Drive 5 hours or fly 20 minutes? Remote towns suffer from lack of year-round flights

Joe Castellana often has to drive several hours to complete the 120-mile trip from his home on the tip of Cape Cod in Provincetown, Mass., to Boston, especially during the summer. He can fly but commercial flights aren't offered during the off-season. Provincetown's ongoing effort to restore year-round air service is a microcosm of how difficult it can be to get commercial flights in remote places. Agata Storer for NPR hide caption toggle caption Agata Storer for NPR When Joe Castellana drives to Boston from his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the very northern tip of Cape Cod, he considers himself lucky if the 120-mile ride takes two hours. That, he says, is "rare, very rare." Because while Provincetown can be desolate in the winter, it's a tourism hot spot in the summer, when its population of 3,500 people balloons to 60,000. And during that high season, the drive to the state capital can be an extremely long slog. "When I've had to go to Boston, let's say for a 10 or 11 o'clock appointment in July, I have to leave by 6 a.m.," Castellana says, "and sometimes that doesn't work." The welcome sign at Provincetown Municipal Airport. Commercial flights are not available from fall until spring so only private planes fly in and out of the airport during the off-season. Agata Storer for NPR hide caption toggle caption Agata Storer for NPR So Castellana occasionally prefers to fly, but he can only do that about half the year. …