Empire State's Capital loses more air service.
Colgan Air is ending service from Albany on Sept. 5, but United Airlines apparently has found a replacement. ExpressJet Airlines will take over Colgan's United Express flights between Albany International Airport and Newark...Colgan Air is not much of a loss...they have been plagued with safety issues. The replacement carrier, is not really United...it is an out-sourced so-called regional carrier that isn't really "regional" and some will argue has lower safety standards than the large carriers it contracts with. Travelers from the Albany area are now faced with a quandary if they need to fly to Europe out of JFK....although there are many flights on United out of EWR, links to JFK might be problematic. Upstate New York has been severely hampered since airline deregulation with the loss of Mohawk Airlines into the Allegheny and US Airways conglomerate. Apparently, for example, if a business person wishes to fly from Albany to Buffalo one must fly out to Chicago and connect back. The loss of local point-to-point routes on American, Eastern, and the like has made air travel extremely expensive and inconvenient for most centers in Upstate New York. So-called "regional airlines" such as ExpressJet are not in any way similar to the pre-1975 local service airlines such as Mohawk that actually served a region. In the absence of a successor to Mohawk, which ExpressJet is not, the Capital Region might be best served by expanded Amtrak Service to and from New York, Boston, and even Montreal to provide links to those international hubs. Air taxis can offer fares for business groups that are much more competitive than the fares airlines such as United, US Airways and even Southwest on sectors such as Albany-Elmira, and other destinations in the Northeast. Such operators are job generators and lend much to the economy.
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