An Avelo flight takes off. Image courtesy: Avelo Airlines
I’m on vacation. Today’s commentary comes from my home on Wausau’s west side. I’ll be back in-studio on Wednesday.
CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – While I was on vacation, Avelo Airlines announced that they were discontinuing their twice-weekly service from Central Wisconsin Airport to Orlando. Done in less than a year because of low demand.
With Avelo’s failure in Central Wisconsin, the chances of getting another low-cost, vacation-oriented airline to begin service from CWA is zero. We will be a limited-service, two-airline market for the foreseeable future. And that assumes that Delta and American remain committed to CWA. My American flight at the start of the Independence Day travel season was not full. Delta now only flies from CWA to Minneapolis; their service to Detroit was dropped a year ago. United, which was down to one flight a day from Mosinee to Chicago, pulled the plug in 2021.
What has not been widely reported is that the airport has been subsidizing tourist-based airlines that were willing to fly out of CWA. The Marathon County board offered a subsidy to Sun Country, which said ‘no’. CWA is too close to their home base in Minneapolis and might cannibalize their business. Even Avelo was offered a minimum guarantee of tickets sold on each flight; the airport made up the difference. And even with taxpayers buying up unsold seats, the service was a loser.
And, ultimately, Avelo is to blame. Did you ever see an Avello TV commercial, or a radio ad, or a newspaper advertisement telling the public about Avelo’s new discount service to Florida? No. They were happy to take taxpayer money to subsidize their service but did nothing to promote it to the flying public. I would guess the only way you heard about Avelo was through news coverage of their arrival, and now their departure, from the local travel market.
What have we learned? United, Southwest, and Spirit will never come to CWA. They are regularly scheduled, daily-service airlines. And Avelo’s failure will make other vacation-based airlines think twice. It’s unfortunate that we’ll never know if Avelo could have made a go of it with proper marketing.
Chris Conley
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