urbanSTL

I'm finding Boingo, or paid service, not much better then free service. I have been dropped a number of times and then wait for my statement to see if I was actually charged twice. Trying harder and harder to avoid use if I can.

Kinda like every other hotel I go to where you hope you have a room in the right spot.

shadrach wrote:hmmm, after all this, maybe I'll just break down and get an iPad.

You know there is no advantage to that for internet, you just get the same service as getting an AT&T 3G card and sticking it in the side of your laptop.

Sorry. By the way they may not call it WiFi, but I will bet airports will be offering some variety of localized wireless telcom in a decade. Paying global roaming rates on data may come down drastically, but foreign country data rates are probably still going to be screwing you over to some degree. Plus WAN hardware just isn't that inter operable in many cases.

clellchatman wrote:

shadrach wrote:hmmm, after all this, maybe I'll just break down and get an iPad.

You know there is no advantage to that for internet, you just get the same service as getting an AT&T 3G card and sticking it in the side of your laptop.

I get free internet by tethering my Android Nexus One phone to my laptop or whatever wifi device I like.

Actually I do the same thing with my HTC Tilt2 with Windows Mobile from at&t. It is so great to be able to do that.

A bit of good news as something that will help Lambert's image/perception when checking in.


Lambert airport gets $42M for baggage screening system
St. Louis Business Journal - by Kelsey Volkmann

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stor ... ily58.html

Flew out of the A terminal for the first time in a year+. Lambert certainly looks much better than it did, but we still have a lot of work to do. I arrived at 930 last night, and the airport was pretty much a ghost town.

I think Lambert has a good mid size terminal. Terminal 2 was very busy when I arrived at 7:30pm on a Sunday last week. I think maybe Southwest has more evening flights, that's why I chose them anyway.

I would like to see more restaurants attached to the airport but not in the airport. Like how restaurants are sometimes attached to a mall. It would be nice to have more places outside of the security check point where people can meet up/have a goodbye meal.

To be truthful - most airports after 9:00 pm are pretty quiet. LGA NYC was very quiet when I flew in at 10pm a month or so ago. It was kind of spooky there too.

Why would you want service out of D? It would be one underused gate amongst a sea empty gates. Where as Concourse A has several airlines using gates and services that work, even if their are mostly competing coffee houses. It might be dead after 9:00 pm, but you get a sense of traffic and use from 6:30 am on (especially when the TSA guys won't come to work early and you already got a pile of people lined up for security)

To me thas is Lambert's big issue right now, people assuming that TWA will rise from the ashes and fill all the unused gates. Worse yet, that demand for US air travel will dramatically rise to the point where STL is needed as a hub. In the meantime, business travelers see a half used airport slowly falling by the wayside. They can't knock down Concourse D fast enough in my opinion.

Not sure whether this will have a negative or positive impact on STL (or any at all), but it's interesting none the less. Southwest Airlines to Acquire AirTran; Spreading Low Fares Farther

With Southwest buying Airtran - I think this is going to be a huge INCREASE here in St. Louis. I think Southwest will want somewhat to downsize Airtrans Atlanta hub - ATL is not a Southwest city now because of Airtran adn BECAUSE of Atlanta's delays etc... however, Southwest I am sure will be happy in the ATL market as well. If anything - Southwest is getting a new terminal in Dallas at Love Field to open this next spring (actually a temporary terminal opened as of today there) and they will increase flights out of Dallas I would imagine. They also have huge potential growth in STL - given their own designated terminal here and given they have another concourse D to expand into if they wish. So I think this is ganna be great for STL in the coming months/years.

The real interest here is that it looks like Southwest may be getting itself into a hub operation... will be interesting to see what they do.

Is there any overlap between what what Airtran and Southwest offer currently out of STL?

-RBB

Matguy70, I hope your right because I don't know what to make of it. For starters, it seems like Southwest has decided that it is a big boy now and is buying market share outright instead of growing incrementally. Second, dissappointed that Southwest is not looking outside of the US market in either pursuing a WestJet purchase again or forming an allinace system. I think STL instead of Love Field and Midway offer the best facilities/capabilities to handle international flights for the midwest market just as BWI would be ideal for them on the East Coast.

As far as what will happen will be interesting, merging Southwest approach with Airtrans more traditional hub approach. I think Atlanta and Milwaukee will see decreases in flight activity. Especially Milwaukee, how many flights does Southwest need to service the Chicago market? However, not sure if STL will gain becasue of the merger even though STL should have advantage of less severe winters and underutilized capacity as one godd Chicago blizzard and Atlanta's congestion probably make STL increased landing's fees look like chump change.