Anyone ever fly out of Augusta? (Portland, Bangor: to rent, live, price)

[ekh32]

I would like to fly out of Bangor, but its way to expensive. Augusta is pretty cheap and an hour shorter than Portland. But sometimes small airports are not always the greatest to fly out of.

Anyone have any advice? Portland or Augusta?

[GreenGene]

I flew out of Augusta, heading to Boston, many, many years ago ... at this point I can't remember if it was the late '60s or early '70s.

At the time, it was a nice little airport, but it had a couple of ... disconcerting ... features. The airport is located on a hill with a cemetery on one side - not the most cheerful thing to see whether you're just about to land or just about to take off.

And the runway we used that day (if there was a choice, I don't know) ended at a cliff overlooking a National Guard armory. I couldn't help thinking what a large fireworks show would be possible if our plane didn't quite make it safely into the air.

I'm sure the airport is just as safe as any other, but I was young, and those are my memories.

[juststoppinby]

If you are looking to save money check on taking a bus from Bangor to Boston. I paid half the price of a ticket by doing this including bus fare.

[maureenb]

Have you considered Manchester, NH? Not sure what your destination is, but Manchester has great service to numerous destinations.

Concord Trailways has service to & from Portland, and Mermaid runs timely shuttle service between Portland & Manchester. Sounds like a lot of work, but I found it to be extremely painless & a huge savings over flying out of Boston. I had to get out west.

[lrfox]

Where can you fly to out of Augusta? Even Bangor only has about 18 daily flights and only to hub airports. Sometimes if the price is close, it's worth it to fly out of the bigger airport as there are more frequent direct flights and you can cut down on stops. Manchester is a good alternative to Boston. Portland is pricey (unless Airtran or Jetblue goes where you want) and has a relatively limited number of flights. I would look very hard into Manchester even if it means driving a bit.

[Acadianlion]

Originally Posted by ekh32

I would like to fly out of Bangor, but its way to expensive. Augusta is pretty cheap and an hour shorter than Portland. But sometimes small airports are not always the greatest to fly out of.

Anyone have any advice? Portland or Augusta?

Where are you going? The only flights out of Augusta go to Boston. There are flights elsewhere out of Portland.

As far as the actual airport part, Augusta has the same systems in place as any airport in the world. It is a true 24/7 all weather airport as there is an instrument landing system there just as in Portland.

A lot of folks drive to Manchester to take flights to wherever because they save on the air fare. I have never been able to make that arithmetic work for me. It works strangely for me:drive five hours,pay to park the car,get on an airplane.

• come back at some pointhopefully find the car not vandalized
  • drive five hours home
    My time is worth more to me than that. Now, if I could rent a car, drop it off and rent one in Manchester for the return, that might work. Back in the dark ages when I was taking care of my uncle who lived in Florida, I had to fly to Ft Myers often...sometimes more than once a month. In those days I found it cheaper to rent a car and drive to Boston to take the flight, then to rent a car to drive back home. But that was only once or twice when the airfare "wars" got screwy. Most of the time I would drive to Trenton, park the car for free, fly to Boston and take the direct flight to Ft. Myers.
    
    Then there was that one time that I got bumped and the next flight was to Orlando, and I got to sit in that airport for four hours due to a weather delay. But that was the time I met that amazing brunette who was also on a weather delay to someplace else, and we had that long conversations that ended up something like, "gee, I REALLY wish there was more time and we could go an...." OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, NEVER MIND: this is a "G" rated site that that conversation was............OHHHHHHHHHH, JUST NEVER MIND!
    
    (sigh: fantasy off!)