American Airlines is switching its 2 flights per day from Springfield, IL to Chicago over to their DFW hub next April.  By doing so, AA will be eligible to dip into available grants setup to defer start up costs on new routes. 

One of the things that irritates me the most about how the US airline world has become distorted has to be how regional jets are used.  We don’t use them on regional routes.  Well, they’re still used on those routes but far more often we use them on long, ultra thin routes like Springfield, IL to DFW.  Or how about the time I flew from DFW to Cleveland on a Continental Express ERJ-140. 

The truth is, any flights from Springfield, IL should be going to regional hubs that are nearby.  We should see larger turbo-props flying passengers from Springfield to Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis.   I don’t know if Springfield can honestly justify the 6 flights per day it has to Chicago at this time but, if it can, I would argue that 1 or 2 of those flights is superfluous at best. 

Small airports like Springfield get access to all kinds of grants and other funding that permit them to attempt to attract new services and, hopefully, help grow their local economy.  But those grants are used to distort markets and encourage flights that would never exist if they had to be justified on the real market demand.   How is Springfield, Illinois truly better served by 2 flights per day to the DFW area for AA/Oneworld connections to the rest of the world when it can access pretty much the same parts of the world easier (and more economically) through Chicago?

The truth is, if you look at just a 350nm radius emanating from Springfield, you’ll find that the options on a regional basis to hubs and/or focus cities that actually have both political and business ties to Springfield, you realize just how insane it is to be flying a Springfield to Dallas route of 630nm using an ERJ-14X aircraft. 

Cities like Springfield should be cultivating multiple routes to multiple hubs/focus cities near them.  They should seek to offer broad based links to their entire region instead of a link to one part of their region (Chicago) and another link to an area entirely outside of their economic sphere (Dallas).    Using Springfield as an example and defining their “region” as being roughly 350nm diameter, they could target links to Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis / St. Paul, Memphis, Nashville and even Cincinatti and Columbus. 

Grants and incentives have a tendency to drive decisions towards things that are clearly serving a narrow, immediate “want” rather than a broad based, market driven “need”.  I would far rather see grants help improve airports themselves and let the municipal, state and business leaders of a city make a business case to airlines for routes they need.  All too often, when I see a route like DFW-Springfield, I wonder what local business executive wants that route for his convenience and to what other businesses detriment is it being done?

Filed under: Airline News, Airports by ajax