Tweed/New Haven Airport Is Not A Happy Place

Airlines are desperately trying to cut costs to survive, not expand to small cities like New Haven.

Tweed New Haven Airport USAir Express takeoffI opened the editorial page of Friday’s New Haven Register and was unhappy to read: “Tweed’s prospects fade for new airline.”

In this case, Tweed is Tweed/New Haven Airport. It’s big enough for 737s and DC9s, but the only service nowadays are puddle jumpers to Philly and back.

There was a time when a bunch of airlines flew to New Haven. In the last decade we’ve had non-stop service to Chicago, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh (though not at the same time). Each time one of them pulled out, the word from within was, the service was doing fine, but the airline wanted to be elsewhere.

It is by far the most convenient airport I’ve ever flown from. The terminal is small and steps from the parking lot. There is a jetway, but it hasn’t been used for scheduled service in years and I’d be surprised if it’s full functional.

My sadness comes from the closing paragraph:

The reality for Tweed is that even with the necessary safety and runway improvements, its ability to attract new air service is severely hampered by the state of the airline industry. Airlines are desperately trying to cut costs to survive, not expand to small cities like New Haven.

I’m sad because it’s true.

The level of airline service says something about a community. Not having it says something too. For the foreseeable future, Tweed has no future.

2 thoughts on “Tweed/New Haven Airport Is Not A Happy Place”

  1. Ah, I’ve used Tweed New Haven a couple of times. It’s really soo convenient for me– I hate driving up to Bradley or JFK. It’s a 30 minute drive, you walk five minutes to the terminal, 30 seconds through security and then you board planeside and bam you’re on your way. It’s great!

  2. I used to fly from Tweed a lot when I was in college, back in the days when United had daily jet service to/from Chicago and there were several flights to Philly and D.C. to choose from. Gotta love an airport where the parking lot has meters in it!! 🙂 But sadly, the future of the airline industry (insofar as it even has a future) is further consolidation and collapsing into the hub model, not expanding regional service. Sigh.

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