Yea, this is forever old, but I never knew you responded here.
Anyway:
Well, you make some good points, but I'm still not convinced.
There are two types of flyers since de-regulation. The business flyer and the personal flyer.
The business flyer for the most part wants options and wants to get to the destination ASAP.
The personal flyer just wants to get to the destination as cheaply as possible.
I couldn't find an actual statistic, but I'd be surprised if business travel wasn't over 60% of the traffic at HJ. Maybe as much as 80% for some airlines such as Delta. When 1/2 to 3/4 of the plane are premium frequent flyers, you know that almost all of them are business travelers.
Business travelers want options in case their their plans change. One or two flights a day ain't going to cut it for them. One or two a week is right out. Add in that our airport would be an extra 30 minutes+ extra driving for 90% of them and they are not going to use it. That cuts your possible traffic down quite a bit. Add in that Delta has direct flights to most major cities from here and that's where I'm going to fly.
So, looking at the personal flyers, there are a lot of them, but who are they flying? That's right, the cheapest airlines at HJ, Spirit, jetblue, and Southwest (well, SW is getting some business travel for their higher fares that assign seats) and their like. So the airport here will be fighting for traffic against the cheapest flights in Atlanta. Going to be hard to undercut THEM by enough to make it worthwhile for someone to drive to Paulding down 278. (Since we don't have an interstate)
I just don't see it working.
PS
I've noticed signs on 75N that Chattanooga is putting out about flying from there instead of HJ saying its a better commute. Google maps estimates from my house show it to be only a little longer to get there from here, than HJ, but I looked an most of the cities I fly to are connecting flights. For business travel, that's a killer. The only thing worse than getting stranded at your destination is getting stranded at an intermediate stop where you know no one and no body. No thanks.
From: The Airport Bonds - Just Follow the Money
in PUBBY's Blog
A blog by gpatt0n in General
Posted
Yea, this is forever old, but I never knew you responded here.
Anyway:
Well, you make some good points, but I'm still not convinced.
There are two types of flyers since de-regulation. The business flyer and the personal flyer.
The business flyer for the most part wants options and wants to get to the destination ASAP.
The personal flyer just wants to get to the destination as cheaply as possible.
I couldn't find an actual statistic, but I'd be surprised if business travel wasn't over 60% of the traffic at HJ. Maybe as much as 80% for some airlines such as Delta. When 1/2 to 3/4 of the plane are premium frequent flyers, you know that almost all of them are business travelers.
Business travelers want options in case their their plans change. One or two flights a day ain't going to cut it for them. One or two a week is right out. Add in that our airport would be an extra 30 minutes+ extra driving for 90% of them and they are not going to use it. That cuts your possible traffic down quite a bit. Add in that Delta has direct flights to most major cities from here and that's where I'm going to fly.
So, looking at the personal flyers, there are a lot of them, but who are they flying? That's right, the cheapest airlines at HJ, Spirit, jetblue, and Southwest (well, SW is getting some business travel for their higher fares that assign seats) and their like. So the airport here will be fighting for traffic against the cheapest flights in Atlanta. Going to be hard to undercut THEM by enough to make it worthwhile for someone to drive to Paulding down 278. (Since we don't have an interstate)
I just don't see it working.
PS
I've noticed signs on 75N that Chattanooga is putting out about flying from there instead of HJ saying its a better commute. Google maps estimates from my house show it to be only a little longer to get there from here, than HJ, but I looked an most of the cities I fly to are connecting flights. For business travel, that's a killer. The only thing worse than getting stranded at your destination is getting stranded at an intermediate stop where you know no one and no body. No thanks.