U.S. airports near Canada luring fliers across border
What did it take for a city the size of Buffalo to land its only non-stop route to California? A bunch of Canadians and cheap jet fuel.
JetBlue announced last week that it would add non-stop service starting this June between Buffalo and Los Angeles, giving Buffalo its only regularly scheduled flight to the West Coast.
One key to making it work, JetBlue says, is to lure Canadians across the border.
It’s already happening on other flights at the airport. Bargain-seeking Canadian fliers accounted for at least a third of all passengers last year at Buffalo/Niagara International Airport, where fares can be dramatically cheaper than on flights for the same routes from Toronto — only about 100 miles away.
JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., were on hand at a Buffalo airport press conference to announce the new flights last week, and each made a sales pitch to Canadian travelers. But it was Schumer, who frequently champions aviation in the state, who offered the most-direct plea.
“We are telling Canada residents, when you want to fly to California, don’t do it out of Toronto,” Schumer said. “Get in your car, take the short drive and fly here.”
Relying on customers from another country may sound unusual, but that’s how it works for Buffalo and other U.S. airports along the border with Canada.
“That’s not a surprise,” Douglas Hartmayer, spokesman for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority that operates both the Buffalo/Niagara and nearby Niagara Falls International airports, said about JetBlue’s plan to help fill its L.A. flights with passengers from north of the border. “Canadians have been patronizing our airport for many years in great numbers.”
“The idea of Canadians driving across the border for cheaper flights is nothing new,” adds Seth Kaplan, editor of the Airline Weekly trade publication. “What has really changed in recent years is that you really have a number of airlines optimizing to capture those customers.”
That’s tended to work out for Buffalo, where the metro area’s population – currently at about 1.1 million – has been in slow decline since the 1970s, according to U.S. Census data.
Despite that, Kaplan says Buffalo “has always out-punched its weight as an airport relative to what you would get if you had the same local population base for Buffalo somewhere else in the country.”
“Certainly, airlines with a large presence in Buffalo – like JetBlue and Southwest – have benefited from that,” he says. “And because of how cheap fuel is, an airline like JetBlue can take chance on a non-stop route like Los Angeles” that would have been riskier financially a few years back when fuel prices were higher.
But Buffalo is not the only place where airlines are trying routes that depend on the Canadian market.
From Bellingham, Wash., to Bangor, Maine, passenger counts at many U.S. airports along the border are bolstered by Canadians looking for cheaper fares and non-stop flights to popular U.S. destinations.
How else to explain non-stop flights to places such as Hawaii, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Palm Springs from the small market of Bellingham, Wash.?
The city has only about 80,000 residents, but its airport sits just 60 miles from downtown Vancouver — Canada’s third-largest metro.
Bellingham International Airport doesn’t keep a precise count but estimates about 65% of its customers come from Canada.
“We do know a significant number of Canadian passengers utilize our airport to take advantage of cheap parking and low cost flights to 10 different nonstop locations,” Director of Aviation Sunil Harman says in an email.
In the East, it’s the airport serving tiny Plattsburgh, N.Y., that’s perhaps the most upfront in its efforts to draw Canadians. The English and French-language website for Plattsburgh International proudly displays its motto, “Montreal’s U.S. airport.”
Plattsburgh has only about 20,000 residents but offers nonstop flights to destinations like Fort Lauderdale; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; and St. Petersburg, Fla. They’re kept afloat in large part with Canadians from Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city that’s just 70 miles away on Interstate-quality highways.
Allegiant is one of the most aggressive carriers in adding border-city flights that rely on travelers from Canada. The company flies to nine cities where Canadian customers represent a significant portion of its customer base.
That may sound unconventional, “except if you’re one of the people up in those towns” along the border, says Lukas Johnson, Allegiant’s Vice President of Planning.
“If you’re in Bellingham or Plattsburgh, you’re pretty well aware that Canadians have been coming over for decades.”