urbanSTL

jmstokes wrote:Thoughts on this? I'd love to see C removed entirely, D refurbished, and a new airside connection between A, B, and D established. Remodel A, B, and D, and you've got a pretty nice little airport, plus easy passage through a number of security areas at A, B, D, and E (if they reconnect).

Wouldn't you have better airside connections by simply re-opening the airside connection that once existed between B and C in the first place and building a new connectin between A and B. In other words, a little confused on why you get a better airside connection by keep D and then building all the way back to A.

Looking from topside or google earth, their is symmetry and reasoning to rebuilding C in my mind. Instead, I would tear down D as it is the best way to provide desire space if you ever want to add near airport parking/consolidated rental facility, a reconfigured metrolink alignment (the current alignment pretty much guarantees that you will not see western advancement, a depressing thought) and access in and out of Lambert. Keeping D and tearing down C essentially gives you a huge amount of tarmac space and maintains the status quo of the current transportation infracture coming and going from Lambert.

Sorry JM, don't see any reason why Lambert should keep D once C is rebuilt.

jmstokes wrote:If C is significantly damaged as referenced, and requires a complete teardown, then rebuilding C from scratch would be much more expensive than refurbishing D, which is why I suggest remodel A, B, and D with a link between the 3.

If C can be refurbished, then I'm with you. Tear down D, use it for something else. The D gates are extremely small compared to C gates, with not nearly enough seating available. The blocked off "tall" sections of C contain more than enough gates for any future expansion at Lambert.

Understand the reasoning, but I believe Concourse C is fully insured. In other words, Lambert will not be paying for a rebuild from my understanding.

My other wishlist item, tear down B and plan for new Internatinal gates with a new concourse in its place. This in conjunction with a new below ground metrolink station underneath the existing drop off/pick up lanes. Picture stepping off metrolink to a escalator that takes you directly to the ticket county in which you can make a short walk to the new international gates where B once sttod

dredger wrote:This in conjunction with a new below ground metrolink station underneath the existing drop off/pick up lanes. Picture stepping off metrolink to a escalator that takes you directly to the ticket county in which you can make a short walk to the new international gates where B once sttod

I agree on the 'tear down B and D' arguments, because neither terminal is needed. There isn’t demand for additional international gates that I have heard of. I have arrived on international flights (from Mexico) at Terminal 2 and they seemed to have adequate facilities for the central America/Canada trips we do have. A better idea would be to design any re-built C to accommodate future expansion if needed.
There will never be direct daily flights to Europe from Lambert again. If we keep trying to complete with O’hare, DFW and other first tier passenger airports, we are doomed to price ourselves out of business... Lambert needs to be the best 2nd tier passenger airport it can be, which includes no or low per passenger landing fees (due to bustling cargo facilities).

As for Metrolink - underground is certainly preferable, but crazy cost prohibitive considering you wouldn't be able to close the drop off lanes to use the cut-and-cover method. Much more reasonable would be to reposition the two existing stations along slightly modified alignment such that the stations are directly above or adjacent to the existing drop off lanes providing the same access loved by people being dropped off (if the station was covered). Ultimately the goal here should be to provide better access to both terminals, along with the aforementioned BAG (Big A** Garage) for long term parking/rental car facility (where ever they put it), and to eventually enable expansion to the densely populated neighborhoods west of the airport. Northwest Plaza’s site might be the perfect TOD sites and its only 2 miles away.

So does anybody know if the Insurance company will be cutting Lambert a check for estimated repairs? Can they couple the insurance money with federal grants in order to tear down and completely rebuild the concourse better, or are they required to use those funds to repair what's there?

-RBB

^I'm not sure the exact answer to your questions, but the Airport Director told the Business Journal that the airport was insured for a total of $832 million and that the $10 million dollar check received this week was simply the first installment. Depending on the results of the structural review that is currently going on, the total amount paid out may be substantial (i.e. if deemed that it must be torn down & rebuilt).

This talk of demolition is lunacy. Unless one of you can make a strong economic argument I can't think of one reason to tear down any of the concourses.

Seems awfully short sighted.

Where does the money come from to demo the site? Insurance maybe ?

What sources do we have putting a monetary figure on this "burden?". Just how much would we save. Kinda hard to make a decision without knowing specifics.

With the big idea finally gaining traction it would seem an inopportune time.

moorlander wrote:Seems awfully short sighted.

Where does the money come from to demo the site? Insurance maybe ?

What sources do we have putting a monetary figure on this "burden?". Just how much would we save. Kinda hard to make a decision without knowing specifics.

With the big idea finally gaining traction it would seem an inopportune time.

Don't have numbers for you, but based on your logic why should anybody tear things down. Midway should have kept it old terminal, Indy the same, and could name off a few new terminals I have travelled through. At the end of the day, Lambert Terminal(s) has had nothing but poorly planned add ons from Concourse D, to stub end metrolink station, to even building the East Terminal prior to TWA collapsing under Ichan.

On your last note, The big idea is about cargo and it will years just to develop that. To think that STL is going to become a hub for a domestic carrier because of a cargo hub in the near term is wishful thinking at best.

In other words, I actually think it is the best time or most opportune time to do something with the concourses, including demolition of unused gates. Its days of a passenger hub has passed, its on the cusp of becoming a cargo hub that will generate much needed revenue and maybe, just maybe you might need to add gates in one to two decades from now. Patch C, keep B & D as is and what will you have in two decades, same of the old worn out poorly planned facility.

Not sure where this fits, but just received an email from Southwest about my rewards account saying that it acquired AirTran. How many flights does AirTran currently fly out of Lambert?

RobbyD wrote:^Not sure 'ie,' but 'y' is happy he is now free to move about the country to ATL...

SWA is the obvious key to greater connectivity out of Lambert which, in turn, is vital for the growth of the region...

It will be interesting to see how Southwest treats ATL, will it downsize number Airtrain flights as it folds the operation into a more decntralized ops or keep the old hub status going

RobbyD wrote:^It remains to be seen...I read an article yesterday in the Atl Journal-Constitution about pushback from AirTran regulars over SWAs plan to remove buisness class and eliminate assigned seating on the new offerings...The consensus seems to be that Delta will pick up travelers that the new SWA loses...

It actually will be very interesting to see what does happen, because the business model that created the largest domestic carrier is being seriously challenged...The AirTran merger introduces new types of aircraft into the SWA fleet as well as brings a successful hub-and-spoke operation into the SWA network...Does SWA dismantle a successful AirTran operation? If so, how does SWA compete with Delta in Delta's enormous backyard? It's one thing to go toe-to-toe with legacy carriers in smaller markets, but quite another at a hub airline's homebase...I believe SWA uses Love Field in Dallas and Midway in Chicago...There is no such alternative in Atlanta...

Maybe SWA starts playing by the same rules as everyone else??? Doubt it, but if so, we should let them own Lambert...

With capacity and possibly a huge Cargo connection coming togther you have to believe that Southwest is looking at Lambert in a different light.

^Holy crap...I don't know anything more than what I said previously...I won't go into what I know of SWA's success story, but the crux of it is they decided to do an airline differently...St. Louis should look very hard at existing aerotropolises and figure out how to do it better...As I understand it, we are starting from scratch in many ways...This is opportunity to innovate how things are done...Everything from the size of semitruck bays to how cargo enters and leaves the airport to where and how the gov't/customs interacts with cargo...IDK, there are a million angles I would think...The key would be some type of organization having the vision and expertise to herd cats as the aerotropolis grows...

I just feel strongly that we can't aim to duplicate Chicago or Memphis...Creativity and innovation (easy to say) will be what makes this succeed or really take off IMO...

RobbyD wrote:I just feel strongly that we can't aim to duplicate Chicago or Memphis...Creativity and innovation (easy to say) will be what makes this succeed or really take off IMO...

Couldn't agree more. First, the Domestic airline market is consolidating and the trend has been less hubs not more and the hubs being kept favor bigger metro areas, larger business communities that can better support international travel for legacy carriers. Second, FEDEX, UPS and the likes are firmly planted with their infrastructure in places like Memphis

That being said, It didn't make sense for Southwest to dramatically increase flights through STL on current model. However, Airtrain adds a twist. Take a look at a recent Airtran route map and you see some East/West and East/Texas flow that might be better sorted by avoiding congestion at Atlanta.

http://www.airtran.com/route-map/city_information.aspx

The thing about the ATL hub is that Southwest is going to lose a lot of the business travelers to Delta when they take out Airtran's business class. I think this is going to seriously diminish the size of O/D traffic there. How is this good for us? Southwest is still going to need to move connecting passengers through somewhere, possibly (hopefully) some through STL.

Another good thing that may come from the merger is the upgrade of the STL-MKE flights. They're currently on little regional jets, but once Southwest reconfigures the route network (they've never used regional jets before, don't think they will now), STL-MKE may very well be bumped back to the 717.