I have a little secret. At least, I think it’s a secret. At least, I’m pretty sure not everyone knows about it. My “secret” is that I’m an aviation buff. I love airplanes. I love reading about airplanes. I love looking at pictures of airplanes. I even still like riding in airplanes, despite all the changes of the last fifteen years or so that have made air travel less fun than it used to be.
In some ways, it’s very fortunate that I love airplanes, given that I live in Portland, and all of my family lives on the East Coast. And Portland might be seen as a better city to live in than most for someone who loves airplanes, because to get to the East Coast it’s almost mandatory to take TWO airplanes. Sometimes even three, if you get really lucky.
As I said, I love airplanes, so this isn’t such a bad deal. I’ve even been know to choose an itinerary with three flights instead of two, just for the novelty from time to time, or for the opportunity to fly on a certain type of plane, or through an airport I’ve never visited before.
That being said, my wife hates flying. She is prone to motion-sickness, and she had a pretty firm limit of two takeoffs and two landings in any given day. Beyond that, her stomach begins to feel it. And if we can do it in one, that would be way better.
But we live in Portland. Do you know how many non-stops there are from PDX to the East Coast? Well, here they are (I’m pretty sure this is right, given that I came up with this list with someone in the aviation industry last week):
That’s it. Six nonstop flights per day to the East Coast. Other than that? Not going to happen. You get to change planes in Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, San Francisco, L.A., or some other city. Which, of course, adds hours to the trip.
Why does this matter, you ask? Well, let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that you want to fly to Philadelphia for a meeting on a Monday morning, starting at 9AM. Further, let’s imagine that you have a commitment on Sunday which won’t let you get to the airport until 2PM. Do you know what lovely flights you wind up on?
The flight you wind up on is a 7PM to San Francisco. Which connects to a 10PM red eye, getting you in to Philly at 6AM and poorly slept the next morning. And frankly, my nearly 40 year old body doesn’t do that well with red eyes anymore.
So I ask you all, why? Why are we, one of the nation’s great cities, denied first rate airline service? Why are we treated as though we were some insignificant city, with a little used airport? And more to the point, does anyone have any thoughts on how we can change this?
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Because not enough people fly in and out of Portland. Portland is only the 29th largest city in the country, and only Alaska/Horizon uses it as a hub. PDX continues to lose service, not gain it. Delta shut down service to Asia in 2001, Mexicana shut down service to Mexico in 2008, and Lufthansa shut down service to Germany in 2009. Portland can hardly be considered an “international” airport anymore.
The only way to change this is to dramatically increase the amount of traffic that goes through PDX. The only way to do this is somehow increase Portland’s population rank into the top five, convince the current population to buy a lot more plane tickets, or convince more airlines to use PDX as a hub.
If you want nonstop service, move to one of the five largest cities in the country (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, or Phoenix) or a city with a large hub (Atlanta, Charlotte, DC, Dallas, Detroit, SLC, Cincinnati, Memphis, Minneapolis, Newark, or Philadelphia).
While I agree we aren’t one of the largest cities in the country, I would argue we’re actually 23rd largest based on MSA which is probably a better measure for airport purposes. But putting that aside, it seems to me that on the two-flight jaunts, the fuller flight is almost always (say 9 times in 10, maybe?) the one to or from Portland. If I’m trying to book an itinerary and one leg is sold out, it’s almost always the Portland leg.
Now, I agree with you that the airlines must have a logic. I’m just not entirely sure what it is.
Alternatively, you can try to convince the airline industry that they should foot the bill on direct flights to Portland because it’s such a great city and your wife has a sensitive stomach. Maybe they’ll go for it.
I like this Andy guy.
My brother and I both moved to Portland (at different times) from big(but different) cities on the East Coast. We had grown up in Kansas City, whose SMSA is about the same size as Portland’s SMSA, but until we moved to Portland, I don’t think either of us realized the difference that geography plays in airline routes. KC’s not a main hub for much of anybody, but it is in the middle of the country and if you miss a flight, there’s always another one going through to somewhere close to your destination, usually within a few hours.
One spring break, I went out of PDX to the Bahamas. I didn’t know it was spring break; I’m not a parent or a college kid and I was meeting some East Coast friends there on a trip they planned for me. But I was in the line at the gate at PDX and heard the guy in the line next to me explain his secretary screwed up and forgot to make his flight arrangements to somewhere south of Portland. He apparently made this flight every month and was pretty upset. The gate agent said: “The earliest we can get you out is in three days. Because it’s spring break and everybody is flying OUT of Portland, so all flights are overbooked.” I couldn’t help myself; I interrupted and said, “Are you serious? Three DAYS? You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m serious.” That’s when I realized the difference that geography plays. In Portland, you’re at the end of the line in a 2nd-tier airport and the capacity to leave the city is finite. In the midwest or some other connecting city, you may be at a 2nd-tier airport but you’re rarely at the end of the line and can usually get a flight to somewhere on the way to your destination.
The guy ended up renting a car and driving north to Seattle to catch a flight south later that day.
The reality is that Portland’s airport is never going to have a lot of nonstops anywhere. Seattle, LA and San Fran are the gateways. Airlines aren’t going to have four hubs off the West Coast and since we’re the smallest of the major west coast cities — although not really small — we lose.
(And, BTW, Southwest has a nonstop to KC, which is important to me because that’s where the other half of my family lives. It’s the only airline with a nonstop to there. On average, the nonstop shaves 3 hours off the trip.)
There are six non-stops to the East Coast? Who knew? I though it was an FAA requirement that all flights from Portland stop in either Denver, Dallas or Atlanta.
However, if getting more non-stops to and from PDX requires a busier, and hence bigger, airport–nix. No need to spend precious public funds grabbing up more land along the Columbia River. What we really need is super fast train service to Seattle and Oakland.
I’d agree that fast train service to Seattle and SanFran/Oakland would make a lot of sense. East Coast folks have found for years that willingness to travel out of a number of airports between NY and DC and taking the Amtrak east corridor train to them often resulted in quicker and cheaper travel. The trains run often and it’s often quicker/cheaper to use them rather than drive yourself and park.
US Airways (I think) offers a seasonal PDX to Philadelphia non-stop. Not sure if they are still doing it but it helps immensely as my family lives 15 minutes from Philly.
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