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Indy

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 05:09:51 pm

Indy
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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Looks like the end of Cape Air is here. At least for Indiana. They are ending service to EVV on August 31st. With subsidies in SBN ending that should do it. It was nice while it lasted. I'm glad some had the opportunity to try their service.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/p...e?AID=/20080724/NEWS/807240474


Cape Air, a Massachusetts-based airline, will discontinue flights between Evansville and Indianapolis after Aug. 31 because its planes have been flying at only about 50 percent of capacity, officials said.

Cape Air began serving Evansville Regional Airport last November after the local airport was without direct flights to and from Indianapolis for nearly six years. The airport already is looking for another carrier as a replacement.


Honestly NW should have been flying that route. The Saab 340 would be ideal for the route. Yes it is more seats than Cape Air had but NW has a huge customer base and it would allow for the n/s service between IND and EVV as well as easy connections to other destinations served by NW out of IND. It would improve the value of the IND ops and the EVV ops for NW. Not to mention they'd likely get subsidies for the route.

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rw175

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 07:00:29 pm


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Joined: 06 Jan 2007
Posts: 106
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I completely agree. NW would probably do very well offering connections through IND in addition to serving the local market. I was just looking at the destinations served from EVV, and they have no service to the east coast business markets. With that said, even US could do well by throwing a Piedmont Dash-8-100 or -300 on the route and serving the local market as well as offering easy connections to BOS, LGA, and DCA - all important business markets. As far as routing the Piedmont prop here, they periodically put Piedmont on PIT-IND-PIT, so they could be rotated through in that manner. Obviously not going to happen, but it is interesting to discuss the hypotheticals.

Fly RW

Boofer

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 07:25:59 pm

Boofer
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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

Connections at Indy may make sense, but if you're going somewhere other than Indy (i.e. connecting through IND), why would you choose to connect here rather than ORD, DFW, CVG, ATL, MEM, or DTW - at least in the case of EVV? If I lived in EVV and were flying to, say LGA, why would I do it via IND and not CVG? or DTW? There are a lot more flight options DTW-LGA than IND-LGA.

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Indy

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 09:12:13 pm

Indy
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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

There might be more options but connecting in IND would be much easier. If I were traveling anywhere ORD, DFW and ATL would be the last places I'd want to connect.

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Boofer

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 05:41:36 am

Boofer
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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

DTW is a very easy connection, though. I'm just not sure there are enough pax out of EVV to make connecting to the relatively small number of destinations ex-IND worth it. Using faremeasure data (which I admit is an incomplete way of looking at this...), here are the cities that one would connect to EVV-IND-city on NW as a potential connection, and the average number of daily pax ex-EVV:

BOS 13
FLL 11
BDL 12
LAS 27
LAX 34
NYC 39 (and assume it's evenly split among the 3 airports, so say LGA - 13)
MCO 37
PHL 16
RDU 19
SAT 24
SEA 14
WAS 22 (and assume the same split as NYC, so say DCA-11)

And you've got to assume that NW would never get all those connecting pax to fly a SF3 to IND and connect there, when they've got other hub airports competing for that traffic. Then you've got to consider that many people who might fly out of EVV would decide instead to drive to IND or SDF, because it's not like they all live right next to the EVV airport. Considering all that, I just don't see that much potential for EVV-IND connecting traffic.

If the state really wants to connect Evansville and South Bend to Indianapolis, they should 1. subsidize the flights so that it's about $50 to fly roundtrip, 2. get I-69 built and get US 31 upgraded to an interstate, 3. get real railroad options - reasonably fast, frequent, and inexpensive - between the cities. We used to have the Interurban railroad connecting all over the region through Indy. And generally speaking, that's the way we should be connecting nearby cities in this country. There should be fast, frequent, and inexepensive rail connections from Indy to Fort Wayne, South Bend Lafayette, Terre Haute, Bloomington, Evansville, Richmond, and Columbus/Seymour/Jeffersonville/Louisville.

Can I get a peanut crumb with that thimble of Coke?

wanderer

Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:42:17 pm


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Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 142
Location: IND

Indy wrote:



Cape Air, a Massachusetts-based airline, will discontinue flights between Evansville and Indianapolis after Aug. 31 because its planes have been flying at only about 50 percent of capacity, officials said.



Honestly NW should have been flying that route. The Saab 340 would be ideal for the route. Yes it is more seats than Cape Air had but NW has a huge customer base and it would allow for the n/s service between IND and EVV as well as easy connections to other destinations served by NW out of IND. It would improve the value of the IND ops and the EVV ops for NW. Not to mention they'd likely get subsidies for the route.


I have put in BOLD what capacity these planes have been flying at. They hold, what, EIGHT passengers? This means they are averaging FOUR passengers. I have seen two people suggest NWA fly a 34 seat aircraft on these routes when Cape Air has been averaging four passengers. This is/was going to be a money losing venture no matter how you look at it.

Secondly, of those four passengers, usually half of them (yes, two) WERE connecting to other airlines. The market is just not there to connect people through IND.

Indy

Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 03:53:18 pm

Indy
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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

While aviation geeks get a kick out of a plane like the one Cape Air flies I know a lot of people who absolutely will not get on a plane like that. You are talking a tiny plane on an airline that most people had never heard of. I would almost guarantee you they were crippled by name and operation size. I'd bet NW with a Saab would see completely different results. But of course it would be a money loser. Flights that are pretty much all feed usually are.

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Boofer

Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 08:01:28 pm

Boofer
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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

There are probably just as many people who simply won't take prop planes, period. There is a (mistaken) impression that they are not as safe as jets. My ex-boss, who has a PhD and is a very smart man, would drive 3.5 hours from Decatur to Chicago MDW to take a 1.5 hour flight to EWR - all because the airports in DEC, SPI, BMI, and CMI at the time had only prop planes.

This service was supposed to provide a connection between Indiana's largest city and it's third and fourth largest cities. I think the demand for this kind of service just doesn't exist at the kind of prices it takes to make it feasible.

Can I get a peanut crumb with that thimble of Coke?

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