or BUR.

I don’t know if their a/c are suited for an extremely small market that doesn’t even have service outside of 2 destinations in Texas, but you never know

You mean like HVN was with their 2 flights to PHL?

HVN market has a catchment area of 840k, BRO barely 183k so yeah…

Maybe UA to DEN?

I suppose SY to MSP is a possibly also considering they seem to have made a recent investment into a new dartboard to help determine some of their new routes.

Hmm. With HRL down the road with much more service and for a very poor region, what would be added to BRO that wouldn’t go to HRL instead? Can’t be anything flashy as anything flashy (let’s say a few Breeze routes) may end up at HRL. However, I suppose there’s not much incentive to serve one over the other.

My safe theory: Southwest service to HOU/DAL.

Also safe: ULCC to MCO or DEN.

Long shot: delta to ATL or SLC. There’s not much market down there. Why enter a fare war just for a small piece of the pie?

Avelo is my guess

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slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

BRO is a very unique market. It’s small and very poor. Not a lot of people have extra income for a flying vacation in large numbers. It’s the poorest part of America.

There is a significant tourism demand to south padre island but it’s very seasonal summer and spring break. Demand in the off seasons is very limited. I would think a LCC seasonally is the best guess. Coming from somewhere people want to golf or beach vacation. Allegiant comes to mind. The vast majority of traffic is coming in for golf/beach vacations. Originating traffic has aa and ua to the huge portfolio of their destinations: The demand to any single destination is going to be super low. It’s a super destination oriented airport. No elons nearby rocket pad does not generate much traffic in the big picture. The traffic it has wants aa and ua to their large hubs to connect and it’s small.

The airport has not been doing so great. Most of the year it supports like 5 flights total iah on emb145s and Dfw on crjs.

Brownsville.area is poor but it doesn't take much to full up 2x weekly flights to Orlando; lots of poor areas do it.

Allegiant tried BRO a few years ago and quickly pulled out. Maybe mainline AA or UA?

Brownsville might be fairly poor, but people are forgetting SpaceX and the RGV as a whole here. HRL largely dominates the RGV due to WN and being in between MFE and BRO.

BRO jus recently expanded and basically rebuilt their terminal, SpaceX and Musk have invested millions into BRO and the area, not to mention BRO is the airport all there employees utilize, couple with South Padre Island.

While it obviously is not going to be WN, it will likely be a ULCC not in MFE or HRL. Avelo doesn't really make sense, nor does Breeze based off their recent adds and route maps. For all we know could be a Mexican carrier.

If it's AA/UA expansion, AA to PHX or UA to DEN or ORD are really only thing I can think of.

Also given SpaceX, JSX to AUS can't be out of possibilities either

tlv202 wrote:

BRO (Brownsville, TX) has an announcement on Thursday, 2.23, per a post on their Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... tid=Nif5oz

Any guesses? Or anyone know anything?

confirmed to be a new airline

Avelo reportedly leaving PHF so they will need to send those aircraft somewhere else

BTVB6Flyer wrote:

Brownsville might be fairly poor, but people are forgetting SpaceX and the RGV as a whole here. HRL largely dominates the RGV due to WN and being in between MFE and BRO.

BRO jus recently expanded and basically rebuilt their terminal, SpaceX and Musk have invested millions into BRO and the area, not to mention BRO is the airport all there employees utilize, couple with South Padre Island.

While it obviously is not going to be WN, it will likely be a ULCC not in MFE or HRL. Avelo doesn't really make sense, nor does Breeze based off their recent adds and route maps. For all we know could be a Mexican carrier.

If it's AA/UA expansion, AA to PHX or UA to DEN or ORD are really only thing I can think of.

Also given SpaceX, JSX to AUS can't be out of possibilities either

Highly doubt it’s JSX. They attract a certain clientele and BRO doesn’t seem like a place they’d fly into.

PITFlyer330 wrote:

tlv202 wrote:

BRO (Brownsville, TX) has an announcement on Thursday, 2.23, per a post on their Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... tid=Nif5oz

Any guesses? Or anyone know anything?

confirmed to be a new airline

Avelo reportedly leaving PHF so they will need to send those aircraft somewhere else

Aveo opened CHO as they are leaving PHF

Doesn’t SWA usually announce on Thursday’s’?? But I think it will be NK F9 or MX

CarlosSi wrote:

Hmm. With HRL down the road with much more service and for a very poor region, what would be added to BRO that wouldn’t go to HRL instead? Can’t be anything flashy as anything flashy (let’s say a few Breeze routes) may end up at HRL. However, I suppose there’s not much incentive to serve one over the other.

My safe theory: Southwest service to HOU/DAL.

Also safe: ULCC to MCO or DEN.

Long shot: delta to ATL or SLC. There’s not much market down there. Why enter a fare war just for a small piece of the pie?

Currently BRO has 3x DFW on E175 and 3x IAH on ERJ's - that's a daily seat total of a maximum of 376 seat. Even if Southwest opened with two flights per day, it would come close to doubling the currently available seats.

I could see a ULCC, but Allegiant already has LAS, SFB, and LAX covered just an hours drive away.

My prediction is a 2-3x weekly LAX flight on AA to serve as a SpaceX corporate shuttle.

BA744PHX wrote:

evank516 wrote:

BA744PHX wrote:

I don’t know if their a/c are suited for an extremely small market that doesn’t even have service outside of 2 destinations in Texas, but you never know

You mean like HVN was with their 2 flights to PHL?

HVN market has a catchment area of 840k, BRO barely 183k so yeah…

Didn't matter until Avelo came along. Everyone went to BDL, HPN, or NYC.

I hope it is G4 just for the fact maybe that means more G4 routes announced for other airports. G4 with their less than weekly flights would make some sense though.

Jshank83 wrote:

I hope it is G4 just for the fact maybe that means more G4 routes announced for other airports. G4 with their less than weekly flights would make some sense though.

G4 tried BRO-LAS in 2015 but pulled out a year later

Whoever is announcing BRO is also probably announcing COS.

https://twitter.com/COSAirport

Alex

atrude777 wrote:

Whoever is announcing BRO is also probably announcing COS.

https://twitter.com/COSAirport

Alex

Both use the word "big" which in the past has been NK

At least whatever airline moves in will have a nice modern terminal to use. Did they ever open an eatery/store pre or post security there? The last time I was there, they still only had a temporary stand pre-security where you could buy a limited amount of items.

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

BRO is a very unique market. It’s small and very poor. Not a lot of people have extra income for a flying vacation in large numbers. It’s the poorest part of America.

There is a significant tourism demand to south padre island but it’s very seasonal summer and spring break. Demand in the off seasons is very limited. I would think a LCC seasonally is the best guess. Coming from somewhere people want to golf or beach vacation. Allegiant comes to mind. The vast majority of traffic is coming in for golf/beach vacations. Originating traffic has aa and ua to the huge portfolio of their destinations: The demand to any single destination is going to be super low. It’s a super destination oriented airport. No elons nearby rocket pad does not generate much traffic in the big picture. The traffic it has wants aa and ua to their large hubs to connect and it’s small.

The airport has not been doing so great. Most of the year it supports like 5 flights total iah on emb145s and Dfw on crjs.

Brownsville is not the "poorest part of America" If you think thay are you have not seen much of America.

Delete

Jshank83 wrote:

I hope it is G4 just for the fact maybe that means more G4 routes announced for other airports. G4 with their less than weekly flights would make some sense though.

Seeing that G4 just made route announcements on Monday, I don't think it will be them - but, hopefully I am wrong.

Can we also expect a BRUH announcement?

rbavfan wrote:

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

BRO is a very unique market. It’s small and very poor. Not a lot of people have extra income for a flying vacation in large numbers. It’s the poorest part of America.

There is a significant tourism demand to south padre island but it’s very seasonal summer and spring break. Demand in the off seasons is very limited. I would think a LCC seasonally is the best guess. Coming from somewhere people want to golf or beach vacation. Allegiant comes to mind. The vast majority of traffic is coming in for golf/beach vacations. Originating traffic has aa and ua to the huge portfolio of their destinations: The demand to any single destination is going to be super low. It’s a super destination oriented airport. No elons nearby rocket pad does not generate much traffic in the big picture. The traffic it has wants aa and ua to their large hubs to connect and it’s small.

The airport has not been doing so great. Most of the year it supports like 5 flights total iah on emb145s and Dfw on crjs.

Brownsville is not the "poorest part of America" If you think thay are you have not seen much of America.

According to a report by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank the Brownsville-Harlingen MSA has a per capita GDP of $31,263, which is good for 379 out of 382. Do you have a different way to define poor for the parts of America you have seen?

BTVB6Flyer wrote:

atrude777 wrote:

Whoever is announcing BRO is also probably announcing COS.

https://twitter.com/COSAirport

Alex

Both use the word "big" which in the past has been NK

It might be just coincidence but there were a few COS officials that posted on LinkedIn from a conference where Avelo was the presenting sponsor. I believe it was in Mobile and sure seemed like an odd place for COS officials to go for a conference…

LBBflyer wrote:

rbavfan wrote:

slcdeltarumd11 wrote:

BRO is a very unique market. It’s small and very poor. Not a lot of people have extra income for a flying vacation in large numbers. It’s the poorest part of America.

There is a significant tourism demand to south padre island but it’s very seasonal summer and spring break. Demand in the off seasons is very limited. I would think a LCC seasonally is the best guess. Coming from somewhere people want to golf or beach vacation. Allegiant comes to mind. The vast majority of traffic is coming in for golf/beach vacations. Originating traffic has aa and ua to the huge portfolio of their destinations: The demand to any single destination is going to be super low. It’s a super destination oriented airport. No elons nearby rocket pad does not generate much traffic in the big picture. The traffic it has wants aa and ua to their large hubs to connect and it’s small.

The airport has not been doing so great. Most of the year it supports like 5 flights total iah on emb145s and Dfw on crjs.

Brownsville is not the "poorest part of America" If you think thay are you have not seen much of America.

According to a report by the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank the Brownsville-Harlingen MSA has a per capita GDP of $31,263, which is good for 379 out of 382. Do you have a different way to define poor for the parts of America you have seen?

Let’s stick to the new airline/route announcement and refrain from arguing over Brownsville’s income per capita.

nkops wrote:

Jshank83 wrote:

I hope it is G4 just for the fact maybe that means more G4 routes announced for other airports. G4 with their less than weekly flights would make some sense though.

Seeing that G4 just made route announcements on Monday, I don't think it will be them - but, hopefully I am wrong.

I feel like they have done multiple in a week before. But not sure on that.

N292UX wrote:

Maybe UA to DEN?

I suppose SY to MSP is a possibly also considering they seem to have made a recent investment into a new dartboard to help determine some of their new routes.

I doubt UA sees any need to serve BRO-DEN when they can funnel traffic through IAH. If anything, UA would fly MFE-DEN before BRO-DEN.

SY already serves HRL; I doubt there's justification for two stations in the Valley.

CarlosSi wrote:

My safe theory: Southwest service to HOU/DAL.

Doubtful, with WN already at HRL.

CarlosSi wrote:

Also safe: ULCC to MCO or DEN.

This is probably the best bet. Throw G4 to LAS in there as well.

LBBflyer wrote:

My prediction is a 2-3x weekly LAX flight on AA to serve as a SpaceX corporate shuttle.

I doubt SpaceX alone could justify such a flight. AA has better places to put its limited number of available aircraft.

The Valley air market is difficult to predict and gauge. Others can nitpick, but the McAllen and Brownsville metro areas are, by any measure, among the poorest in the United States. They are also, however, quite large. The McAllen and Brownsville metros have a combined population of about 1.2 million, and if you add the Matamoros and Reynosa areas in Mexico, close to 3 million. At the same time, it's also very spread out - 100 miles from west to east, and the air travel market is divvied up between three commercial airports (five, if you count Matamoros and Reynosa).

Given these factors, it's difficult to figure out what airlines can and are willing to do with service to airports like BRO (which is the smallest in the area). Given history, I think the best bet is G4, but who knows until tomorrow ....

WOW!

Avelo it is! Serving both BUR and MCO and also the first city essentially connecting Avelo's West and East coasts, although not directly.

https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1628474931607371784

BTVB6Flyer wrote:

WOW!

Avelo it is! Serving both BUR and MCO and also the first city essentially connecting Avelo's West and East coasts, although not directly.

https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1628474931607371784

Now that’s a shocker

Nice. More surprised they’re going to serve BUR. That’s quite a stretch from BRO. But, maybe plenty from BUR May have plenty reason to visit The Valley.

Is Avelo playing the MX strategy and trying odd route combinations? Even with cheap flights to MCO how could anyone from BRO afford Disney/Universal Studios/Sea World tickets, hotel, rental car, gas, parking and meals being such a poor area?

And who is flying from BRO-BUR?! Is there some Hollywood or entertainment connection in BRO?

MCO has a shot at working but I don't see how on earth BUR works.

BTVB6Flyer wrote:

WOW!

Avelo it is! Serving both BUR and MCO and also the first city essentially connecting Avelo's West and East coasts, although not directly.

https://twitter.com/IshrionA/status/1628474931607371784

Called it!

Lets see how long BRO last or if it even launches

Dangit I was hoping DL as they do not serve anywhere near the Rio Grande valley and I have work coming up down there. Closest I can get is SAT I think...

HRL had F9 do MCO and it seemed to do 'okay' enough, but the entire HRL station was shuttered and they tried ORD, LAS, DEN, and MCO from HRL.

Recently Avelo has tried to start and quickly cut LEX and PHF, both areas seemingly in better spot for their respective routes than BRO. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

DBCoop3r wrote:

Dangit I was hoping DL as they do not serve anywhere near the valley and I have work coming up down there. Closest I can get is SAT I think...

DL serves HRL via MSP, seasonally. Catering to the Midwest snowbirds who live half the season in the RGV.

BTVB6Flyer wrote:

DBCoop3r wrote:

Dangit I was hoping DL as they do not serve anywhere near the valley and I have work coming up down there. Closest I can get is SAT I think...

DL serves HRL via MSP, seasonally. Catering to the Midwest snowbirds who live half the season in the RGV.

I did not know that, thanks!

CarlosSi wrote:

Nice. More surprised they’re going to serve BUR. That’s quite a stretch from BRO. But, maybe plenty from BUR May have plenty reason to visit The Valley.

Definitely a surprise, but this route is obviously to bring people in the Valley to vacation in SoCal, not the other way around ...

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

CarlosSi wrote:

Nice. More surprised they’re going to serve BUR. That’s quite a stretch from BRO. But, maybe plenty from BUR May have plenty reason to visit The Valley.

Definitely a surprise, but this route is obviously to bring people in the Valley to vacation in SoCal, not the other way around ...

With what disposable income? SoCal isn’t a cheap place to vacation unless you want to stay somewhere like Riverside or Inland Empire, neither of which is anywhere near BUR.

Magnum9 wrote:

DFWGlobeTrotter wrote:

CarlosSi wrote:

Nice. More surprised they’re going to serve BUR. That’s quite a stretch from BRO. But, maybe plenty from BUR May have plenty reason to visit The Valley.

Definitely a surprise, but this route is obviously to bring people in the Valley to vacation in SoCal, not the other way around ...

With what disposable income? SoCal isn’t a cheap place to vacation unless you want to stay somewhere like Riverside or Inland Empire, neither of which is anywhere near BUR.

As someone with family in BRO and is my 3rd home, I can concur no one is going to SoCal that isn't already taking AA/UA via BRO or WN via HRL. MCO I guess I can see again F9 did okay in HRL. I still think this is more SpaceX related than what we are thinking. LAS on F9 didn't work, let alone BUR/SoCal on local demand.

Is this just an opportunity to bridge equipment from the east to west (and visa versa)? I wonder if the bean counters see opportunity (somehow) on the MCO-BRO segment and need to rotate the assets to cover west coast flying. Might as well make it saleable to BUR with a 20% LF vs. repo the plane a 0% LF.

Italianflyer wrote:

Is this just an opportunity to bridge equipment from the east to west (and visa versa)? I wonder if the bean counters see opportunity (somehow) on the MCO-BRO segment and need to rotate the assets to cover west coast flying. Might as well make it saleable to BUR with a 20% LF vs. repo the plane a 0% LF.

As another poster pointed out, you could do that literally via any other Texas city or midwest city, SAT, AUS, OKC, ELP, etc. etc. Clearly not their plan otherwise BRO would not be it.