Getting to and from Provincetown could be more of a challenge this offseason.
“Cape Air has made the difficult decision to convert its year-round air service in and out of Provincetown Municipal Airport to become seasonal,” according to an email to the Cape Cod Times from Rebecca Chace, Cape Air‘s director of marketing,
According to Chace, “We will suspend our Boston to Provincetown route on Monday, November 4, 2024, and resume operations on Friday, May 16, 2025.”
In a letter to the Provincetown Airport Commission, Cape Air’s president and CEO Linda Markham outlined some of the reasons for the change. Markham noted that Cape Air had discussed a seasonal transition with the town’s airport commission for 2023, but “agreed to postpone this decision to allow the airport commission and town leadership more time to plan for this change.”
Subsequently, according to Markham’s letter, “We continued to operate at a significant financial loss throughout the months of October of 2023 through May of 2024. Over the course of the past few winters, we have tried several different approaches to make the economics work, such as operating a through flight between (Hyannis–Provincetown–Boston) as we did this past winter. Unfortunately, despite these efforts, the stark reality is the negative revenue environment during the winter is not sustainable.”
Impact to Provincetown’s year-round residents
“This will certainly have an impact,” said Alex Morse, Provincetown town manager, reached by phone. “Provincetown has become more of a year-round community, particularly post-COVID.”
Morse said he was particularly concerned for people who use offseason air service for work or to travel to medical appointments.
“I think there should be some level of service in the offseason,” he said.
Morse added that the town plans to explore the possibility of bringing in another airline for the offseason time frame and to learn more about federally subsidized air travel routes.
According to information on the Provincetown Airport Commission’s web page, Cape Air is the only commercial airline that uses the town-operated airport. A flight to Boston’s Logan International Airport takes about 25 minutes.
In past years, “During the off-season three flights (operated) per day each way, while on summer weekends flights are scheduled approximately every 45 minutes in both directions,” according to the commission’s web page.
Eric Williams writes about a variety of ways to enjoy the Cape, the weather, wildlife and other subjects. Contact him at ewilliams@capecodonline.com. Follow him on X: @capecast.
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