Northwest Cancels Some Transatlantic Flights

Next on the chopping block: the Tallahassee-to-Antwerp and Indianapolis-to-Minsk non-stops.

 

And after that, Boise-to-Bermuda and Dekalb-to-Bombay.

 

I'm still stunned that the Albuquerque to Mogadishu flight no longer exists.

 

Just connect through Tahoe and you're there in 30 minutes.

 

That would, of course, require a 15-minute first leg of the trip.

 

Why is anybody really that surprised that Minneapolis has nonstop flights across a pond?

Northwest has hubs in Detroit, Memphis and Minneapolis. They've got to run flights from somewhere and that's where they have the biggest fleets, staffs, etc.

 

"Well, you made a long journey from Indy to Minsk, Rochelle, Rochelle ..."

 

The truly small airports get their service subsidized through the government's Essential Air Service program, which is supposed to make sure that airlines don't lose money flying to those places. Several, however, have run into problems because the airlines either go out of business or say, "We don't wanna do it anymore," and the government can't always find someone to replace them.

Happened in Athens, Ga., a little while ago; they used to have several flights a day to Charlotte through one of US Airways' regional partners. That partner either went completely belly-up or just stopped that service, and it was only just replaced with a service to Atlanta. (Which is something the Athens airport has wanted for years.)

Also happened to several small airports in Wyoming and/or Montana, IIRC.

 

You can fly from Athens to Atlanta? How long does that take? Five minutes?

 

As I recall, thanks to Continental's hub in Cleveland, you could fly the airline to and from Akron. Although I believe much of the time you paid merely for the right to ride in a Continental-supplied van while it drove you to Hopkins.

 

. . . like Newark-Philly, which will frequently leave you with a train ticket.

 

At one time Southwest had a few flights that stopped at Houston Hobby and Houston Intercontinental.