Cheap International Flights Set To Take Off From Upstate Airport – CBS 2 New York
I did a Skype interview with the local CBS in New York talking about Norwegian’s announced plans to fly from Stewart to Europe. I’ll get into it more next week, but I think the headline says it all. “Upstate Airport.”
Yea, this isn’t Europe where 70mi from city center is no big deal thanks to their improved public transit system. Good luck renting a car in SWF and driving into Manhattan.
No need. It appears that they will be offering express bus service soon: http://www.stewartairportexpress.com.
$20? Wow.
What’s a cab from JFK to Manhattan these days?
$55
Guessing that the airport and/or Norwegian are subsidizing that. $20 each way is a lot cheaper than the Metro North train fare up that way.
There’s already bus service to a nearby train station already (Metro-North Hudson line, with service to Grand Central), and another train station on the Port Jervis line (NJT, service to Hoboken, but very infrequent) is only a three-mile cab ride away, so there are public transport options already, although not exactly great ones, and unless your timing is perfect it could take 3-4 hours to get to NYC.
A $20 bus would be a bargain compared to a cab (JFK-Manhattan is $52-57 flat rate – plus tip – depending on time of day, but it’s on the meter to get back). If the schedules are coordinated with Norwegian’s flight times, it could be a fair alternative.
But I think a lot of Norwegian’s customers could be people going to Europe and coming home again, and for car-owning people in northern New Jersey, New York north of Yonkers, Stamford, etc., driving to Stewart could be faster and cheaper (and a lot less annoying) than driving to Kennedy or Newark. They could even get some business from as far north as Albany.
Not everyone who travels to Europe lives in Manhattan so play can get people from that area farther north and people who want cheap airfare who do live in the city would be willing to go 70 or so miles to save a buck.
Exactly, and not everyone travelling from Europe is going to NYC. It’ll be an easy place to grab a rental car and go. Easy access to upstate NY (think Cooperstown), PA (think Philly, Hershey) and New England (think VT). I love Noo Yawkwers thinking the world revolves around Manhattan….
Norwegian could hit another set of home runs by opening DEN to DUB and DEN to LGW round trips!
Many people in smaller towns that have lost air service will drive 2 hours to catch a flight. Will New Yorkers? SWF has around 2 million people or more in a 2 hour radius last I heard so there may be a market there. Save $300 r/t? That may stretch out to 3 million. Shouldn’t be too hard to fill a few 737s/A321s a week.
As someone who lives in the UK which is already very well connected with NYC, I’d be very interested in looking at Norwegian to Stewart even if I am travelling to Manhattan for leisure purposes.
A big cash saving on the transatlantic airfare would more than outweigh the inconvenience of a 1h or 1h30 bus trip
Plenty of Ryanair airports throughout Europe have been far from the nearest major population centres and are reliant on buses running solely between the airport and the city centre – these airports often have little or no Govt-sponsored public transport. As an example look at Stockholm-Skavsta or Paris-Beauvais. That certainly hasn’t stopped people from wanting to save cash on the airfare
And Frankfurt- Hahn, yep.
Penny wise and pound foolish? ;)
I used to live in PVD and the train to the airport was great. I hope this new air service will mean more frequency to PVD.