Why air service to Detroit is better than you think

The CBC is reporting that “Northwest Airlines will be offering a new nonstop service between Detroit Metropolitan Airport and Charlottetown this summer.”

On first blush, you might think “who the heck wants to go to Detroit?”

But remember that Detroit Metro Airport is also served by the low-fare Southwest Airlines. Direct service to Detroit means direct service to connecting Southwest flights, which might turn out to be an excellent thing both for Islanders leaving and visitors coming.

For example, an early-June flight from Detroit to Chicago is $39 each way; Burbank, California is $99 each way; New Orleans is $104 each way. Depending on where Northwest sets the Charlottetown to Detroit fares, this could make for very economical travel within North America.

Besides the Southwest possibilities, travel on Northwest itself might prove to be interesting: Detroit is a major hub for Northwest, and they offer direct flights to Tokyo.

Here’s the Detroit Free Press coverage of the story.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005 - 6:17pm

Travel

Comments

Submitted by Clark (not verified) on Thu, 2005-01-27 00:17.

I think $170 is quite a lot of money and a rather large difference in fares. Even if the fares were higher any chance of avoiding flying Air Canada is welcomed. Any talk of flying home from Asia for a visit is always accompanied by the sense of extreme dread of having to be in Air Canada’s clutches for almost half the flight. This is great news and thank you for passing this along.

Submitted by Will (not verified) on Wed, 2005-01-26 20:41.

The above was a simple error, please delete it or ignore it. Nice blog, liked it quite a bit.

Submitted by Steven Garrity (not verified) on Tue, 2005-01-25 19:09.

Searching for return tickets from Charlottetown to San Francisco for July on Travelocity.ca I get these results: Northwest Airlines: $578 CAD (1 stop in Detroit) Air Canada: $747 CAD (1 stop in Montreal) Not an enourmous difference, but nice to see some competition. Also, with the Northwest flight, you don’t have to leave Charlottetown at 6AM (they leave at 8:40AM).

Submitted by oliver (not verified) on Tue, 2005-01-25 19:24.

In the states I’ve grown distrustful of Travelocity and think hotwire.com offers cheaper flights.

Submitted by Peter Rukavina (not verified) on Wed, 2005-01-26 14:08.

Here’s the official news release from Northwest. It has details on schedule and connections.

Submitted by Stephen (not verified) on Wed, 2005-01-26 14:37.

Not a big difference but still $170.

Submitted by Ken (not verified) on Wed, 2005-01-26 17:05.

How does customs go in Charlottetown on a direct US flight like this? As an islander who works a lot in the US, this is great news. A direct connection to any American airport opens up many possibilities for value and time saving. As it is, a weekend trip home for me gets lost in travel time through Halifax or Toronto, so I don’t do it. Funny thing is I plan to be home as soon as this Detroit connection is available! Thanks for the Hotwire tip Oliver. I’d love to hear anyone elses cheap flight sources…

Submitted by Will (not verified) on Wed, 2005-01-26 20:40.