urbanSTL

Let's not get into a "pissing" "size" match here.
Metro Minneapolis/St. Paul is relatively the same size as STL
To correct metro statistical areas 2009 pops:
#16 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI MSA 3,269,814
#18 St. Louis, MO-IL MSA 2,828,990

As for Delta in MSP - The airport has closed several areas of gates there due to NWA and Delta's overlay of certain markets. The scariest thing there is the hollowed walls of NWA's corporate HQ completely closed and dismantled in such little time. In addition, Delta's contracts at MSP run out in January 2013... many say that will be doomsday at MSP.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-sk ... res-2.html

As for Delta in Cincy - even worse!
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index ... rt_hu.html
http://ww.examiner.com/x-12585-Minneapo ... ays-strong
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2010 ... ll-flights

ATL Delta:
dominates 75 percent of the market there... that is scary!
http://www.anna.aero/2010/06/15/atlanta ... the-world/

Metropolitan Statistical Areas source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_U ... ical_Areas

Alaska is doing this because the cardinals are gonna be in the playoffs and world series. lol

i'm sorry, I mistook MSP as Memphis' airport code. The Twin Cities are bigger than us, yes, but anyway, I replaced all the "MSP"s with "MEM"s in my previous post, so it should make a bit more sense now.

After an Alaskan cruise a few years ago, I realized one can fly directly to Anchorage and take a tour boat out to College Fiord and see all the best glaciers -- and take a local tour to Denali for a lot less than the cost of a cruise. The cruise was great, but someday I would like to fly straight back to Anchorage and use the local tour resources to take in more of the Alaska.

I see on the Alaska Airlines front page that you can fly one way to Anchorage from St. Louis for $259. When we returned from Anchorage after our cruise a few years ago, we had to fly all night, change planes in Houston, and arrive in St. Louis the next morning, to get a decent fare on Continental.

shadrach wrote:They reported that Delta is offering deals and FF miles incentives for STL fliers and if the response is favorable more flights could be added. (more marketing carrot than news. It seem DL wants to be a major player in STL.) Also reported that FF miles incentives are increased for STL origin connecting to Paris or Tokyo.

The promo for St Louis customers looks pretty nice, and includes double elite qualifying miles for the rest of the year... guess they're gunning for the holdout St Louis customers who still fly AA because they've got AA status.

https://www.delta.com/pet/doublemqmSTL0 ... ac=scllstl

They reported that Delta is offering deals and FF miles incentives for STL fliers and if the response is favorable more flights could be added. (more marketing carrot than news. It seem DL wants to be a major player in STL.) Also reported that FF miles incentives are increased for STL origin connecting to Paris or Tokyo.

Delta is also offering the same frequent flier incentives in Nashville, Pittsburgh and Raleigh, NC.

The Triangle is one of four markets where frequent fliers are eligible for the incentive program. The others are Nashville, Tenn.; Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Read more: Delta Air Lines targets Triangle with new frequent flier incentives - Triangle Business Journal

http://triangle.bizjournals.com/triangl ... ily64.html

so how do we decrease our landing fee costs? what incentives I wonder are being thrown at Delta. We should offer tax free service if they create a hub here for 10 years.

JCity wrote:so how do we decrease our landing fee costs?

China midwest cargo deal

From STLToday:

Lambert Airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge shot down reports that Delta is considering a hub in St. Louis.

“There is no Delta hub coming,” she said. “That’s a very false report.”

A few more flights on Delta in STL? Maybe. A Delta hub (or anyone else for that matter)? Not going to happen.

^ You're probably right, but it's not uncommon to deny something like this at this stage in the game.

Can airports become cities onto themselves??

What is wrong with Rhonda Hamm-Niebreugge? Isn't she supposed to be Lambert's biggest advocate?

This link posted on the Chinese Hub thread:

http://www.stlcommercemagazine.com/arch ... 10/issue4/

She talks about STL isn't big enough to be a hub, states that no metro regions under 8 million people have significant hub operations. Umm, let's hope that's a misquote. I think there are only 3 metro regions in the US that qualify by that measuring stick. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson is the world's busiest passenger airport for a region with 5.5 million people. Regardless Charlotte, Denver and Cleveland are just some of the metro regions that have significant hubs with populations smaller than the STL region.

I also heard her quoted as saying STL can't support direct service to Europe. Even if it were true, what kind of marketing for the airport is this?

I know that a lot more goes into it than region population or the number of Fortune 500 companies. If it were easy or a no-brainer we would already be a hub and have European service again. But of all people, shouldn't the Airport Director be the most outspoken advocate instead of consistently talking the airport down?

Incompetence? Is she trying to manage expectations? Is she permanent biased from her time at AA?

i was kinda thinkin the same thing as i read that article... for being in the business so long, she sure doesn't seem to know how to sell Lambert. the claim that St. Louis can't support a hub is a myth, and i'm frankly surprised that a lot of other cities are hubs while we aren't. TWA's hub might've been overkill, but we can definitely support more than what we have, especially if this China hub goes through.

i have a feeling that if (when) we see passenger hub days again, it'll be with Frontier. They're currently duking it out with Airtran in Milwaukee, and one of em is eventually gonna have to find somewhere else to go. We would certainly compliment Frontier's Denver hub quite nicely, not too sure about Airtran's Atlanta hub (although the old TW was doing it).

Wouldn't you think Indianapolis would be favored over STL as eastern hub considering that Frontier is part of Republic Airlines, which happen also Midwest Airlines, which happens to have their corporate HQ in Indy? Indy has a new terminal to boot. Even then, leaving town and passing up on the third biggest metro area in the US doesn't make much sense as a business model.

Still on the belief that STL should downsize the number of gates by razing Concourse D and see what improvements it would take to get a direct international flight or two that is geared towards business. Seasonal flights to nice beaches well are nice, but they don't serve the St Louis business community or even Missouri for that fact.

I think domestic travel is adequate at this time for STL, I don't see another airline coming in and starting massive operations in the future. A "focus city" style structure could work to an extent, but it would mainly serve O&D traffic. An international flight to Europe would really quiet a lot of people and their complaints. The only company that I feel could / would do this service is DL, and it is still a long shot. They could funnel minimal traffic through STL to support a 1Xdaily flight to AMS with their increased frequency to other destinations through the focus city. Wouldn't place any bets on that happening though.

I'm not sure if the China cargo deal, if signed, would even support a pacific passenger route. Would be an interesting to study the numbers though.

Delta is an interesting thought when it comes to freight considering they truly don't have a Chicago hub status and STL is more centrally located and closer to Chicago then Minneapolis and only slightly more miles then Detriot.

In other words, would Delta be willing to take a shot at an European passenger flight if Chinese bring cargo into St. Louis and thus creating an alternative avenue to move freight from Asia to South America via Mid-America's current flights and Europe via Delta?

As far as hub status, I think the current airport director is being a realist and her past connections are letting her know that their isn't a chance of it happening in the foreseeable future. If anything, she wants to be positioned ahead of Cincy, Cleveland, Memphis as they continue to lose flights with consolidation.

Next week I am taking Southwest and changing planes in Nashville. Nashville is one of the new non-stops Southwest added a few months ago. I went to the Nashville Airport web site to become a little familiar with it, and found a report on their construction of CONRAC -- a Consolidated Rental Car Facility.

http://www.nashintl.com/renovation/pdfs ... nAreaL.pdf

Among other things, the .pdf file answers:

"How much will this project cost? Who is paying for it?
CONRAC’s total budget is approximately $70 million, which will be raised through customer facility charges, or fees charged for rental car use."

I believe it would help business and conventions in St. Louis if we had a multi-story Consolidated Rental Car Facility next to the terminals, instead of making travelers ride buses to separate facilities offsite. At one time I suggested tearing down Concourse D and replacing it with just such a facility. Like the one in Nashville, it could be paid for by the users of the facility -- not by the taxpayer. (I wonder what the cost is each year in executive labor hours spent riding buses to and from rental facilities -- probably a lot.)

I know I prefer airports that don't make me ride a bus to the rental car facilities. Nashville justifies it by saying:
"In an effort to upgrade the Nashville International Airport’s existing rental car operations and to make the facility more customer-friendly, the Metro Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA) has approved the construction of a new consolidated rental car facility, or CONRAC."

Do we need to upgrade our rental car operations and make our facility more efficient for the flying business public and more customer-friendly?