Tweed vs. Bradley: Some see risk in level of competition

Connecticut’s flagship airport saw passenger traffic jump 57 percent year over year in the first half of 2022. But the head of the organization that owns and operates Connecticut’s flagship airport is not celebrating those numbers.

To the contrary, Connecticut Airport Authority Executive Director Kevin Dillon is worried about recent trends, particularly the declining passenger turnout in the spring. And a large source of his unease pertains to the growing activity at the airport about 55 miles south of Windsor Locks-based Bradley.

Tweed-New Haven Airport has been experiencing a revitalization since the new Avelo Airlines launched service there last November. Dillon has expressed concerns about the increasing overlap in the airports’ routes and Tweed’s plans to extend its runway and build a new terminal. But Tweed officials and other aviation experts believe there is sufficient customer demand for both airports to thrive, while Bradley’s and Tweed’s management teams have expressed a willingness to communicate more in order to improve the airports’ relations.

“We need to be very careful about how the aviation market here in Connecticut is handled,” Dillon said in an interview. “We don’t want to be doing things that harm Tweed’s abilities and vice versa. When you look at Connecticut’s aviation market, it’s a healthy market — but it’s still a relatively small market. We need to make sure we don’t end up with two ‘sick puppies.’”

More service at Tweed equals more competition with Bradley?

About 2.7 million travelers passed through Bradley from January through June, compared with 1.7 million in the same period in 2021, according to CAA data.

In late spring, however, increasing service at Tweed started to noticeably affect the passenger numbers at Bradley, according to Dillon. After month-over-month increases in each of the first four months of this year, the total number of passengers at Bradley dropped 7 percent from 544,531 in April to 505,328 in May and then 3 percent from the May total to 487,653 in June. The decrease in the second quarter contributed to a 18 percent lag between the first-half 2022 total and its passenger tally of about 3.3 million in the same period in 2019.

“May is when Tweed’s schedule really started to ramp up,” Dillon said. “There’s a lot of overlap in the services they’re providing and the services we’re providing. So Tweed is having the impact of pulling some of the passengers away from Bradley.”

At the separately owned and operated Tweed, from last November to mid-July, there were 112,019 “enplanements,” which refer to departing passengers, according to airport data. In comparison, Tweed recorded an annual average of 35,213 enplanements from 2010 to 2019. Including arrivals, the total number of passengers passing through the airport in the past nine months is “well over” 250,000, according to Tweed Executive Director Sean Scanlon.

Tweed’s comeback has been catalyzed by it becoming a hub for the new Avelo Airlines, which started flights out of Tweed last November. The June 30 launch of a route to Wilmington, N.C., marked the airline’s 14th and latest nonstop destination from Tweed.

Today, Avelo is the sole carrier operating at Tweed. Before Avelo’s arrival, American Airlines for many years had been the only carrier operating at Tweed, but its service to New Haven ended last September.

“I view it as we are presenting more choices to the people of Connecticut. I just think that’s a really good thing,” Scanlon, who is also a state representative for Branford and Guilford and the Democratic nominee for state comptroller in this year’s election, said in an interview. “Bradley is always going to be Connecticut’s main airport. They’re always going to have dramatically more options than we ever will or want to.”

While Tweed serves 14 nonstop destinations — all of which are in the eastern half of the U.S., including six in Florida — Bradley offers nonstop service to about 40 cities across the U.S., as well as flights to Toronto and Cancún, Mexico. Its route roster continues to grow, highlighted by the announcement last Thursday of a new route to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Among other additions, the new Breeze Airways announced in February that it would establish an operations base at Bradley, with plans to create more than 200 jobs and eight routes at the airport.

But Dillon still sees Tweed as a significant competitor. Each of Tweed’s nonstop destinations, except the Wilmington, N.C. route, is also served by flights from Bradley.

Compared with Bradley, “Tweed is duplicating about 38 percent of the market in terms of routes,” Dillon said. “In terms of where Tweed’s passengers are coming from, only about 2 percent are coming from New York. The rest are being pulled out of the Bradley market.”

Scanlon has a much different assessment of Connecticut’s aviation market.

“We’ve done a lot of research about this,” Scanlon said. “We believe our market, or ‘catchment area,’ is about 1 million people. And that’s roughly New Haven County, northern Fairfield County, into the Middletown area and then maybe over to east of where I live — like Madison, Clinton and Westbrook. It’s closer for them to come to us than it is to go to Providence, Bradley or New York. We believe that million people was one of the most underserved catchment areas in all of the United States.”

Paralleling Scanlon’s outlook, other industry experts said that Tweed and Bradley played different roles that would allow both airports to thrive.

“New Haven is a niche airport with point-to-point nonstop service to several destinations, mostly leisure. Bradley has the 10 airlines, and they, combined, offer access to 19 — count them, 19 — major connecting hubs operated by American, Delta, United and Southwest,” Michael Boyd, co-founder and president of Evergreen, Colo.-based aviation consulting and forecasting firm Boyd Group International and a former station manager at Bradley for Braniff International, said in an email. “So for consumers to get out of or into the region, the majority will be at Bradley.”

Looking for more growth

Tweed intends to further increase its reach, with plans to lengthen its runway and build a new terminal. To facilitate those upgrades, the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority approved last month a new 43-year lease and management agreement with a subsidiary of its longtime contract operator, Avports.

“The first year of this (Avelo service) has proven that the market is there,” Scanlon said. “The next few years are going to be us doing what we can to responsibly grow and offer even more choices to the people of southern Connecticut.”

Dillon is worried, however, that a longer Tweed runway would allow the airport to add routes to more cities served by Bradley — such as San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“I don’t believe Tweed can provide Puerto Rico service today on the runway length they have, but if they extend the runway, there is the potential they could do that,” Dillon said. “Those are the types of things that we look at here and say, ‘There are going to be some challenges in this market if there is unconstrained air-service development at two airports within (approximately) 50 miles of each other.’”

Scanlon confirmed that Puerto Rico is a “top priority future destination for us.” Tweed was recently awarded a federal grant of $800,000 for a “minimum revenue guarantee” and associated marketing program to recruit, initiate and support potential routes to San Juan, Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C.

“While I have no news to share beyond that at the moment, I will say there is certainly potential for service (to Puerto Rico) to begin before the runway is extended,” Scanlon said. “And I know there would be many, many people in southern Connecticut’s large Puerto Rican community who would be very happy about that.”

Other supporters of Tweed’s expansion include Gov. Ned Lamont.

“You’ve got to do it in collaboration with the neighbors, but I think it makes really good sense,” Lamont said in an interview. “I can tell you the New Haven business community, the biotech community, Yale, Southern (Connecticut State University) — they all are so supportive of making easier access in and out of New Haven.”

Meanwhile, Bradley has been pursuing its own infrastructure upgrades — namely, a ground-transportation center that opened at the beginning of the summer. The new facility has allowed all of the rental-car outlets serving Bradley to move onto airport property. It has also added about 850 covered parking spaces. In the longterm, it could pave the way for train service to Bradley.

“We believe we can demonstrate the need for a light-rail connection coming from the Hartford rail line directly into this facility,” Dillon said at a June 30 ribbon-cutting event for the transit hub that was attended by elected officials including Lamont and Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy.

As for what could be done to allay his concerns about Tweed’s expansion, Dillon said he would be willing to talk more with Scanlon.

“We’ve talked all along about the need for coordination between Tweed and Bradley,” Dillon said. “We’re not criticizing Tweed and Avports. I’m just trying to point out something we’re starting to see emerge here.”

Similarly, Scanlon said he would welcome increased communication between the Bradley and Tweed management teams.

“I’ve always been very clear to Kevin that we should talk more and coordinate,” Scanlon said. “Sitting down once in a while and talking about the aviation landscape in Connecticut — I think that’s great thing, and I’m totally open to doing that.”

pschott @stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott