It's all about economy-of-scale. The routes that have a big hub or well-entrenched presence on at least one--if not both--ends are the ones that are going to have the best cost recovery. That means Logan is going to dominate to silly degree on cost-effectiveness, despite its competition for slots. When it's a regional served, the schedules skew overwhelmingly to places where the airline is entrenched enough to have the economy-of-scale to mix in some secondary destinations. That's why the bulk of flight schedules at Manchester, Bradley, and Green are dominated by the same big boys: American, Delta, United, Southwest, JetBlue. And in Bradley's case, also Air Canada.
It's a pretty brutal market to get established anywhere without a pre-existing base because of how that economy of scale works. For an upstart airline or first-time entrant into this region, Logan's sheer logistical bigness makes it a much safer and more cost-effective bet for planting the flag than debuting at a regional. If the route demand is compelling enough to earn any slots at Logan, taking out some nook-and-cranny at Logan is almost always going to be the way to go. The ones who do stake out territory at a regional first are usually out-on-a-limb niches that wouldn't make the cut for Logan slots but see something compelling enough in the business plan to try for regardless. That's how Green got its Azores and Cabo Verde presence, and that's how Bradley got into that brand new OneJet small-jet biz shuttles startup that began last year. (Note on Bradley: they've got a token Aer Lingus presence, but State of CT gift-wrapped the hell out of that deal to keep the so-called "International" terminal occupied). A winning niche can carve out some success there, and then make the bit player obligated to grow its presence at the regional. But it's a very precision target not for the faint at heart. Manchester has absolutely nothing but the usual suspects; they have not seen it worth their to go out on any limbs. Green is being a little more aggressive about taste-testing some alternative things. Bradley still wants "International" bragging rights and will dig deeper than others to incentivize more of the same.
That cuts against some of the conventional wisdom that regionals are an attractive starting point because of lower pressure for slots. The industry still goes top-down as to who has the biggest margins to make at a regional. And this in turn takes a lot of the air out of the conventional wisdom that "Ooh! Ooh! We really need to make Hanscom and Worcester into auxiliary Logans." No...we really don't, because the first actual leading indicator that we've got a serious airport capacity problem to address would be if Delta, United, Southwest are sapping up the current regionals with offloaded hub schedules...not a groundswell of little zit startups shut out of slots at Logan descending on Providence. Zits are still zits in a top-down industry, not the drivers.
