urbanSTL

^ I wonder if Jacksonville is one of the next cities that will see non-stop service from Lambert? Since it really does seem like most of the glaring holes at this point are getting filled with two of them announced just in the past month with Portland and Austin. Its looking like next year will be another solid year after what appears to be a good 2014. (note: first few months had horrible weather issues and next year will be the first post Wright Amendment summer which will distort Southwest numbers)

If I had to guess, the next city that will be available non-stop daily year round from Lambert will be one of the following
Hartford
San Diego (already served seasonally, but its the busiest route from here that lacks year round daily service and Southwest could make it year round now that they are adding to their fleet again (finally), also the longer they take in doing that the more likely Alaska might start it as they have started building up San Diego in recent years and their interest in St. Louis which will have more service from them next summer than most cities east of the rockies.
Jacksonville
London
Some location outside the lower 48 by Southwest.

The wildcard is Southwest adding a random city that already has service to Midway and needing to expand service, but not wanting to add a frequency there and instead add it to St. Louis. Jacksonville and Hartford would fall in that in part but other cities could as well from Buffalo, Charleston SC, or Des Moines among others. (the last one apparently has packed flights to Midway and Iowa officials along with Monsanto does want this service)

Also is the Wikipedia page for the airport right in that after Christmas season there will be nobody flying nonstop to JFK? I wonder if this will open up the door for JetBlue to arrive. And if they do that, would they end up flying out of C? (along with any other possible new airlines at this point?)

Among the 40 busiest airports in the US, Lambert is missing service to only JFK (DL stops service in January), Honolulu, Oakland and Orange County.

If look at the top 50, that adds four more cities: San Jose, Sacramento, San Juan and Indianapolis.

Obviously, specific traffic patterns play more into service than total number of passengers. The cities listed above (other than Honolulu and San Juan) already have service into nearby cities or, in the case of Indianapolis, are within a fairly short drive.

Greg

If B6 were to enter St. Louis it would likely be from BOS along with a Florida route (FLL or MCO).

That said most of the destinations served from JFK that people from St. Louis travel to are now accessible from the mega hubs at ATL, DFW, IAH, and ORD for the respective carriers and their partners. For example DFW now has service to over 200 airports and is also well served by many of AA's partners. Furthermore LGA is the preferred airport for NYC O&D and considering STL is within the perimeter this shouldnt come as a great surprise.

Also keep in mind that both AA and DL have tried this route numerous times over the years and can't seem to make it work.

JAL007 wrote:Also keep in mind that both AA and DL have tried this route numerous times over the years and can't seem to make it work.

AA had to cut this route due to changes in the pilot's contract that stopped allowing regional jets to fly between two "hubs" which STL was still listed as in the contract (perhaps due to a pilot base?).

I suspect we will see AA open the route again at some point in the future... and DL will likely rejoin at that point.

Greg

I think with JFK service, is that so much capacity to LGA has been added the last few years along with each of the three remaining legacy carriers has at least two hubs east of here which they or their partners could do a one-stop service from almost everywhere that has service to JFK making it not as important. Also... I personally would rather connect at some other airport than JFK due to reliability and on-time performance.

Also, is there the possibility that new or expanded service may come here in the coming year if oil stays lower for a while longer making routes more profitable and with the industry doing better on the bottom line? Or is it at this point a big issue is many airlines don't have the planes to add service, since I picture some of the recent new service announcements were done now were ones that could have been added some time ago if there were available aircraft.

Thought this was a decent article concerning Southwest @ Lambert. However, I wish I could understand this statement on possible Southwest expansion. I'm still at the believe that you tear down D and come up with a master plan for parking/rental/new metrolink stations & realignment to allow future run through and new Southwest Gates to be added instead of another plan to add a parking lot here and there.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 295e8.html

Lambert Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said there has been talk of expanding the baggage-claim area near Terminal 2 — and even some initial plans — but it hasn’t gone farther than that.

AA has been testing 787 operations at Lambert in recent weeks. Not sure if this is telling of current conversations/future plans?

FLY STL blog wrote:
Crew of American Airlines’ Boeing 787 Dreamliner chat underneath the plane as the sun rises at Lambert.

American Airlines is getting ready to launch their Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and Lambert has been a frequent stop during this period of training, testing, and certifications for the aircraft and crew as it prepares for its grand debut. Lambert has also been preparing for the new-age of aircraft that the Dreamliner ushers in. Lambert recently rehabbed two additional gates in the C Concourse; one being specifically equipped to accommodate the 787 for both scheduled, and unscheduled flights. This is the first Dreamliner for American Airlines, who begins passenger service in May out of Dallas/Fort Worth. This aircraft seats 242 passengers and has an impressive wingspan of 200 feet. It was a real treat this week when we were invited to see the Dreamliner up-close for the first time Monday morning and take photographs.

Randy wrote:AA has been testing 787 operations at Lambert in recent weeks. Not sure if this is telling of current conversations/future plans?

It's more likely because STL is used as an alternate airport for both ORD & DFW in the event of a diversion due to weather or other issues.

Greg

Can we charge them a million dollars each if AA diverts here unless they fly 787s out of here for good? They still owe us money for the new runway we built for them.

gregl wrote:

Randy wrote:AA has been testing 787 operations at Lambert in recent weeks. Not sure if this is telling of current conversations/future plans?

It's more likely because STL is used as an alternate airport for both ORD & DFW in the event of a diversion due to weather or other issues.

Greg

I thought that too but what I saw the routes AA will be using the 787 from it doesn't make sense. I think they plan on using from DFW to Asia and South America and from ORD some Europe flights, so a diversion to STL would be very out of the way for either and I think they have tested some other airports for these diversions. Its just odd they are using STL as much as they have, and also in the article the airport had designed a gate for a 787 along with refurbishing another gate in C. (Which gates are these?) What is strange is they mentioned designed for scheduled flights, which is a bit of an odd thing to say since there is no known flight at this point.

If I had to guess I think it is a sign for some sort of announcement on transatlantic service in the coming months. Wouldn't be surprising if there is a harder push for it now in part since they are finally done with construction work at the airport and that there really isn't much in the way of domestic holes left at this point.

imperialmog wrote:

gregl wrote:

Randy wrote:AA has been testing 787 operations at Lambert in recent weeks. Not sure if this is telling of current conversations/future plans?

It's more likely because STL is used as an alternate airport for both ORD & DFW in the event of a diversion due to weather or other issues.

Greg

I thought that too but what I saw the routes AA will be using the 787 from it doesn't make sense. I think they plan on using from DFW to Asia and South America and from ORD some Europe flights, so a diversion to STL would be very out of the way for either and I think they have tested some other airports for these diversions. Its just odd they are using STL as much as they have, and also in the article the airport had designed a gate for a 787 along with refurbishing another gate in C. (Which gates are these?) What is strange is they mentioned designed for scheduled flights, which is a bit of an odd thing to say since there is no known flight at this point.

If I had to guess I think it is a sign for some sort of announcement on transatlantic service in the coming months. Wouldn't be surprising if there is a harder push for it now in part since they are finally done with construction work at the airport and that there really isn't much in the way of domestic holes left at this point.

I'm wondering if that's not optimistic - i.e. nothing's on the horizon at this time but we can't even attempt to compete for an international flight if we don't have a gate available to dock a large plane.

Idunno, just a guess. It'd be nice if it were something AA was considering, but given their history at Lambert I'm not gonna bank on it.

-RBB

It might not be so much for AA but for British Airways, who they have been talking to recently. and since the two airlines have a joint venture for transatlantic service it would make sense for AA to be involved if British Airways was looking here. I think they start getting more 787s later this year into next year, and that any new routes have not been announced. Considering how successful Austin has been for them with the 787 compared to other new markets they had with it, they will likely look at more US cities with similar flight profiles where they wouldn't have other Transatlantic competition.

It does seem like the business community is pushing harder on this as well. From the Cortex people to I'm guessing the financial services industry in the area also would like this, since they have been making business acquisitions and expansion overseas and the UK in particular. They would like such service and also likely fill up the front of a plane as well which would be attractive.

imperialmog wrote:I thought that too but what I saw the routes AA will be using the 787 from it doesn't make sense. I think they plan on using from DFW to Asia and South America and from ORD some Europe flights, so a diversion to STL would be very out of the way for either and I think they have tested some other airports for these diversions.

AA has only announced two routes for the 787 - trust me, they will be announcing additional routes which will likely involve ORD-Asia, ORD-Europe and DFW-Europe, all of which have utilized STL as a diversion point in the past.

Greg

dweebe wrote:

gregl wrote:

imperialmog wrote:I thought that too but what I saw the routes AA will be using the 787 from it doesn't make sense. I think they plan on using from DFW to Asia and South America and from ORD some Europe flights, so a diversion to STL would be very out of the way for either and I think they have tested some other airports for these diversions.

AA has only announced two routes for the 787 - trust me, they will be announcing additional routes which will likely involve ORD-Asia, ORD-Europe and DFW-Europe, all of which have utilized STL as a diversion point in the past.

Greg

So we're not getting a regular route using the 787? Thanks.

Well, not yet.

For the record, I'm flying to London in May, so you can bet on 787 flights direct to London starting up in approximately June.

^^ I'm flying there next month as well. Any announcement would be at least six months in advance. Actually on the gate that they did work to specifically accommodate a 787, is that connected to the current international arrivals area or would they have to renovate and reopen the old one when something did start? I'm not sure how its laid out, but it might be when that did happen (and to be honest I would be shocked if there isn't a transatlantic flight from here by the end of the decade) they move the current facilities to a renovated old facilities. This has the added benefit of freeing up the current gates for Southwest when they need more gates to not have a separated operations. Since from what I've seen there are times they overflow from their current gates and also to account for future growth.

What is interesting rereading the airports post is they also rehabbed another gate in C outside of the 787 equipped one. That is another intriguing thing. Is someone who is there now have issues at times with their gate usage, or is this a preparation for someone new entering at some point in the not-too distant future. I do wonder if it may be in case JetBlue arrives to have something ready since there has been chatter that there next US addition from Boston is St. Louis (which is their largest unserved market from there that is not a Delta hub in the cases of Minneapolis and Atlanta) I know from work that the Southwest flights now to Boston tend to be sold out and often can get pricey, so more service there would make sense. (also a lot of recent business connections recently is likely increasing demand)

AA's STL-LGA flights will be down-gauged from CRJ-700s to EMB-145s later this year. Envoy Air (the former American Eagle Airlines) is shutting down their bases in MIA & NYC. The NYC flying is being picked up by Trans States Airlines, which does not have any 2-class regional jets.

That's a shame. Although, I wonder if it'll lead to an upgrade of the route. AA LGA-STL flights are full every time. Last week I took the route in the middle of the day on Wednesday, and it was completely full. The Southwest LGA-STL flights are also always full, and those are all 737s.

AA and those regional jets are the worst. Never again.

matguy70 wrote:I read a comment on flystl.com's blog/FB after they posted about the AA 787 being here. It was from a poster that said he was in "the know" that AA is in talks with STL to add up to 100 new flights to STL this year.
Hmmmm

I would be willing to give 100-1 odds on that NOT happening.

Greg

^ I can't see how that could happen. It would be a strange reversal of the hub closure in doing that and it would be near impossible to undo that since Southwest jumped on so many routes from here as a result of that. (It is interesting is Southwest did not do the same in most other cities that lost hubs) The only scenario I could see AA do that is if they have real problems with their O'Hare hub since reversing the hub closure would be a major admitting a mistake. (Granted the execs are different now and it has been 5 years) For some reason I was thinking there is a gate issue at O'Hare down the road.

What I could see is further Southwest expansion in the coming years since they are finally adding to fleet size. Aren't they at a point where they can't expand their operations at Midway anymore so that future expansion would have to use other points?