I would argue the region would love to travel to Europe if it had more access (hence why the WOW flight has been doing so well). Now, I understand the WOW traveler and the business class traveler are different people but I think as with most routes, you stimulate demand when you have a nonstop.JAL007 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 05, 2018 6:09 pm
Again I hate to be a downer, I’m trying to be real here but the local population in STL with the financial means to support such service is generally content going to Naples, FL and Lake of the Ozarks not London and Santorini. And the few people that have both the means and desire to travel abroad in a premium cabin are already doing so with an intermediate stop.
Yes some here will say STL has both Saks Fifth Avenue & Neiman Marcus in addition to both a ~300 room Ritz-Carlton AND Four Seasons none of which either PIT or BNA have, but again that infrastructure has been in place for over a quarter century when the region was more relevant on a national level (a decade in the case of the FS but with significant abatements and subsides from the City of St. Louis). Those remain in place as they have established clientele (that by and large are aging) but it’s not like they’d decide to open an incremental property or store in the STL market were they not already in place.
I am sure those people traveling in business class with an intermediate stop would love to start traveling without that stop and would pay extra to do so.
I personally don't care about the past and try to look at the now.
I am going to use PIT as a comp just because that is who we have been talking about.
Latest GDP I could find (2016) we are larger and growing faster.
Population we are growing (albeit slow), they are shrinking. Which includes being 500k larger.
We have a higher O&D airline traffic than PIT.
We have more Fortune 500 and 1000 companies.
By all the metrics I could find we fare better, so it is hard for me to believe they have more premium travel than we do. Especially, so much more that BA said we know you already have others with premium cabins serving you but hey lets go ahead and add us to the market also.
So back to my argument that incentives are what gets air travel to Europe. PIT has given then out a bunch and that is why they now have 4 airlines to Europe. STL hasn't so that is why we have 1. If STL decides to start giving them out then service will come.
The port authority came out last year and said they are going to give more money towards getting European air travel, so I believe something will be coming. The airport isn't looking to add a 2nd FIS facility (that can handle 5 planes at a time) and re-opening more gates just to do it. They never spend money proactively like that unless there is something coming down the pipe, that is most likely already agreed to.
So we will just have to agree to disagree on this.