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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

I fly a lot to EWR for work, as my company's headquarters is in New Jersey. It's always been expensive to fly into Newark because it's a Continental hub. But it used to be only $150-$200 more than flying into LGA or PHL, which are both about a 2-hour drive to our HQ location. For that money, it was worth it. But now, it costs about $1000 for a short-notice, midweek roundtrip to Newark flying nonstop, versus about $350 for nonstops to either PHL or LGA. I guess the lack of IND-EWR competition is finally showing up. It used to be that the only option to PHL was US, and the prices were comparable. But these new NW nonstops, as well as WN moving into Philly, have dramatically lowered fares. So will we ever get some nonstop competition on the IND-EWR route? Maybe Airtran will look at it. Or if JetBlue comes to IND with a JFK route, will that be enough of a jolt to lower the CO fare to EWR? Right now, it's just ridiculously more expensive to fly to EWR, and we're all starting to fly to PHL instead. It's worth an extra 1:15 drive up the turnpike.