Boutique Air considering flying from Massena to Baltimore again

“They’re thinking about taking the afternoon flight, the middle flight, and going somewhere else, like Baltimore. You would still get two flights to Boston,” he said.

Boutique Air began serving the Massena International Airport in mid-April 2017 when it took over as the town’s new Essential Air Service provider at an annual subsidy of $2.9 million. It replaced Cape Air, which held the EAS contract in Massena for the previous eight years and had offered flights to Albany and Boston.

It was awarded the Essential Air Service contract again in March 2019. That contract runs through March 21, 2021, with a first-year annual subsidy of $3.1 million and a second-year annual subsidy of $3.2 million.

Boutique Air initially offered flights to Albany International Airport twice a day and Baltimore-Washington International Airport once a day. But those were scrapped in June 2018 in favor of 21 non-stop round trips each week to Boston Logan International Airport using the airline’s Pilatus PC-12 aircraft.

“They had good ridership before with Baltimore. They went from Albany to Massena to Baltimore and vice versa. That would get them two cheap flights to a couple of places,” Mr. Carbone said.

While flights to Boston have drawn well, “some people have a problem with going to Boston to go to California,” he said.

Boutique Air officials announced last week that starting in November, passengers connecting from the Massena International Airport to Boston will have direct flight options to and from Florida, specifically Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Fort Myers and Tampa on United Airlines.

Boutique Air has an interline agreement with United, which allows travelers to get off a Boutique plane in Boston and go directly to United for their connecting flights to Florida.

Brian Kondrad, Boutique Air’s vice president of business operations, said booking can be made on United.com by putting Massena as the origin and one of the new Florida direct areas as the destination. Passengers will see the one stop in Boston, and the two legs together range from about $100 to $200 each way, depending on the date and time of travel, he said.

“Hopefully it will increase the enplanements,” Mr. Carbone said.

He said, with Boutique Air’s EAS contract expiring in March, they should expect to see airline proposals coming in soon, which he said will be distributed to board members for their review. Four airlines — Boutique Air, Cape Air, Silver Airways and SkyWest Airlines — had previously submitted bids.

SkyWest had been awarded Essential Air Service contracts for both Ogdensburg and Massena on Feb. 8, 2019. But in a letter dated Feb. 22, 2019, it notified the Department of Transportation that it would not be able to provide service in Massena. Boutique Air, which had been the Massena Town Council’s choice, was then awarded the contract.

“During preparations for our service launch in Massena, it has come to our attention that the Massena airport does not meet minimum federal operating requirements for the CRJ200 regional jet. The process to make the necessary updates for compliance is likely to take an extended period of time. Due to these airport operating limitations, we are unable to provide air service to Massena as scheduled,” SkyWest said.