I see that today CO had commited to expanding operations at CLE over the next two years.

News reports are claiming about 50 regional routes and 20 domestic routes on mainline aircraft to be added. Promise of perhaps 12 more flights in the future. No mention of additional international flights, although most are connecting at EWR or IAH anyway.

Hopefully CO will follow through with this upgrade and not disappoint CLE with this news release.

Anyone know the status of the new USA-
China routes to be let in the next year or so?

CLE-CDG, which was announced over a year ago, will start May 22, 2008. This is a year-round service, unlike the summer only LGW service.

A once-a-week Quebec City flight has started 3 months ago, and they'll add a daily to Ottawa later this month.

Those are the announced international additions. They are looking into CLE-AMS, but I won't expect that until 2009 the earliest.

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As for US-China routes, all the applications are in. Now, we just wait. One of the new authority is for this year, and it is now mid-September. DL should get this authority as it specifically says it's for a new carrier, though that didn't stop NW from applying for it as well.

The 2008 authority to Guangzhou (CAN) is unopposed. UA is the only one that applied.

The real contests are for the 3 new 2009 authorities.

Let me add a few other comments about the announcement.

- I think Cleveland really wants this expansion. The economy of NE Ohio hasn't been really blooming.

- But CLE is still slow in getting the federal immigration/customs facility built. If they want more international flights to Europe and the Caribbean, they should be sending bulldozers in today. Instead, they're still only "reviewing different options" - which is disappointing.

- CO had no choice but to shift some domestic connections away from EWR to CLE. They need EWR to for their on-going international expansion, and this summer really showed how horrible the situation is in the Philly/NYC area. This is the logical way to do it - use CLE for more domestic connections.

- CO will be shifting a lot of regional jets from EWR to CLE. EWR will get more mainlines and the Q400 72-seaters. Which will make CLE looks a lot like CVG. Now, that is not good news for budget travelers in Ohio. [Yes, someone reminded me that CVG is in KY. Yeah yeah yeah...] CVG has for years <b>the highest average air ticket prices</b> because of the large DL Connection hub. So, Ohio may soon have the TOP TWO high-price airports in the country.

rkkwan - agree with your comments, and I'm going to take a wait-and-see attitude whether CLE becomes another CVG. It may not be - SW flies into CLE but not CVG. Columbus is the largest city in Ohio and roughly equidistant between CVG and CLE, so that might make a difference if people in central Ohio now have 2 significant hubs to choose from.

In any event, it will be interesting.

Don't you worry about the Columbusites - I have to Google this one; I know they're not Columbians!

They (and the other budget Ohioans) can take their beloved Skybus!

Seriously, you're right about CLE having more competition. AirTran has a good operation at Canton-Akron (CAK) too.

I agree that CLE needs to get the immigration/customs facility done.

So what you're saying, rkkwan, is that CO is shifting less profitable regional routes to CLE so the more profitible internaitonal routes can grow at EWR.

Any guess as to how many of the added CLE routes are new and how many are simply re-routed exisiting flights?

Also, Southwest may not not have the same effect on overall ticket prices after their current jet fuel deal is completed and they need to renegotiate for their fuel supply

SamH - It's basically accepted facts that CO really can't expand significantly at EWR. Besides the air traffic issues, they already use the whole Terminal C, some gates at A, plus some international flights arrive at B.

But CO is still a &quot;growth&quot; airline, unlike AA, UA, NW and US. And they have more 787 widebodies coming in, and more 757-200s shifting to trans-Atlantic service. No doubt EWR will continue to be the main airport for not just European operation, but Asian as well.

And of course, EWR is a great O&amp;D airport for the NYC metro.

So, they'll do whatever they can to maximize use of EWR for those two purposes only - O&amp;D for NYC, and connecting to longhaul internationals. They will need to shift people to CLE for domestic connections to/from the NE.

As for fleet use, they're correctly shifting the 50-seat RJs away from EWR to CLE. Instead you'll see more 737s and for the short routes, the 72-seat Q400 turboprops. Some frequencies definitely will be cut. I was looking at CO's timetable a few days ago. A lot of mid-west cities get up to <b>seven</b> regional jets a day. That's pretty ridiculous. I believe for most markets, 4 daily flights (probably a mix of mainline and regionals) is adequate to bring people to NYC and feed the longhauls.

The RJ's I've been on recently have been pretty full. Mostly Embrarers out of CLE and 2 from LGA. Both CO and AA. They aren't very comfortable and CLE to MIA is about all I can take on one of those. I don't look forward to more turboprops.