Shuttle America drops service to islands
Flights to Philadelphia, New Jersy reduced; market vice president resigns

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent
July 21, 2002

BEDFORD -- Shuttle America is scuttling its service to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, effective Aug. 4, claiming lackluster demand. At the same time, it will trim the number of daily round trips between Hanscom Field and Trenton, N.J. from seven to six, and to Philadelphia from six to five.

In a July 17 announcement on schedule changes, the regional airline also said that its spokesman, Mark Cestari, is resigning, effective last Friday, for personal reasons. His successor as marketing communications vice president has yet to be named.

Taken as a whole, the cutbacks in Hanscom service reflect "the company's going in different directions, with a focus on the Pittsburgh hub," from which the airline now flies to four cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Virginia, Cestari said.

He said he didn't know whether Shuttle America, which operates as US Airways Express, would eventualy pull out of Hanscom completely, now that it is relocating its headquarters on Sept. 1 to Fort Wayne International Airport in Indiana. The airline has beeen based in Windsor Locks, Conn., outside Hartford, since getting off the ground in November 1998. It began serving Hanscom in September 1999.

The Massachusetts Port Authority, owner-operator of Hanscom, will not comment on Shuttle America's reduced operations at the airfield or on Cestari's resignation, spokesman Richard Walsh said.

The Shuttle America news caught Boston-Maine airways by surprise, said Dan Fortnam, marketing vice president of the small, Portsmouth, N.H.-based carrier, which began serving Hanscom on July 1, with one round trip a day to Martha's Vineyard.

A lengthy regulatory approval process would prevent Boston-Maine from "taking advantage of the high season" and launching a Nantucket service from Hanscom, Fortnam said. "However, we will look at increasing the number of flights to the Vineyard."

The carrier's service to Martha's Vineyard from Baltimore and White Plains, N.Y., has been doing well, he said, noting that only recently has demand been picking up for Hanscom flights to the island.

But customers have never been lined up for Shuttle America flights to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Cestari said. "The market response has been poor," he said, without being specific. Service began nearly two months ago, with one flight a day Thursday and Friday nights and two flights each Saturday and Sunday.

Cestari has been the spokesman for Shuttle America since 1998. Before joining the airline, he had headed the Providence Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"I enjoyed what I did, but it's now time for me to pursue marketing communications consulting work in the Boston area," said Cestari, 43, who is single and the father of two. He lives in Newton.

Arthur Fulman of Concord, who was the first chairman of the Hanscom Area Towns Committee, said, "Although we didn't agree on much, Mark was a worthy opponent. I respected him for his diligence." The committee is made up of officials from Bedford, Concord, Lexington and Lincoln.

The current chairman of the committee, Sheldon Moll of Bedford, said Cestari could be counted on for providing updates on Shuttle America's operations. "I'm sorry to see him go," siad Moll, a Bedford selectman and a former chairman of the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission.

Anna Winter, executive director of Save Our Heritage, a Concord-based historic preservation group that has aggressively opposed commercial aviation at Hanscom from the outset, took a different tack. She said of Cestari's tenure: "Trying to sell a service that is so inappropriate for the area, and so unwanted by the four communities, is a tough job."

This article appeared on page 3 of the Boston Sunday Globe's NorthWest Weekly section on July 21, 2002. ==========
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