Skybus”™ cut-rate fares have piqued the interest of fliers from the Hudson Valley ”“ and from the new airline”™s hub in Columbus, Ohio. Skybus plans to begin service to Greensboro, N.C., beginning Monday, Feb. 25.
Even without 10 seats at $10 each on every flight into and out of Stewart International Airport, Skybus’ fares are considered a bargain, if you are willing to carry your own luggage and go no-frills. Frills are extra ”“ including baggage ”“ and you have to arrange to get to your next connecting flight alone, but travelers willing to do a little leg work can fly out of Skybus”™ Columbus hub to 15 destinations nonstop, including to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
When service to and from Greensboro begins, 10 more nonstops will be added to the roster, and the 10 seats for $10 will be status quo for that hub, as well.
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials credit the low-cost carrier with the surge in shuttle bus passengers from the Metro North station in Beacon. As a result, Leprechaun lines started Saturday and Sunday service from the Beacon station into Stewart at the end of January and added an additional weekday trip. Leprechaun is another bargain for fliers: $1 buys a one-way seat.
Stewart also saw its biggest jump in use in 2007 to 920,000 passengers, up from a little more than 300,000 in 2006. That jump came before the PA takeover, helped by the arrival of Air Tran and JetBlue, which had been courted for months by the Stewart Airport Commission and the Orange County Chamber of Commerce.
Port Authority manager Diannae Ehler expects numbers to go higher, possibly hitting the one million mark in 2008, according to James Wright, the chairman of the Stewart Airport Commission. When it convened its first meeting of 2008, Wright was reappointed chairman for another term. “I”™ve been chairman under four different governors,” Wright told Hudson Valley Business. “We are appointed by the Department of Transportation and answer to them. We are very happy to see Stewart finally taking off after so much effort went into the effort. Ehler is on top of every detail.” Those details included Ehler”™s concerns that the terminal may become close quarters if numbers she is projecting for passenger service meet or exceed the million mark.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer didn”™t forget to include Stewart in his recent visit to the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce Jan. 30. While he said some may balk at the thought of Stewart becoming the Port Authority”™s fourth major airport, he pointed to its potential for tremendous economic stimulus for the region. Spitzer told the group of more than 400 business leaders that high-speed rail service is in the planning stages for the Hudson Valley, and that “Stewart is part of that high speed rail” study. Although many alternatives have been suggested, including a direct link from Stewart over a new Tappan Zee Bridge, Metro-North has stated several times that the most cost-effective tie-in for train-to-plane service will be from the Salisbury Mills station.
