Small cities losing airline service

[railiner]

Does Greyhound have any routes that a person can flag dow or onboard passnegers say I want to stop at =======. Many years ago I did that on Trailways. Now you cannot even get GL to do a ramp up and down to get off.

I don't know of any Greyhound routes that provide that type of service, any longer. They seem focused on providing nonstop service between larger cities, and even bypassing fairly large towns enroute.
Pine Hill Trailways is one company that still provides the old-fashioned local service on its route between New Paltz, Kingston, Oneonta, and Utica, NY. You can flag the bus on the highway, and the driver will drop you off at any "safe" location you ask for...south of New Paltz to NYC, they will only stop at the station at Ridgewood, NJ.

 

[me_little_me]

And Asheville seems to be getting more airline traffic than ever!

 

[Palmland]

Southeastern Stages still provides decent local service in our area. There seems to always be a handful passengers boarding in our small town of 7000. The bus station is a McD near the interstate.

I still believe there is an opportunity for bus lines like this to integrate service with Amtrak. But that is a lot harder to do with 3 day a week service. Our train station is a lot nicer than the fast food stop (but farther from the interstate).

 

[trainman74]

And Asheville seems to be getting more airline traffic than ever!

When I was a kid, in the early-to-mid-1980s, I flew there from Tampa every year for summer camp, on Piedmont Airlines 737s (with a plane change in Charlotte). I assume these days, they get mostly regional jets.

 

[Willbridge]

I don't know of any Greyhound routes that provide that type of service, any longer. They seem focused on providing nonstop service between larger cities, and even bypassing fairly large towns enroute.
Pine Hill Trailways is one company that still provides the old-fashioned local service on its route between New Paltz, Kingston, Oneonta, and Utica, NY. You can flag the bus on the highway, and the driver will drop you off at any "safe" location you ask for...south of New Paltz to NYC, they will only stop at the station at Ridgewood, NJ.

I believe that some of the 5311f routes run by GL have flag stops. I used stops like that a few times when I was young and crazy but would stand there wondering whether I should hitch a ride instead. Now, old and crazy, I'd be reluctant to do it without a back-up ride planned.

By the late1960's a lot of what showed in the schedules as flag stops were just political ploys to appease regulators. That meant that there was a danger of being ignored by an unsuspecting operator. The rail equivalent was Rooster Rock in the Columbia Gorge. UP Train 18 was supposed to stop on flag on a 40 mph curve in the dark on a fill across a river backwater with no station or platform.

An airline equivalent proposed when the Oregon Aviation Systems Plan was soliciting input was sort of like calling in an air strike in the military. Small passenger planes would orbit over the state for a call-n-ride system, all dispatched with punch card era computing!

 

[Palmland]

While this thread is a couple years old, apparently the problem is getting worse. The major airlines are raiding the regional carriers for pilots to keep their main routes going. An opportunity for Amtrak? Not sure if this is behind a paywall.

Want to Fly this summer? Good luck traveling to a smaller airport.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

While this thread is a couple years old, apparently the problem is getting worse. The major airlines are raising the regional carriers for pilots to keep their main routes going. An opportunity for Amtrak? Not sure if this is behind a paywall.

What I've seen where I travel is that many of the regional jet frequencies to smaller airports are gone and show no signs of returning. Maybe they're taking the place of mainline frequencies somewhere else but I've also read that many of the smaller regional jets are simply no longer flying for US carriers in any capacity. That's good for regional travelers on longer routes but bad for visitors to smaller cities and towns that will not be viable for mainline aircraft. I would love for Amtrak to be able to leverage this as an opportunity for greater awareness but I do not believe they are in a position to really impress anyone right now.

 

[Dakota 400]

I would love for Amtrak to be able to leverage this as an opportunity for greater awareness but I do not believe they are in a position to really impress anyone right now.

Amtrak simply does not have either the staff nor serviceable equipment to fill the gap that exists. And, that gap is both in service to smaller markets as well as on the pricing side. While prices on Amtrak seem to have increased, on a percentage basis, I would not be surprised that air fare from smaller airports has increased more.