American Airlines will offer two daily flights from Tweed-New Haven Airport (HVN) to Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) starting Sept. 9.
Tweed Executive Director Sean Scanlon made the announcement in a Monday press release.
The service will replace American’s current daily flights to Philly.
Scanlon called American’s announcement a sign of the airport’s strength.
He was asked, via email, why.
“Charlotte is just a bigger hub all around: 11th largest airport in the U.S. vs. Philly is 20th; Charlotte is American’s second biggest hub vs. Philly is fifth,” Scanlon responded. “Charlotte gets us 20+ more destinations and 200+ more daily flights.
“For now our passengers will always have to go somewhere else, but if you have to go somewhere else. Charlotte is the better place to go.” He wrote that that’s “why we view this as a really, really good thing for us coming on the heels of the court case and amidst the pandemic.”
If the Federal Administration Aviation approves the airport’s expansion plan, expected to wrap up next March, then Tweed hopes to lengthen its main runway and offer more flights, Scanlon stated. That planned expansion has been a subject of intense debate between neighbors skeptical of the environmental impact and business viability and business and government leaders convinced of a potential boon to the local economy.