Originally Posted by
njd1
No, I meant EWR. Several people I know were booking personal travel for August out of EWR and the flights clearly showed "operated by commutair". I thought that was proof positive we would be back in EWR in August but that does not appear to be the case based on an email distributed to FAs (and oddly no pilot has received yet).
I get the fact that EWR had a lot of international, but not putting 50 seat RJs back in EWR precisely when the airport has the capacity and demand (as demonstrated daily with traffic in IAD) seems utterly stupid to me. NY and NJ were hotspots but they are no longer. In fact, with a 1.5% positive rate (down from 48% two months ago) it's pretty clear, for better or for worse, the tri-state area pulled the bandaid off quickly and have likely achieved herd immunity. If any airport in the eastern US should be fully open with full pre-covid domestic schedules it's EWR.
References:
https://www.tsa.gov/coronavirus/passenger-throughput
https://forward.ny.gov/percentage-po...gion-dashboard
The problem is those 50 seaters bring a lot of people in and out of EWR for the express purpose of international travel. Without that they will remain mostly empty. Sure, you will have some locals travel but EWR airport is a much bigger airport than needed to handle the greater Newerk area. If anybody is going to New York they fly into JFK or LGA, not EWR. So until international travel comes back to a significant level, EWR will hurt more than most airports unfortunately.