"Now At Two (Or More) Convenient Locations!"

In 2010, the United States Postal Service, in an effort to streamline operations for greater efficiency, proposed closing numerous smaller branches which they felt were unnecessary. Among the branches on the list was the East Haven Post Office.

The result was a huge hue and cry from the town's residents, fearful that they would now have to drive an extra three and a half miles for eleven minutes to (gasp!) New Haven to conduct their postal business. The USPS would subsequently relent.

So how is it that there was weeping and gnashing of teeth over the "inconvenience" of going to New Haven when these same people tout Bradley International Airport as being "close by" (if you consider 55 miles and a one hour travel time as "close by"), thus, in their view, negating the need for Tweed-New Haven Regional Airport to improve? ("Well, of course you like Tweed; you don't live near it!", say Bradley Airport's biggest boosters, who also contended that there was "no market " for air service in Southern Connecticut.)

Some folks say an hour, some say forty minutes. On a good day. One East Haven chap wrote a letter to the New Haven Register, claiming he could make Bradley "in half an hour." Now, I'm no math whiz, but for him to get to Bradley from East Haven in thirty minutes means he would have to be doing 110 miles an hour...from the moment he left his house to arriving at the Bradley parking lot. (He must be the patron saint of every Connecticut State Trooper behind on their speeding ticket quota.)

Are Tweed and Bradley too close? I did some comparisons (using Google Maps for distance and travel time, and 2024 passenger boarding figures) between other cities having commercial air service that were closer than 55 miles and one hour's drive time.

Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale International Airport are 27 miles and 37 minutes apart. MIA boarded 55,926,566 passengers, FLL boarded 35,208,611.

Tampa International Airport and St. Petersburg International Airport are 16 miles, 13 minutes apart. TPA boarded 24,756,631, PIE boarded 2,494,952.

San Francisco International Airport and Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport are 30 miles, 30 minutes apart. SFO boarded 52,288,098, OAK boarded 10,820,939. And San Jose International Airport, 34 miles and 33 minutes from SFO, boarded 11,851,270.

Los Angeles International Airport and the Long Beach Airport are 22 miles, 31 minutes apart. LAX boarded 76,587,980, LGB boarded 4,148,080.

La Guardia Airport and Westchester County Airport are 30 miles, 35 minutes apart. LGA boarded 33,543,943, HPN boarded 2,308,000 (with roughly half of those boardings coming from the Connecticut side). And Newark Liberty Airport, 22 miles and 39 minutes from LGA, boarded 48,853,370.

Kennedy International Airport and Long Island's Islip MacArthur Airport are 43 miles, 51 minutes apart. JFK boarded 63,265,972, ISP boarded 1,362,000.

Finally, we have Bradley and Tweed, 56 miles and 56 minutes apart. Bradley boarded 3,327,272. And while Tweed's boardings currently in the high six digits, doubtless, the latent runway and terminal improvements will put that figure at well over a million.

And I expect the detractors will come out and say that the airports listed above are in "densely populated" areas of the country. Okay, about that. Hartford County has a population of 896,854. New Haven County has a population of 873,905. That's a difference of 22,949 people, which isn't much, seeing as how Bradley's website boasts the airport serving not only Connecticut but "western Massachusetts and other New England states" (at one time they even included eastern New York State) while Tweed's market includes New London and Fairfield County, the latter containing Bridgeport, the state's most populous city.

Sure, Oaklanders could cross the Bay, and San Jose denizens could just drive up the 880 and use SFO, as could St. Petersburg travelers with Tampa. But they don't. And, given the choice, Long Islanders would just as soon drive to Ronkonkoma versus doing battle on "The Big L.I.E." The airport in their own town serves them just fine, thank you very much. And the same applies to those hundreds of thousands of Southern Connecticut folk who have recently found Tweed's service and accessibility rather attractive.

And let's be honest: Tweed is doing what Bradley just can't do: They're attracting people from Fairfield and New London County, keeping their travel dollars within the state, not going to Queens, White Plains or Warwick, Rhode Island. And it's not like the Connecticut Airports Authority, Bradley's operator, hasn't tried. Many of Metro-North's New Haven Line cars carried vestibule posters exhorting Fairfield County residents to come to their "happy place," Bradley.

Think about it. If you live in, say, Bridgeport, are you going to drive the 69 miles and one hour-plus to Windsor Locks to catch your flight? Or the 23 miles and 30 minutes to Tweed? Are you going to take a Metro-North train five stops to New Haven Union Station, then change to a Hartford Line train making five stops to Hartford Union Station, then change to the Bradley Flyer bus to the airport? You don't have to be an Arthur Frommer to figure that one out.

No, Tweed is not competing with Bradley, but complementing it.

Tweed is filling its niche rather well, providing service to popular destinations (mostly Florida) where folks want to go, and with rather affordable fares (just don't procrastinate!).

The era of Connecticut being a "one-airport state" has been consigned to the dustbin of history.