This coming January, one of Columbus’s two direct flights to California will take a break for the winter, reports Marla Rose of The Columbus Dispatch.
As Ms. Rose writes:
Columbus will temporarily lose a long-sought nonstop flight to the San Francisco area early next year, leaving Los Angeles as the only nonstop West Coast destination from John Glenn Columbus International Airport.
The 41-day seasonal suspension of Southwest Airlines’ daily nonstop flight between Columbus and Oakland [will last] from Jan. 8 to Feb. 17 ...
Seasonal air routes are nothing new. But year-round service is always better, and it’s something Columbus airport and civic organizations have worked hard to achieve.
According to the article, however, these efforts have in the past come up against turbulence.
Nonstop service to the West Coast has been elusive for Columbus and other cities with mid-sized airports in the eastern United States.
Apart from briefly having service to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and the greater Seattle area ... from short-lived Skybus Airlines, Columbus has been lucky to have nonstop service to Los Angeles alone.
Although Southwest’s Columbus-Oakland flight will return in February, the hiatus is a small but meaningful blow to a business community that views nonstop flights as a key economic driver.
Per Ms. Rose’s piece:
Securing the Oakland flight was heralded as a victory not just for leisure and business travelers, but for economic development. When Columbus officials tried to attract San Francisco-area tech firms to invest here, “They all said, ‘Call us when you get a nonstop flight here,’ ” recounted Kenny McDonald, chief economic officer of economic development organization Columbus2020 when the flight was announced in February 2015. ...
Franklin County and the city of Columbus put up a combined $1.7 million toward a two-year reserve fund for the Southwest flight that could be drawn upon by the airline if revenue targets (which were not disclosed) weren’t met. The flight will have been operating for two years as of August.
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