Signs of air travelers returning
Bradley International now has nonstop service to Nashville via Southwest Airlines
As Southwest Airlines launched daily, nonstop service from Bradley International Airport to Nashville, airport officials said Thursday they they are seeing the first signs that air passenger traffic — hit hard by the pandemic — may start to pick up in the months heading into summer.
“If the state stays on schedule with the vaccine rollout that they have discussed, I think this could be the start of very meaningful recovery, this summer travel season,” said Kevin A. Dillon, executive director of the Connecticut Airport Authority, which oversees operations at Bradley in Windsor Locks.
COVID-19 vaccine distribution that is stepping up combined
with Gov. Ned Lamont lifting the mandate behind the current travel advisory could lead to a gradual uptick in passengers, Dillon said. The travel advisory is still in place as recommended guidance but won’t be enforced with fines or other punitive measures.
The road back to passenger traffic levels before the pandemic is still long and will take at least a year, if not longer. Daily passenger counts now are down 60% to 70% compared with before the pandemic, with some days dipping into 50%, Dillon said.
“Let’s face it, even if you are down 50% of your traffic, that is a significant reduction,” Dillon said. “But I’m encouraged by the trend that we are seeing.”
The latest passenger traffic levels also compare favorably to the deepening of the pandemic last April when passenger levels were down 97% compared with prior to COVID-19.
With the addition of Nashville, Bradley now offers service to 33 nonstop destinations, but just 22 are now active. Of the 11 that are dormant, five — Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston and St. Louis — will begin booking in April and May. (Two of those, San Francisco and Las Vegas, are newroutes offered by JetBlue and announced in September.)
Three other routes that are now not being flown are international — Dublin, Montreal and Ontario — serviced by Air Canada and Aer Lingus.
“We know that it going to take a while for [international destinations] to be restored because they rely heavily on business travel and business travel will be one of the classifications of air travel that is going to return last,” Dillon said.
“We’re expecting leisure travel to ramp up first.”
Dillon said the airport hopes that Aer Lingus will announce a return to service at Bradley by the end of this year, with flights beginning in the spring of 2022.
Thursday’s addition of nonstop service on Southwest Airlines to Nashville will offer travelers not only a popular destination but key connections to the West Coast, Dillon said.
The daily, nonstop service to Nashville departs Bradley at 6:10 PM(EST) and arrives at Nashville International Airport at 7:50 PM (CST). The inbound flight leaves Nashville International at 7:30 PM (CST) and arrives at Bradley International Airport at 10:40 PM (EST). The service utilizes a Boeing 737.