From the Steel City to the heartland
Regional airline to start flights to Indianapolis, Milwaukee
A Tennessee-based regional airline is touching down at Pittsburgh International Airport with flights to two midwestern cities.
Contour Airlines announced Wednesday that it will start flying to Indianapolis and Milwaukee on Oct. 12.
Neither city currently is served from Pittsburgh International.
Contour will offer a daily flight to Indianapolis, while the Milwaukee flight will be six days a week, Saturday excluded.
The airline originally had announced plans in February 2020 to start service to Indianapolis beginning in June of last year. But the pandemic disrupted that take off.
Now with traffic rebounding, Contour CEO Matt Chaifetz feels the time is right to launch the flight — as well as the other to Milwaukee.
“We’ve seen domestic travel return to near preCOVID numbers. I think starting in October we expect business travel ... to recover. We’re quite comfortable [with starting flights],” he said.
With the additions, local travelers will have nonstops to Indianapolis and Milwaukee for the first time since 2018.
The Indianapolis flight actually had its genesis in conversations Mr. Chaifetz had with economic development and airport officials in Indianapolis as they studied potential short haul markets.
“When we looked at cities lacking service and weeded out everything over 500 miles, Pittsburgh was an obvious choice,” he said.
The same applied in terms of Milwaukee, he noted.
Contour will use Embraer 135 and 145 jets reconfigured to seat 30 people for the flights. That allows for no middle seats and for legroom equivalent to that offered in first class sections by major airlines — important considerations in the age of COVID.
One way fares start at $99 for both routes. There’s no charge for seat selection and travelers can check one bag for free.
The flight to Indianapolis International Airport will leave Pittsburgh at 7:05 a.m. each day except Saturday when it departs at 9 a.m. The flight to Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport takes off at 3 p.m.
While Indianapolis and Milwaukee are more business markets than leisure, Mr. Chaifez expects robust demand from both types of travelers.
The airport is not offering any incentives for the flights beyond a standard package available to any airline that starts service to an unserved market. That includes reimbursement for some marketing funds.
Contour has been around since 1982, in part as a charter operator, but didn’t branch out to become a regional airline until 2016.
With the latest additions, the carrier will offer service to 16 cities, including Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix, Oakland, St. Louis and Baltimore.
Contour is the latest carrier to launch service from Pittsburgh as travel has picked up from the pandemic. New airline Breeze Airways started a flight to Charleston, S.C., earlier this month and will launch service to Hartford, Conn.; Providence, R.I.; and Norfolk, Va. this week.
Unlike Contour, Breeze is receiving incentives from Pittsburgh International, although the amount has not been disclosed, with the airport saying the deal is still being finalized.