Top 100 Unserved Markets in the Contiguous United States
Update October 22 - Expanded list from 50 to 100 top unserved markets and made small revisions
This is a list of the top 100 unserved city pairs in the contiguous United States (excludes Hawaii and Alaska) based on new U.S. Department of Transportation data for the second quarter of 2024.
Some notes about the data and fields to consider before reading the list:
One-Way Daily Pax 2Q24: The number of passengers in each direction per day that begin in one city and end in the other city (origin and destination). These are passengers that are connecting in another airport(s) to reach their destination
Average One-Way Fare 2Q24: The average one-way fare a passenger paid
YoY Pax Change: The % change in passengers year-over-year
YoY Fare Change: The % change in fare year-over-year
The DOT groups airports by metropolitan areas. For example, Washington DC includes IAD/DCA/BWI and Boston includes BOS/PVD/MHT, so some markets might appear larger compared to isolating individual airports.
This is a list I manually compiled by going through every market by descending passenger count and seeing if they were presently unserved, so there is a chance I may have missed some markets or accidentally included a market that’s already served.
Highlighted markets indicate ones that were unserved during this period, but will now begin receiving service for next year’s period.
Some notes on several of the larger markets:
Milwaukee - Los Angeles sticks out as the largest unserved market with a significant 226 passengers flying between the two cities each day. Spirit and Southwest previously flew MKE-LAX a few years ago.
Milwaukee - San Francisco follows behind. United used to serve this market pre-COVID.
Hartford - San Francisco was recently canceled by JetBlue
Los Angeles - Savannah was announced by Breeze in 2022, but canceled before launch
Knoxville - Los Angeles is under consideration by Breeze
Charleston - San Francisco is a route Breeze previously flew
The 9 highlighted markets:
New Orleans - Portland: Alaska Airlines will begin MSY-PDX next year
Norfolk - Phoenix: Breeze recently began ORF-PHX
Kansas City - Sacramento: Southwest recently began MCI-SMF
Boise - Orlando: Alaska Airlines will soon begin BOI-MCO
Birmingham - Phoenix: Southwest recently began BHM-PHX
Boston - Pensacola: Delta will soon begin BOS-PNS
Albany - Las Vegas: Southwest recently began ALB-LAS
Austin - Milwaukee: Southwest will begin AUS-MKE next year
Las Vegas - Rochester: Southwest recently began LAS-ROC