Kenneth R. Gosselin
Hartford Courant
(TNS)

A $12 million expansion of much-needed parking could carry the state’s largest commercial airport for five years, easing a looming parking crunch at peak travel periods and accommodate future route expansions, including flights such as a long-sought nonstop to London.

Bradley International Airport will increase its parking by 20% by this spring, adding more than 1,500 spaces on what was once the hub of airport car rentals. That would push the number of spaces operated by Bradley from its current 7,900 to nearly 9,500, spread across a garage and surface lots.

“During your high travel periods or on holidays or high peak summer travel or spring break, we do start getting close to capacity,” said Michael W. Shea, executive director and chief executive of the Connecticut Airport Authority, which oversees operations at Bradley.

“So as we built our ground transportation center, which opened in 2022, which houses all our rental car operations, it really freed up the old rental car sites and made them available for parking.”

The project, now well into construction, encompasses 14 acres off Schoephoester Road and is the largest expansion in parking at Bradley in more than a decade. The project also is a sign of the airport’s aspirations to raise its profile among mid-size airports in the region with further route expansion.

The addition of the 1,500 spaces is essentially an expansion to the existing, 740-space lot at Schoephoester and Postal roads, a popular choice for travelers because it is close to Bradley’s main terminal and its rates are cheaper than the airport’s garage. The lot — known as Economy Lot #3 — is connected to the terminal by a free shuttle.

The CAA said the rates for the new surface parking spaces will reflect those on Economy Lot #3.

Those prices range now range from $7 to $12 a day and $42 to $72 a week, according to Bradley’s website. That compares with $30 a day and $135 a week in the garage.

Some of the rates saw an increase in the past year, including a $12 increase on the lower end of the weekly rate for surface parking; and a $2 increase on the daily rate and $5 for the weekly rate in the parking garage.

In Economy Lot #3, the current daily rate is $8 and the weekly, $48.

The CAA said Bradley’s parking pricing is lower than the large airports in New York and Boston as well as similarly-sized airports in the region.

The addition of more parking also shows the magnitude of the need. In addition to what is overseen by Bradley, there are an estimated “several thousand” spaces around the airport run by private operators.

To create Bradley’s expanded parking venue, construction has involved relocating Postal Road — the entrance to the post office in the airport — farther to the east. The new entrance to the post office opened in July.

The old Postal Road now will become the main entrance to the expanded parking with a new, internal traffic light, security booth and EV charging stations.

The project will be financed solely through the airport’s cash reserves, Shea said, because it doesn’t qualify for federal transportation grants, unlike other recent major projects.

London Calling?

The expansion of parking comes as the CAA offers nonstop flights to 43 destinations — down slightly from 46 a year ago with the departure of Avelo Airlines. Even so, the number of nonstop destinations still is 40% more than what it was when the then-newly formed, quasi-public CAA took over the operations of Bradley in 2013.

Shea said Bradley continues to seek new nonstop routes for air travelers, pointing to two recent announcements. Those are low-cost carrier Breeze Airways‘ summer seasonal, twice weekly to Louisville and United Airlines daily, year-round service to Houston.

Internationally, a gap was left by the departure of Avelo, which offered flights to the Caribbean — a market, Shea said, that remains of high interest to Bradley.

But among the top priorities for securing new, nonstop destinations is London, Shea said.

A nonstop to London has long been seen as critical to strengthening the relationship between Hartford, the surrounding communities and Connecticut with firms in the United Kingdom across a broad spectrum of industries.

“The amount of business that is already transacted between our companies here in the Hartford region and in London, in particular, is tremendous,” said David Griggs, the president and chief executive of the MetroHartford Alliance, the region’s chamber of commerce. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in the insurance sector, the IT sector, the defense sector, there is so much business back-and forth between broadly Connecticut but certainly the Hartford region and the U.K. that it easily warrants that flight.”

Griggs said the direct connection is critical in attracting companies in the U.K. to establish presences in the Hartford area and elsewhere in Connecticut.

“As soon as you have that direct connection, then you’re actually able to start bringing smaller companies over because smaller companies want that direct flight,” Griggs said. “They don’t want to fly to New York and then have to figure out how to get here.”

The InsurTech Corridor between Connecticut and the U.K. already has encouraged a growing number of firms from across the Atlantic to establish modest outposts in Connecticut.

A study by the CAA showed the economic impact of the Bradley-London service to the Greater Hartford region and the state. Those benefits included more than $72 million in total economic output in the first year, rising to more than $389 million in five years. In five years, the route would generate $28 million in state and local taxes and create 601 full- and part-time jobs.

The CAA’s research shows that 250 individuals travel each way on a daily that would make use of a daily, nonstop flight between Bradley and London. Those travelers are now using airports in New York or Boston.

Neither Shea nor Griggs would comment directly on the status of any on-going negotiations to bring a nonstop flight to London to Bradley — except to say it remains a priority.

But a source familiar with the discussions said Bradley came close this spring to securing the route. But, the source said, a spike in jet fuel prices resulting from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran had the airline pulling back on expansion plans due to price uncertainty.

The airline couldn’t immediately be determined, but British Airways has long been seen as a leading candidate, with service into London’s Heathrow Airport.

The nonstop route also would require $15 million in state-funded incentives —  the estimate in 2025 — which would need legislative approval.

The incentives — divided over two years — would be used to guarantee that the revenue drawn by the airline from the trans-Atlantic route matches what is forecast, particularly in the months after the route first launches and gets established. The funds may or may not be tapped.

Bradley now offers trans-Atlantic service to Dublin on Aer Lingus, which resumed in 2023 after a hiatus during the pandemic. Aer Lingus caters primarily to leisure travelers, while the London carrier would be mostly business travelers.

Passenger volumes down

The addition of more parking at Bradley comes amid $243 million in recently-completed projects, aimed partly at modernizing baggage screening and the addition of three new gates. The projects also included to additions the east and west ends of terminal that connect arriving passengers with baggage claim, easing congestion at a now-eliminated central stairwell. The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, passenger checkpoint has been expanded into the former stairwell space.

Through June of this year, passenger counts — measured by arrivals and departures — are down by 4.2% to 3.15 million, compared with 3.29 million for the same period in 2025, according to the CAA.

In 2025, there were 6.66 million arrivals and departures, compared with 6.65 million in 2024. The most recent peak was 6.75 in 2019, the year prior to the pandemic.

“I think 2026 has been a challenge for all airlines and airports, especially driven by geopolitical factors like the rise in jet fuel prices,” Shea said. “There are numerous reports out there of airlines pulling back capacity a little bit and their expectations for 2026.”

Bradley has a diversified mix of carriers, “which allows us to be pretty stable but capacity is down a little bit compared with last year,” Shea said. “But that is pretty consistent with airports across the country, in particular medium hub airports of our size.”

Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at [email protected]

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