A new regional carrier plans to improve domestic links in the United States by making use of satellite airports in major urban markets to enhance the passenger experience. Streamline Air launched flights earlier this month between Boston Hanscom and Trenton-Mercer Princeton, a route it believes can develop as a stress-free alternative for many businessmen flying between Boston and Philadelphia. An estimated 194,000 O&D passengers flew between Boston Logan International and Philadelphia International in the past year, each paying an average of $226 each way, but Streamline believes that many would be willing to pay a little more for its own services that will “focus on pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight services that create a simpler, more personalised and stress-free travel experience at every touch point”.
The airline believes its own flights could bring down journey times between the two cities by as much as two hours depending upon the exact origin and destination point, even though the flight time is slightly longer due to the use of smaller turboprop aircraft. Hanscom is located in Bedford, MA about 12 miles northwest of Boston but has good links along the ‘128 Corridor’ and into Manchester, NH, Providence, RI and Worcester, MA. Meanwhile, Trenton-Mercer Princetown is served via Mercer County Airport in Ewing, New Jersey. It is located between the State’s Capital city and Princetown and is also a convenient access point for doing business in Central Jersey (New Brunswick area), Bucks County, PA and northern and central Philadelphia.
There are currently no other scheduled air services from either of these airports. In fact there hasn’t been any since early 2008 when Boston-Maine Airways quit the exact same route that Streamline is now flying. The link is being flown as a public charter in partnership with Cleveland-based Charter Air Transport using a 30-seat Embraer EMB-120ER Brasilia.
“Streamline was born from a single, simple idea,” says the airline. “Make business travel easier and less stressful to/from key markets in the busy and congested Northeast, Mid Atlantic and Southeast US regions,” and it has plans to add more routes attracting passengers away from congested major airports.
“You spend twice as much time on the ground as you do in the air,’’ said Mark Cestari, Managing Director, Streamline, of these such airports. “If you’re trying to get 300, 400 miles away, the utility of flying has been greatly diminished by the parking situations, which are time consuming, and the long walks and the long check-in lines.’’ He has past experience of the airline’s launch route having previously worked for Shuttle America, which operated between the destinations between 1999 and 2004.
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