Boston-Maine to stay at Hanscom Field

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent
January 2, 2003

BEDFORD - Although plagued by relatively few flights and few passengers since beginning service at Hanscom Field last July, Boston-Maine Airways now says it will remain there, looking for things to pick up in the spring with new operations to Cape Cod and Nantucket.

"Because it takes time to build awareness, we will continue to try to find the right markets for us from Hanscom, which is geographically ideal," Dan Fortnam, marketing vice president for the small Portsmouth, N.H.,-based carrier, said Monday. Three weeks ago, the commuter airline was considering pulling out of Hanscom because of very spotty demand for its flights. For example, the airline attracted only 159 passengers for 178 scheduled operations from July through November 2002, according to the Massachusetts Port Authority, Hanscom's owner-operator.

But Boston-Maine is convinced, Fortnam said, that it can jump-start activity by offering Hanscom-Nantucket-Hyannis service beginning March 20. Four flights a week are planned from Hanscom, on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, he said.

"We're also looking at introducing service next summer to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island," he said, noting that current service to St. John, New Brunswick, has been encouraging.

In addition to offering one round trip a day to St. John, through Portsmouth, Boston-Maine presently has two scheduled daily round trips between Hanscom and Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y.

However, the White Plains flights have been light, apparently because many people are driving to the New York metropolitan area, Fortnam said.

When it inaugurated service to Hanscom six months ago, Boston-Maine posted 122 flights a week from Bedford, not only to White Plains, but also to Martha's Vineyard; Bangor, Maine; Atlantic City, N.J.; Portsmouth, N.H.; and St. John, New Brunswick.

But the airline's ambitious schedule proved to be short-lived since on many occasions there were no passengers to pick up or drop off at Hanscom. "There have been fly-overs," Fortnam has said.

Boston-Maine's drastic cutback in services to and from Hanscom came at a time when Shuttle America, operating as US Airways Express, was also downsizing Hanscom operations as it was increasing its operations from Pittsburgh to eight cities in Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.

Shuttle America, which relocated last September from Windsor Locks, Conn., outside Hartford, to Fort Wayne International Airport in Indiana, once flew from Hanscom to New York City, Philadelphia, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket until insufficient demand forced a cancellation of operations to those locales at different times in 2001 and 2002.

The airline, which began serving Hanscom in September 1999, is now down to six round trips a day between Hanscom and Trenton, N.J. Nonetheless, Scott Durgin, Shuttle America's chief executive, has said the airline expects "to continue to be at Hanscom for some time."

Massport is counting on the continued presence, albeit limited, of both Shuttle America and Boston-Maine, said Richard Walsh, an agency spokesman. "We just hope that Boston-Maine will be able to find its market niche," he said.

Page: 5 Section: Globe NorthWest
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