BANGOR, Maine — Starting March 25, US Airways will offer daily nonstop flights between Bangor International Airport and Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., as well as additional nonstop flights between Bangor and Philadelphia, BIA Director Rebecca Hupp announced Wednesday.
“This is a very significant development for the airport and it’s literally been years in the making,” said Hupp. “The last time the airport had nonstop service to [Washington] D.C. was when Pan Am flew Bangor to Baltimore, and that service was sporadic.”
US Airways now operates three daily flights from Bangor to Philadelphia and has offered only weekend service to Washington, one of its primary hubs, for the last year. With the changes taking effect in late March, there will be one additional outgoing flight and one additional incoming flight between BIA and Philadelphia each day, as well as two outgoing flights and two incoming flights daily between Bangor and Washington D.C.
“It certainly will give people more alternatives for choices on connections,” said Hupp. “I think people will be very excited about it and it’s something many customers have asked about over the years.”
“I am pleased to learn US Airways will be expanding its service from Bangor International Airport to both the Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia areas,” U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said in a statement. “The addition of these flight options will improve access for Mainers and visitors alike to destinations across the country and around the globe.”
Hupp said the expansion was made possible by recent Federal Aviation Administration approval of a slot transaction agreement between US Airways and Delta Air Lines.
“We’ve been positioning ourselves to get one of those flights for a while now,” said Hupp. “In exchange for landing rights at LaGuardia in New York, Delta gave landing rights at National Airport [in D.C.]. US [Airways] had more slots available in D.C. and Delta had more slots in LaGuardia.”
That means US Airways will cease its LaGuardia air service from Bangor on March 25.
The additional daily service — designated Flight 3888 — between BIA and Philadelphia will use 50-seat CRJ-200 regional jet aircraft operated by US Airways Express partner Air Wisconsin. A flight will depart Philadelphia at 3:45 p.m. and arrive in Bangor at 5:21 p.m. A flight will depart Bangor at 6:11 p.m. and arrive in Philadelphia at 7:55 p.m.
The flights to and from Reagan National Airport in Washington also will be on Air Wisconsin CRJ-200 airplanes and will follow a daily schedule:
• Flight 3887 from Bangor to Washington departs at 8:59 a.m. and arrives at 11 a.m.
• Flight 3884 from Washington to Bangor departs at 10:05 a.m. and arrives at 11:54 a.m.
• Flight 3779 from Bangor to Washington departs at 12:20 p.m. and arrives at 2:18 p.m.
• Flight 3806 from Washington to Bangor departs at 10 p.m. and arrives at 11:45 p.m.
US Airways operates more than 3,000 flights per day worldwide and services more than 200 communities.
Ticket prices for the new flights were not immediately available.
This seems like great news but it will take away some daily flights to new york. Dc national is a much nicer airport to get a connecting flight in then LaGuardia and its more likey people in that area will fly here compared to a shorter driver to new york. I hope this service can expand it should be popular.
With DL and US doing a slot swap in LGA and DCA there was going to be some loss of lift between BGR and NYC. DL has not added in the same amount of flights as US had. The fact that US has maintained lift in BGR is a good sign in the fact that they consider this to be a profitable market. DL’s flight requirements are that any flight that is over 900 miles (which ATL-BGR-ATL is) needs a flights with a domestic first class cabin. If there was enough origin or destination traffic in BGR there would be a flight to wherever. At this point having DL having lift to DTW is about as good as there will be. The best hope for the future will be United offering lift to Chicago-O’Hare or Washington Dulles.
I’ll continue to say it, if there are passengers there will be flights. Which is why Southwest, Jetblue and other low cost carriers will just never show up in BGR, there’s no market.
wi since you seem to be in the industry…any word of Southwest’s plans for the Portland AirTran flights? Will they continue to BWI? Add PHL? I’d be in heaven if they opened up a PWM to Midway flight. US Airways does a good job with the east coast but getting west is most easily handled through Manchester.
WN has announced that they have no intentions of continuing to use the Boeing 717 for the long term (which is what serves PWM), everything is up in the air. Although WN generally uses point to point service instead of the traditional hub and spoke they will continue to offer service to profitable markets only. WN does have a fairly large operation in BWI, so it seems logical (but not definite) that they would continue to have lift PWM-BWI. If PWM can support a flight to Midway, they’ll get one, if WN doesn’t believe that there is a market for it it won’t happen. I frequently travel PWM-ORD and during the winter United had difficulties filling a 50 seat regional jet. WN generally shys away from seasonal services.
US’s lift to the midwest is done via codeshare on United (which has a much stronger network). Much like United/Continental rely on US from lift in the southern part of the country.
It is becoming obvious that Downeast is giving up on all but leisure travel. Continental pulls out of Newark flights. USAir pulls out of Augusta to Boston Flights. USAir pulls out of Bar Har to Boston. USAir pulls out of BGR to LGA, but adds more flights to its hubs.
Maine, open for business (as long as you live in Portland or South)
US dropped the BGR-LGA flights since they traded landing slots with Delta. They are adding the DCA flights to make up for the dropping of the LGA flights.
Its good news for Bangor but I’d like to see additional Delta flights. Hopefully, they will follow suit… a non-stop to Atlanta would be ideal!!!
USAirway’s customer service just plain SUCKS. Its not the folks at Bangor but those in Phoenix (their corporate offices). I’d honestly rather drive than support an airline that treats its customers so poorly.
I don’t know that Delta’s customer service is all that much better. In my opinion for each airline and its partners Republic (US Airways) is probably the best and Comair (Delta) the worst. The other just get mixed in the middle.
I agree: all US carriers stink (except maybe JetBlue). Republic, though, is the best USAir partner: too bad the flight to DC is on Air Wisconsin (they’re only OK).
I dont know if you just personally have had a bad incident or what but I fly all over the country and often and US Airways has been my runaway favorite. Everyone always gets so excited about Southwest Airlines and their service and deals but honestly I get on Orbitz and US Air wins the price war nearly every time. Never have I once had an issue with customer service; even when a bag was once lost they delivered it to my hotel free of charge later that day when it arrived.
I also fly regularly for work and have Platinum Medallion status on Delta. However for years, I was a Chairman’s Preferred on USAir. I used to be treated very well as a frequent traveller but since the merge with America West things went downhill for USAir. They have been unresponsive to complaints about service. For instance, I was flying out of Bar Harbor and had a flight cancelled due to “weather” eight hours before departure on a clear sunny day. I drove to Boston instead and asked to be reimbursed for my expenses. They refused saying that they can’t be responsible for weather related events. I asked them how they could cancel due to weather eight hours before a flight barring anything like a blizzard etc. They tried to say that the flight may have been originating from another airport where the weather event occurred. I had to inform them that the Bar Harbor – Boston flight does not deviate from this route, therefore weather was not the factor. They still stood firm in their denial. Believe me, this was not my only gripe with USAir. In the end, I cut up my Chairman’s Preferred card and sent it to the corporate offices in Phoenix. I never received ANY response.
On the other hand, Delta seems to really value their regular customers. I have nothing but praise for how they respond to criticism or praise. Please don’t think that I am an unreasonable or arrogant passenger. I firmly believe in order to get respect, you need to give respect. While my face to face interactions with those at USAir were similar to what I experience at Delta, it is the support staff and management at USAir that could use a lesson in customer service.
Edit: Thank you Andrew Neff for making the corrections.
National is not located in Washington, DC (I refuse to call it Regan) it is located across the river in Virginia. I normally do not complain about headlines but it is nonstop service from Bangor, ME to Arlington, VA because that is where the airport is located and always has been.
Oh, grow up! This country is rooted in the tradition of honoring Presidents with the use of their name. The title of an airport has nothing to do with ideology. Take a lesson from your buddy Bill Clinton- his signature made “Reagan National” official.
I grew up in the area. It was National and always will be. That is why I refuse to call it by another name and nothing more.
Sooo, because it was like that when you were a kid, you deem it to be so forever? Question, do you “allow” women to change their names when they get married?
To me, I deem it so be forever.
Oh, that is grand. “Excuse me I am going to catch a flight to Arlington, Virginia tonight”. How about other airports do you refer to them too?Providence Airport is in Warwick, RI – Do you fly into Warwick Airport?Newark Airport is 1/2 in Elizabeth NJ – Do you fly into New-Lizabeth Airport?San Francisco is in an unincorporated section of San Mateo county. Do you fly into San Mateo Airport?Montreal is is Mirabel QC – Do you fly into Mirabel Airport?
I love this article’s photo and its caption.
This article is about USAirways and its partner Air Wisconsin initiating new service between Bangor and Washington National airports.The 2008 photo shows a USAirways flight, operated by partner Colgan Air, boarding a flight from Presque Isle to Boston.
Close enough for these pahts, yessah.
What does Sen. Snowe have to do with this story? Why not a quote from Sen. Collins or Rep. Pingree, or Rep. Michaud. Or someone else?
Easier to get lobbyist to and from Washington.
She’s trying to get re-elected. She’s going to have a say about everything non-controversial.
Good deal for the Dr….
Just what the Dr. ordered….
Can we get some flights to Boston please?
If there were enough passengers to support it it will happen. If there is not enough passengers to support the flights there will be no flights.