Airline wants to increase Hanscom flights

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 5/12/2002

BEDFORD - Taking advantage of Shuttle America's curtailed schedule from
Hanscom Field, Boston-Maine Airways is filing flight plans for 22 daily
operations, beginning June 28.

''We're acting on a `window' that is opening'' at Hanscom, said Dan Fortnam,
marketing vice president for Boston-Maine, which has corporate offices in
Portsmouth, N.H. He was referring to a statement made last week by Mark
Cestari, spokesman for Shuttle America, that the Windsor Locks, Conn.-based
carrier will not consider resuming service to LaGuardia Airport in New York
City until Sept. 1 at the earliest.

Shuttle America, which operates as US Airways Express, cancelled its six
daily round trips to LaGuardia on April 19 due to a damaged leased aircraft.
''Sluggish [air] traffic between Boston and New York'' is another big reason
for not restarting LaGuardia service anytime soon, Cestari said, noting that
the carrier's flights to and from New York had only been 30 to 40 percent
filled.

Boston-Maine is planning five round trips a day between Hanscom and Newark,
N.J., three round trips to Martha's Vineyard, and three round trips between
Portsmouth and Martha's Vineyard, with stops at Hanscom, Fortnam said. Later
this year, the airline may submit plans for two daily round trips between
Hanscom and Westchester County Airport in White Plains, N.Y., he said.

Shuttle America pulled out of White Plains on April 17 because of spotty
demand. That was only two days after it had launched the service, with five
round trips a day.

Boston-Maine's inaugural Hanscom schedule must pass muster with the
Massachusetts Port Authority, owner-operator of Hanscom. Massport officials
will be meeting soon with Fortnam and other Boston-Maine executives to go
over details of the carrier's plans, said Richard Walsh, a spokesman for the
agency.

One of Massport's big challenges has been maintaining a limit of 48 daily
commercial operations at Hanscom, a threshold set in 1995. The agency is now
conducting a 2000-2015 Environmental Status Planning Report to determine
what the daily flight limit should be in the coming years.

Shuttle America, which began serving Hanscom in September 1999, still
operates six round trips a day to Trenton, N.J., and five round trips a day
to Philadelphia. It also expects to begin serving Martha's Vineyard and
Nantucket on Friday, Cestari said, with one flight a day Thursday and Friday
nights and two flights each Saturday and Sunday.

In early February, the airline also began serving four cities in Ohio,
Virginia, and Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh.

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