Top-20 unserved routes: Eastern USA to the Caribbean

This instalment of the ‘top-20 unserved’ looks at unserved routes from the Eastern USA – defined by the time zone – to the Caribbean. In the 12 months to August 2019, 25 million flew between them, up 600,000 over the prior year.

Of these 25 million, six million flew indirectly, equivalent to a PDEW of over 8,000 excluding seasonality. At almost one-quarter indirect, this is very far from the highest proportion, but it’s nonetheless important.

In the year to August 2019, the top-20 unserved routes saw 598,000 passengers, down 1% YOY.

Top-20 unserved routes	Year to Aug. 2019 passengers (two ways)	PY passengers (two ways)	% chg.	Year to Aug. 2019 average fare*	*Est. fare/mile (USDc)**
Cleveland-San Juan	59,800	55,000	9%	n/a+	n/a+
Pittsburgh-Montego Bay	43,900	45,000	-3%	$159	$0.105
Buffalo-San Juan**	41,600	42,500	-1%	$167	$0.091
Pittsburgh-Punta Cana	39,000	44,000	-11%	$161	$0.097
Indianapolis-San Juan	34,000	34,000	0%	$157	$0.083
Columbus-San Juan	32,700	30,900	6%	$210	$0.117
Pittsburgh-Aruba	31,800	37,000	-14%	$182	$0.090
Detroit-Aruba	31,600	36,000	11%	$235	$0.107
Cleveland-Montego Bay	30,300	29,900	1%	$178	$0.112
Columbus-Montego Bay	27,400	26,200	5%	$140	$0.093
Jacksonville-San Juan	25,900	26,400	-2%	$185	$0.144
Indianapolis-Montego Bay	25,000	29,600	-16%	$166	$0.107
Rochester (NY)-San Juan #	25,000	27,200	-8%	$144	$0.079
Hartford-Montego Bay	25,600	27,800	-8%	$154	$0.094
New York-St Croix	23,400	23,500	0%	$249	$0.149
Hartford-Punta Cana	22,500	24,900	-10%	$198	$0.121
Pittsburgh-Nassau	22,400	21,800	3%	$182	$0.169
Raleigh Durham-Nassau	21,600	21,200	2%	$161	$0.210
Indianapolis-Punta Cana	20,700	21,400	-3%	$217	$0.120
Tampa-Montego Bay	20,400	23,700	-14%	n/a+	n/a+

Source: OAG Traffic Analyser. * One-way; USD; excluding taxes; excludes fuel surcharges; and across all cabins.+ As n/a, these won’t be chosen for any further analysis. ** And 36,000 to Toronto. # And 17,000 to nearby Syracuse.

The dominance of San Juan, Punta Cana and Nassau in the top-20 is borne out at country-level, below. They’re well-served from the US, from a collection of purposes of travel, but opportunities remain. This is something that Allegiant, Frontier and Spirit have been exploring in recent years, even if just once- or twice-weekly and seasonally, such as Allegiant Air’s Pittsburgh-San Juan. While Allegiant’s Caribbean presence is tiny, Spirit and Frontier have grown strongly since 2017: Spirit is up 1.3 million seats (CAGR 28%) and Frontier 600,000 (CAGR 33%). Both, of course, were from a low base.

Eastern USA to/from…	Year to Aug. 2019 indirect passengers (two way)	Year to Aug. 2019 total passengers (two ways)	% indirect v. total passengers
Dominican Republic	984,000	5.1 million	19%
Puerto Rico	970,000	5.2 million	19%
Jamaica	829,000	2.8 million	30%
The Bahamas	708,000	2.3 million	31%
Aruba	390,000	1.1 million	35%
US Virgin Islands	363,000	715,000	51%
Cayman Islands	242,000	628,000	39%
Turks and Caicos	185,000	520,000	36%
St Maarten	140,000	416,000	34%
St Lucia	117,000	255,000	46%

Source: OAG Traffic Analyser.

Cleveland – Montego Bay?

This route looks interesting. While its estimated fare/mile across these 20 is average, it has below-average sector length (although it’s still quite long at almost 1,600 miles). And although its YOY growth was only 1%, it has meaningfully grown in the five years to August 2019, shown below: 10,000 additional passengers were carried for a CAGR of 8%. A potential opportunity for Frontier? Presently, the ULCC serves Montego Bay from Philadelphia and Raleigh Durham.