Westchester County Airport hasn’t been exempt from the upheaval across the airline industry this year.
In June, United Airlines cut its three daily flights to Dulles International Airport, after the company that had supplied its planes filed for bankruptcy. AirTran Airways also eliminated flights at the airport this summer, when it axed trips to Orlando, West Palm Beach and Atlanta, which had served 307,000 passengers a year, officials said.
Both reductions will cost the county-owned airport more than $2 million in lost revenue if other airlines don’t fill the vacant slots.
But so far, none of them have expressed interest, Donna Greene, a county spokeswoman said in an email this week.
“We still remain optimistic that one of the existing airlines (Delta or JetBlue) will pick up the market vacated by AirTran,” and eventually the lost flights from United, she said.
Airport manager Peter Scherrer told The Journal News in August that fewer flights at the airport could cause ticket prices to increase.
Has the loss of flights at Westchester County Airport inconvenienced you? Have you noticed a jump in ticket prices since these changes? Talk about it in the comments below.
(Passengers check the departure schedule as they wait in a staging area at the Westchester County Airport. ( Matthew Brown / The Journal News)
2 Comments
GREAT LOSS AS I USED AIRTRAN OFTEN FOR FLIGHTS TO ORLANDO AND WEST PALM FLORIDA FLIGHT TIMES WERE VERY CONVIENT AND ARE MISSED.
I was and still am very upset with the airlines not picking up the ball here. I have to say that flights to and from Wash-Dulles had already risen to an incredible amount of money, but to not have the option of direct flight makes traveling by air ridiculous. I can imagine the airport lost a lot of customers and if they continue to lose flights and prices go up as a result, well they will lose even more.
Looks like Laguardia will be getting more business. It’s a shame, Westchester is so convenient for a large number of people.