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Southern Airways is changing their Hub from Dulles to BWI, increasing the ease of access to $29, making day trips or weekend junkets easy and inexpensive.
This is interesting- I saw the flight from Johnstown, PA is doing the same. BWI is a nice enough airport but it is farther from DC and has a fraction of the direct international flight connections available at Dulles. The executive of Southern is correct that airfares are cheaper at BWI due to the airport being one of Southwest's largest hubs but most of those flights are domestic or to Mexico/ the Caribbean and not Europe. The airport does have better rail connections into town as you can take Amtrak or MARC into Union Station and at that price, it definitely makes for an attractive day trip option.
This is interesting- I saw the flight from Johnstown, PA is doing the same. BWI is a nice enough airport but it is farther from DC and has a fraction of the direct international flight connections available at Dulles. The executive of Southern is correct that airfares are cheaper at BWI due to the airport being one of Southwest's largest hubs but most of those flights are domestic or to Mexico/ the Caribbean and not Europe. The airport does have better rail connections into town as you can take Amtrak or MARC into Union Station and at that price, it definitely makes for an attractive day trip option.
Wouldn't it be possible to take public transportation and get from BWI to Dulles to get to those international flights?
It's certainly possible, but very time consuming. You would have to do the following:
(1) Take Amtrak or MARC commuter rail from BWI Airport station to Union Station in DC which takes about 40 minutes.
(2) At Union Station, switch over to the DC Metrorail's Red Line and go three stations over to Metro Center- about 10 minutes on the train.
(3) At Metro Center, connect onto the Silver Line for about a 40 minute ride to the Wiehle- Reston East Metro station
(4) At Wiehle- Reston East connect onto the Silver Line Express bus for a 15 minute ride to Dulles.
If your timing is impeccable, add about 10 minutes for walking/waiting between each of the transit connections outlined above (approx. 40 minutes total). So under the best circumstances we are looking at about 2 hours and 25 minutes. More than likely you will be averaging closer to 3 hours. And you get to drag luggage around the entire time. It's almost faster to simply drive from Morgantown to Dulles.
It's certainly possible, but very time consuming. You would have to do the following:
(1) Take Amtrak or MARC commuter rail from BWI Airport station to Union Station in DC which takes about 40 minutes.
(2) At Union Station, switch over to the DC Metrorail's Red Line and go three stations over to Metro Center- about 10 minutes on the train.
(3) At Metro Center, connect onto the Silver Line for about a 40 minute ride to the Wiehle- Reston East Metro station
(4) At Wiehle- Reston East connect onto the Silver Line Express bus for a 15 minute ride to Dulles.
If your timing is impeccable, add about 10 minutes for walking/waiting between each of the transit connections outlined above (approx. 40 minutes total). So under the best circumstances we are looking at about 2 hours and 25 minutes. More than likely you will be averaging closer to 3 hours. And you get to drag luggage around the entire time. It's almost faster to simply drive from Morgantown to Dulles.
They also offer this direct commuter service to simplify things, but as you say, it is not speedy. The 3.25 hour drive from Morgantown to DC could be faster, but there is that nasty fact of having to pay for parking, and the drive itself. Getting from the lot to check in would take time at the airport.
It would seem the $29 fare would be great for getting to DC itself because the 40 minute MARC ride to Union Station would not be bad at all, but for International connections, it would probably be better to go through Pittsburgh from Morgantown. Now you can park at the Morgantown Airport for free and hop the commuter to Pittsburgh cheaply and go from there, or simply take the Grey Line Bus to Pittsburgh IAP.
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