Are there Ryanair-type airports in USA?

[Lite]

Whilst I know that Ryanair was based around Southwest Airlines, Ryanair has taken advantage of lots of small and out of the way airports like Hahn and Skavsta in Europe which are some way out of the cities they are actually meant to serve.
And whilst Southwest serve secondary airports in many cities such as Midway instead of O'Hare in the Chicago area, are there an abundance of small airports that would be ideal for a Ryanair type operator?

I know that AirNav has quite a comprehensive selection of airports that serve as alternatives to major airports, however most of these are simply for FBOs and the private sector, but that I cannot find if they have a passenger terminal and security facilities that would support daily passenger flights.

Where are there examples of these airports? Would many FBO-type airports that have the ability to handle such flights look at expaning to incorporate a simple passenger operation?

Just some questions ... :*

[OFBSLF]

Well, if you look at the airports that Southwest serves, I think you'd say that many of those airports meet the requirements that you suggest. There seems to be a fair number of airports like this in the northeast, including Manchester, NH; Providence, RI; the former Pease AFB near Portsmouth, NH; Islip, NY on Long Island.

Whether there is an "abundance" of such airports and whether they are "ideal" is well beyond my ability to judge.

[Lite]

OFBSLF thanks for your reply.

My basic idea is looking at airports that essentially provide an alternative to the major and congested airports, that can for example serve New York, or an entirely different city but is still reasonably convenient for NYC.

For example in Europe, Ryanair serves Luebeck Airport as an alternative for Hamburg, even though the Luebeck is a big city in its own right.

Can anyone think of small regional airports across the USA that are convenient for large cities including:
- Boston
- New York
- Washington
- Detroit
- Philadelphia
- Pittsburgh
- Chicago
- Atlanta
- Orlando
- Miami

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[FWA NATCA]

LITE,

FWA (Fort Wayne International) Fort Wayne Indiana for one. FWA is within a 3 hour drive of Chicago (ORD, MDW), 2 hour drive to Indianapolis (IND), Dayton (DAY), Detroit (DTW), Columbus (CMH), Windsor Canada, and 5 hour drive to Cleveland (CLE). In addition they are looking at installing High Speed Rail service between Fort Wayne and Chicago.

The airport has a 24 hour FAA staffed Approach Control and Tower. Main Runways are 12,000', and 8,500' long. The Terminal has 8 gates (Four are jetways). Ramp space is not an issue. Current jet service is to ORD, CVG, ATL, DFW, DTW, turbo prop to PIT and CLE. Pinnacle Airlines has their RJ maintenance base here, Shuttle America has their SF34 maintenance base here, and KHA (Kitty Hawk) air frieght has a large freight operation.

Mike

[Lite]

Mike thanks for your help with that topic.

I have also heard that Gary is a good option for Chicago and Portsmouth for Boston.

Can anyone confirm these also?

[West Coast]

Add to the list San Francisco. SWA got soo sick of the delays they terminated service and it all goes to Oakland. Not a stretch for them as its already a crew domocile. Absent from you list of major cities is Denver. SWA decided to simply overfly the state completely rather than deal with the costs associated with the new airport. SWA has shown that it will stick to its niche even if it takes it out of some large markets.

[FWA NATCA]

Lite,

I'm not sure what passenger numbers that you will see at Gary IN (GYY), since ORD, and MDW are so convient. Southwest and several other discount airlines operate out of MDW. ORD is running almost constant EDCT's for departures.

The key for being successful in FWA would be what destinations that you flew into, convience of connections, and minimal delays, and most important the price of fares. I don't have the numbers to support this, but I imagine that the majority of people in North East Indiana drive to IND, DTW, CMH, DAY, SDF, CVG to avoid the cost of high fares out of FWA, I know that my family does. A good example is, I'm planning a vacation to Salt Lake on 1/6/04, tickets out of FWA are in excess of $400, out of IND they are around $200, so you know where I'll be flying out of.

The only delay that you would experience for FWA is when the airport closes for snow plowing, whenever the weather drops below your minimums, and occasionally when ZAU cries UNCLE and shuts us off. ZAU stopping departures only affects aircraft going North or West, because we can tunnel out east bound departures to ZOB (Cleveland Center), and South Bound departures to ZID (Indianapolis Center).

Mike
NATCA FWA

[OFBSLF]

Lite:

The best alternative for Boston is Hanscom. Problem is in getting permission to fly out of there -- the NIMBYs come out in force every time someone trys to start service there. It's quite close to Boston, right on the I95/Route 128 ring road.

Providence, Rhode Island is reasonably close and able to serve Boston and points south and west. Not a good alternative for people in the northern suburbs of Boston. Manchester and Portsmouth are better alternatives for the northern suburbs of Boston.

Portsmouth is pretty far east, so it is not as good an alternative for those of us who live in the western suburbs of Boston. Portsmouth would only draw from the north east suburbs.

Manchester is a better alternative -- there are two highways that head up from Boston -- I93 and Route 3. Route 3 is being widened in MA (that will be complete by spring 03), so that will improve access from MA. For those of us in the western suburbs of Boston, it is a bit of a problem to get to Portsmouth, because the inner ring road, I95/Route 128 gets very congested during rush hour.

Another alternative is Worcester, MA. It has several problems, though. First, there is poor road access. There was a plan to create a better access road to it from one of the local highways, but that would have involved demolishing some 50 houses. As you might imagine, the locals took a dim view of that. Then Sept 11 happened, and there was no need and no money for airport expansion. (Aside: the reason the MA Turnpike goes well south of Worcester was due to politics -- someone in power in MA at the time had it in for a state representative/state senator from Worcester, IIRC.) Second, Worcester is at a significantly higher elevation and thus has significantly worse weather.

OFBSLF

[mgerrard]

For New York you have either Islip on Long Island or Newburgh-Stewart about 70 miles NW.

Washington you have Manassas just down the road from Dulles.

Philadelphia, you have Wilmington, Delaware or Atlantic City.

Orlando already has Sanford.

Miami's alternate could be Opa Locka.

Chicago could be Gary Indiana.

Not sure about the rest

[flynverted]

Hmmm, just now seen this thread. :rolleyes: Hope you had a good vacation, Mike.

I'm flying out of FWA on 3/20 on 4294 to ORD/MIA/EYW, not sure about the return trip yet, probably 3/23 or 3/24.
Believe it or not, it's actually cheaper for me to fly out of FWA than IND. On AA's site, they want $484.60, compared to $494.60 to fly from IND. And Orbitz wants $332.00 from FWA, while it would cost $343.00 to fly out of IND. I'm going with Orbitz out of FWA @ $332.00. :ok:

Is anyone familiar with T3 at ORD? I'll arrive on an American Eagle ERJ145, and have 1 hour to connect on an AA MD80. Will 1 hour leave me time to have a drink & a smoke, or do I need to rush to make my connection?? T3 looks huge at ORD's website. :confused:

TIA
Greg

[FWA NATCA]

Greg,

The problem with flying through ORD are the constant departure delays, that have a habit of reducing that one hour lay over to, you only have five minutes to run to make your connection.

When ever I'm forced to connect through ORD I try not to schedule anything less than a two hour lay over because of the delay issue.

On occasion, yes we have found better ticket prices out of FWA but not very often, so when they pop up I take advantage of them.

If you don't encounter a delay, one hour is plenty of time to stroll to your connecting gate, take a smoke, and/or grab a quick bite to eat. I would still recommend going to your next gate first, to locate it, and determine the boarding time, or often occurs at ORD they changed gates, so now you have to find the new one.

Mike
NATCA FWA

[weasil]

Rockford RFD airport has been promoting itself as a greater Chicagoland airport. It has big runways as UPS use it as a hub. Class D but with TRSA (radar). I think they are hoping it would be a good departure point for people who would normally drive to Chicago from say southwest WI, northwest IL etc...

Or you could ask them to reopen Meigs for ya and build a bigger runway...haha.