As I mentioned in my last post, while Rhode Island business and commerce leaders (prominently including Hasbro's CEO) have called for nonstop routes from PVD to West Coast destinations, particularly LAX and SFO, for years, they haven't yet materialized -- in recent years, no airline has offered service from PVD to destinations in California or elsewhere in the West.
Part of the reason PVD to West Coast routes haven't been launched yet is almost certainly due to the fact that Providence's catchment area overlaps with BOS -- most Rhode Island travelers live within an hour or two from Boston, which offers many California nonstops every day on a variety of airlines and routes.
The Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC), the governing body of PVD, estimated in late 2013 that about 32% of PVD's primary catchment area leaked to BOS. Many of these travelers are likely flying out of BOS because it offers far more nonstop routes and flexibility. But if PVD was able to recapture many of these travelers, it would boost traffic by over 50%, which would be huge for new route opportunities at PVD.
Below is a map of the most popular West Coast destinations from PVD. The data comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation's DB1B database from Q3 2019, which I then analyzed by calculating PDEW (Passengers Daily Each Way) from PVD to domestic destinations to get a sense of how many people are flying to these destinations from PVD every day.
PDEW, which is reported in the color bar and first line of the info box for each airport, is the observed traffic to these destinations from PVD, whereas "Adjusted PDEW" considers what the passenger numbers would be like if PVD were to recapture 75% of Boston's share of the PVD primary catchment area for these routes (this could be higher or lower should such routes actually be offered). The table below summarizes the top markets from the above figure and considers what carriers could offer these routes (JetBlue is excluded because of its Boston hub and operating model out of PVD, as are the ULCCs for the most part given their troubled route openings from PVD in past years). Note: Denver's adjusted PDEW numbers are likely inflated since it had nonstop service from PVD to DEN on Frontier at the time this data was collected.
| Rank | Market | PDEW | Adjusted PDEW | Potential Carriers |
| 1. | DEN | 133 | 188.9 | Southwest, United, Frontier (note F9 actually offered route during Q319, skewing data) |
| 2. | LAX, SNA | 115 | 163.3 | Southwest, American, Delta, Alaska |
| 3. | SFO, SJC, OAK | 95 | 134.9 | Southwest, United, Alaska |
| 4. | SAN | 77 | 109.3 | Southwest |
| 5. | LAS | 71 | 100.8 | Southwest |
| 6. | PHX | 69 | 98 | American, Southwest |
| 7. | SEA | 53 | 75.3 | Delta, Southwest, Alaska |
Looking at the passenger numbers, it makes sense that these markets are not currently offered as nonstop service from PVD. Many of these routes have PDEW / adjusted PDEW numbers in the mid to low hundreds -- until the introduction of the A220 (particularly the A220-300) a few years ago, there were really no aircraft offerings in this capacity range. The A220 is able to fly as far the 737-800/MAX or A321, but with a lower capacity of 130-145 passengers, all while having industry-leading fuel efficiency and low operating costs -- as a result, the A220-300 could potentially be big for West Coast service from PVD.
Many excellent analyses have been written regarding why the A220 is big for secondary cities in the United States like Providence, and the data in Table I clearly shows that the A220 potentially has huge potential for PVD. While once-daily service from PVD could potentially be feasible to DEN or LAX from PVD on an A321 or 737 MAX, very few of the other routes would be likely work on these larger, more expensive aircraft. However, the introduction of the A220 into the U.S. commercial aviation industry would allow more frequent service on these high-demand routes in addition to making daily service feasible from PVD to places like the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, and Seattle.
However, in order to make these routes profitable, even with the A220, PVD probably needs to recapture a sizable amount of the BOS share of the PVD primary catchment area. To win back these passengers, PVD needs to get carriers to offer these markets nonstop from Providence. But the data shows the current passenger numbers are slightly too low for airlines to profitably start these routes, which means it's hard for PVD to win back these travelers -- as you can probably tell, this is a classic "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" situation. PVD can't get the demand without the routes, and it can't get the routes without the demand!
One interesting unknown here is the impending entry of Moxy (Breeze?) into the U.S. aviation market -- JetBlue founder David Neeleman is planning on launching an entirely new U.S. airline that focuses on point-to-point service between secondary markets like Providence, unsurprisingly using the A220. PVD actually has been mentioned as a potential city for Moxy/Breeze, although this is probably temporarily on hold due to COVID-19. The only current U.S. carrier that flies the A220 is Delta (which could offer nonstop service from PVD to its LAX hub), but should other carriers (particularly Southwest) introduce the A220 at some point, it could be a very interesting time for nonstop service at PVD. In the meantime, we can only hope that RIAC is working hard to offer West Coast service by ensuring PVD can fill larger planes to California sometime in the post-COVID era.
Thanks for reading! As always, please leave a comment below or get in touch if you have any thoughts on this post.