Budget carrier Avelo Airlines will add to its route map with a new East Coast hub in New Haven, Connecticut. The choice of airport, located just minutes from Yale University, marks a riskier bet than Avelo’s West Coast operations.
Last month, Avelo Airlines launched operations from Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR). Live and Let’s Fly was on hand for the first flight and you can read more about Avelo here:
- Review: Avelo Airlines 737-800 Burbank – Santa Rosa – Burbank
- Avelo Inaugural Flight Report
- What Food & Drinks Does Avelo Airlines Serve Onboard?
Today, the carrier announced it would create a second base at Tweed Airport in New Haven, CT (HVN). While 189-seat Boeing 737-800s are operated from Burbank, Avelo will use a trio of 147-seat 737-700s at HVN.
As part of the announcement, Avelo has pledged $1.2 million to update Tweed New Haven Airport. Avelo also plans to hire over 100 local workers by the end of the year, including:
- Pilots
- Flight Attendants
- Mechanics
- Ground Staff
Here’s how CEO Andrew Levy explains the move:
“We are very excited to partner with HVN as we begin to build our East Coast operations. Our surprisingly low fares and refreshingly smooth travel experience are sure to be embraced by residents of Southern Connecticut. Tweed New Haven has enormous potential, and our first East Coast base is great news for Avelo, New Haven, East Haven and other local communities.”
No routes have been announced yet.
New Haven Is Riskier Than Burbank For Avelo
Hollywood Burbank Airport is located in the heart of Los Angeles County and home to millions of people. The airport is small, but hardly tiny, and serves as a more convenient alternate to Los Angeles International Airport for literally millions of residents throughout LA County.
Tweed New Haven Airport is different. Currently, the only commercial service operating is American Eagle to Philadelphia (PHL). In that sense, there is little competitive pressure Avelo will face.
On the other hand, Tweed is about an hour from Hartford-Bradley International Airport (BDL) and over two hours from New York City. With a population of about 130,000 (about 850,000 in New Haven County), will there be enough to sustain air service? Certainly the budget carrier will be a hit for students at Yale traveling between the university and home.
Will Avelo head to Florida like other carriers seem to be doing? Will it dare to fly west to cities like Rockford, IL (RFD) outside of Chicago or Grand Rapids (GRR) or perhaps Willow Run Airport (YIP) as an alternate to Detroit?
Levy and his team are smart: I’m sure they have run the numbers. But you also can’t squeeze water from a stone.
CONCLUSION
Avelo will establish an East Coast base in New Haven to complement its West Coast base in Burbank. New routes have not been announced, but Avelo will operate a different aircraft type (737-700 versus 737-800) and hopes to begin operations later this year.
If you live in Connecticut, would you consider driving to HVN to fly Avelo?
In my opinion, HPN is better than HVN but HPN may be way too restrictive so HVN is the alternative.
Strategically a far better plan than trying to go head to head with Alaska and WN on the west coast in Burbank. This will draw in a significant number of tri-state flyers who have had to schlep to BDL or LGA for years. It’s much easier for those on the 95 corridor from Stamford up…which has a lot of corporate HQ’s as well as a significant population. Nice move. Until WN announces flights, lol.
I love this sort of experiment. Plenty of airports about in decent catchment areas with little service. Hey, if it doesn’t work out off to CAK, IAG, GYY, DAY, PHF, SBD, FTW etc….
This is all about the well-off families of southwest CT and really has nothing to do with BDL. If they want to fly out one morning, they can fight a very painful rush hour to LGA/JFK/EWR, or go contra-flow to HVN. Easy choice If Avelo offers a nonstop where they want to go…
This is about more than just New Haven. This is about the entire region, which has easy access to the New Haven airport. It’s about way more than the 130,000 population of New Haven itself. New Haven county, which New Haven is in, has a population of nearly 900,000. Many of those people are in wealthy communities with a high propensity for travel. It’s also about the many communities up and down the I91 and I95 corridor for whom getting to New Haven is easy. As others have posted, people all the way down to Stamford and all the way up to some parts of Rhode Island will find this easy and attractive. I’m kind of surprised your analysis of this wasnt a bit more nuanced. You’re usually very good at thinking bigger picture. I think this will work.
This is awesome news for New Haven. I would fly out of Tweed in a heartbeat if they offered more flights. Midway in Chicago would be a great destination, as well as Florida, DC and maybe Pittsburgh.
Driving to LGA or JFK is a nightmare unless you want to leave your house at 2am. Bradley airport in Windsor Locks is an even further drive as it is almost on the MA border near Springfield.
This is part of the larger story of expansion at HVN: https://www.courant.com/business/hc-biz-tweed-new-haven-airport-expansion-20210506-cbzsvp7vm5ehdp342hn7cjx2ee-story.html
With that said, the airport choices for CT/Fairfield County residents (aka the wealthy folks) are BDL (only to hubs), HPN (not many flight choices), LGA (no long-haul flights), or JFK/EWR (long drive/terrible traffic). There are no easy public transportation options to get to these airports (i.e., Metro-North to Grand Central, and multiple transfers to LGA/JFK/EWR). While this is not going to solve the long-haul flight issue, having another in-state, shorter commute option without tolls is definitely going to draw a built-in audience, not to mention cheaper car service rides.
I hope this fails spectacularly. The last thing CT needs is more ULCC presence. What will happen is that AA will pull out of HVN, leaving no option to connect from HVN to a global airline network. In exchange, you’ll get no service flights to second tier leisure destinations. A loss.
I wouldn’t be surprised if AA bulked up service instead, maybe to ORD and keep PHL.
BDL too far for Fairfield, HPN the closest. HVN has tremendous potential, downtown minutes away, I-95 and I-91 a stone’s throw away and a chance to eliminate dependence on BDL almost up in Massachusetts.
AA has only one daily HVN flight, and that’s to PHL, not the much better hub CLT. Hardly meeting the needs of area travelers.
If there were a ton of rich people in this area really jonesing to travel, surely there’d be more service. I”m not sure a ULCC really aligns with what people in Southern Connecticut are looking for. I think these flights have the likelihood of being what Michael O’leary would call “flights from nowhere to nowhere.”
@Jerry. The area is actually pretty diverse, much more than you imagine. Yes, there is some trendies wealth but that is focused heavily south and just west of Stamford. From Norwalk up the region is mostly working and middle/upper middle class. Also, not sure if you are aware, but just a few miles down 95 is Bridgeport, which fun fact, is the largest city by population in Connecticut. With New Haven as second. Bridgeport is also an industrial working class city perfectly aligned for this service. In summary, for six of the ten largest cities in Connecticut this would be the closest airport to access
I hope they, and others take Worcester, MA back into consideration.
@Matthew Klint, ORD is great, but CLT in place of PHL @Ryan, you mean the one daily flight to PHL? Hardly a big loss. If AA bails, I see UA with service to ORD, as they have a much larger presence at ORD than AA.