A negative rant about our local airport. Well, not exactly against the airport but the airlines that service it. For years the local airport–once called Link Field in honor of the father of the flight simulator and local hero Edwin A. Link, then renamed the Binghamton Regional Airport, now called the Greater Binghamton Airport, was just too expensive to fly from. A ticket from BGM (it’s official FAA designation) was several hundred dollars more than other airports, like Syracuse. Then about five years ago, wonder of wonders, BGM got a facelift and a lot focus from County Executive Jeff Kraham, and later County Executive Barbara Fiala. And it paid off. More airlines scheduled more flights to and from BGM. And more flights meant more competition and lower fares. Very nice. It was great flying out of BGM and comparing prices with places like JFK (a major regional hub) and finding for only an additional $50 or $75 added to the ticket price you could fly from BGM, meaning it made a whole lot more sense for those of us living in the Greater Binghamton area than driving to New York City, or Newark, or even Albany.

But it seems the pendulum has swung the other way again. I’m not sure why. Delta’s departure from BGM likely has a lot to do with it (I’ll be looking to trade in my frequent flier miles from Delta as I don’t plan to fly them again). You can’t blame fuel prices as they’re down from this point last year. Ticket prices have continued to climb at BGM in relation to other airports and I can only think it’s because of lack of competition. When doing a comparison between BGM and airports like Syracuse, you save so much money it just makes sense to fly from somewhere else. For example, my job requires me to travel to London periodically. A recent check showed a round-trip flight in mid-December costs $883 from BGM. It costs $751 from Syracuse, a $132 savings. And if you want to travel 4 1/2 hours to JFK, you pay $603, a $280 savings.

Let’s hope more competition returns to BGM soon. For now, I’ll be seeing more of ‘Cuse when I need to fly. How about you? I’m not a frequent flier by any means, so my experience is limited. Leave me a comment about the cost of flying from BGM for you.

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