urbanSTL

There's a near constant stream of 737s in and out certain times of day. I wish there was a little more variety, but the place has clearly gotten quite a lot busier in the last six months or so. Here's to hoping the trend continues. It was depressing being in there a couple of years ago. Mind you, I'm never in the east terminal as I don't fly domestically, just overseas. But even the main terminal seems busier than it did in '12 or '13. And anytime I drop someone off or pick someone up from the east terminal it's hopping. (Tiny, ugly, and congested, at least on the landside, but hopping.)

So glad common sense prevailed in this case. There seemed to be a lot of people suggesting simply switching the order of the name, but I am a little surprised they changed their minds and went with it.

^ How about both,

As a business model you want demand such that you can raise prices. At same time, you don't raise prices high enough that you drive business away. In Lambert's case airport the airport doesn't want to drive the traffic to an off airport facility and lose out on much needed revenues outright.

The reality was Terminal 2 was built with expected demand and or presence but has exceeded it in becoming a Southwest Focus city. Yes, they are addressing the gate side via E gates and can go into D as well as move other airlines back to Terminal 1. However, the curbside and short term parking is not easy to address as it is currently built.

IDK, theres empty space to expand the garage adjacent to it. But I agree they should do both. If the lot is always full, its a lost revenue oppurtunity. Alternatively they could consider a car guidance system for much less than a new/expanded garage to ensure it ia 100% parked, not just closed until they have 50 free spaces to reopen it. Howver I bet they would still be full if the price were raised. I dont know what you consider longterm, but I dont think twice about parking there up to 3 weeks, lol. But that is typically at the main gatage which always has spots.

They can't expand very meaningful down D concourse, but they could in a pinch.

^ the other issue previously discussed is Lambert will only charge you the max daily in short term if you lose your ticket. Separate issue but definitely can see people parking short term, taking off on a week long business trip and claiming a lost ticket for the convenience along with a better price.

However, that is really an enforcement issue on Lambert's part. As someone else noted, parking notices the same car for more than a day or two then make a mark on the tire, take license plate # and put it on the list. Someone says they lost ticket, cross check list and charge them accordingly. better yet, install license plate readers at entrance. Someone claims lost ticket then attendant can go back and bring record of entry. That is simply a matter of decent customer service to ensure the large percentage of people using short term parking accordingly isn't getting screwed over a spot by a few who are taking advantage of lax enforcement of policies.

^They can do that electronically...some places use plate readers for that reason...in fact a small charge to create an e-biing and fast lane would be another revenue oppurtunity. Some airlorts actually generate more revenue from parking than landing fees.

Not sure why I'm being logical, I don't WANT to pay more for parking.

Similar to what others have mentioned, I arrived back in STL from Midway in Terminal 2 on Sunday night around 9:30 PM and the terminal was still quite busy. Although it was a Sunday, it was nice to see the terminal busy loading people for departures that late at night.

I'm curious as to just how different Lambert was 20 years ago during the TWA days? I've lived in STL for 8 years and frequently fly for pleasure or work (I'm a corporate pilot who occasionally has to fly to/from private planes) and notice the connections are pretty good actually for an airport and city this size and seem to be improving. Frequency and destinations seem on par to other non major hub cities. Aside from lack of international destinations, I'm getting tired of hearing anyone over 50 complain about the lack of service out of Lambert, but maybe I'm wrong?

^"Still, the 12.7 million people who traveled through Lambert in 2012 pales in comparison to the 30.6 million that Lambert had at its peak in 2000."

http://fox2now.com/2013/01/22/lambert-t ... itng-city/

Map from 1993

^ Nice, I miss those days.

I worked for TW from 1994-1998 and here is a timetable from 1998. It will probably not show up well here but this is the second page and most of the flights listed are departures from STL.

cteclipse wrote:I'm curious as to just how different Lambert was 20 years ago during the TWA days? I've lived in STL for 8 years and frequently fly for pleasure or work (I'm a corporate pilot who occasionally has to fly to/from private planes) and notice the connections are pretty good actually for an airport and city this size and seem to be improving. Frequency and destinations seem on par to other non major hub cities. Aside from lack of international destinations, I'm getting tired of hearing anyone over 50 complain about the lack of service out of Lambert, but maybe I'm wrong?

It was a zoo in the 80s, and 90s. Throughout my youth the place was a constant construction project. I remember thinking that airports and hospitals were always expanding and this was just the nature of things. At the times of day that I was there (and my grandparents flew often for pleasure and my dad for work) C and D were always crowded. There were always lines at the desks in the main terminal and they were often quite long. In the middle of the day it was dense enough that there was really only a narrowish aisle down the middle of the terminal, with the rest taken up by ropes and people. All the baggage carousels were always going, and there was often a goodly wait for one to clear so your flights baggage could show up. Delays were a constant headache. When I flew to Germany in 1992 I believe our L-1011 waited in line for close to forty-five minutes before we took off. At that time Lambert was visibly busier than JFK or Dulles. Maybe busier than Frankfurt. It wasn't O'Hare crazy, but it was a lot closer then than you might guess. We complain because we WERE one of the big hub cities. I gather that late in the game TWA briefly had the largest single domestic network. . . . And then just like that it was gone. Partly thanks to mismanagement. Partly thanks to corporate piracy. Partly thanks to dumb luck. So yeah, I can see where it might seem odd that we complain so loudly. But there is living memory of a day when Lambert was busier and prouder, indeed when the city was still a little more sure of itself. It wasn't so long ago that the city was home to the world's second largest chemical firm, largest brewer, largest defense contractor, the second largest concentration of automotive plants in the US, the engineering firm that designed the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, a half dozen big banks of different sorts, one of the nations largest retailers, dozens of Fortune 1000 companies. Possibly dozens of fortune 500s. We're still a little dumbfounded at just how quickly things went south. And the airport is simply one symptom of that. It's probably not productive to complain. But . . . sometimes you just feel the need. (And for the record, it's not just folks over fifty. I'm still a good bit shy of that number and I doubt I'm the youngest person to recall the glory days, as I was already in my mid twenties when the airport hit its peak.)

Oh, I don't doubt that there's an age cutoff for TWA memory. I just figure it's not fifty. I'm not ready to add another decade at the drop of a hat anymore.

I am 33 and still remember how big TWA was, so you can be a little younger than 50. I might not remember all the specifics like people older than me do but maybe we make the cutoff more like 30. haha.

Yeah. I'm 43. One of my first jobs in my teens was maintenance (trash pickup) for the cleaning company at Lambert at the time. I remember taking that long walk down concourse C for what seemed like a mile with people bumper to bumper. It would take me two hours to go down and back just people watching. What I remember being really cool was at the very end were the international gates were you had to take the escalators up because the planes were so tall and big. I was in awe that something that big and heavy could fly like it could, physics be damned!

Question... Seeing how busy Lambert used to be with the TWA hub, how come our airport didn't build the almost mall-like food courts, variety of shops and large, sprawling ceilings, etc.... I've been in to Pittsburgh, Tampa and even Milwaukee and those airports have more 'mall - type' stores. Parts of those airport terminals even feel like a traditional mall. Why is Lambert not as prevalent with regards to retail, considering 30 million people were going through there annually at one time? Even with the loss of TWA hub, the remnants should be there, from a retail standpoint. I've seen a few stores open recently, but not nearly as many as say a Pittsburgh. I recall a PGA Tour store, large Pittsburgh sports themed store and several others, just in the area of my gate. While Pitts. airport seemed less busy than Lambert (statistically is less busy), they seem to have more of retail that Lambert.

What is the concourse set up in Pitt? Having 3 different ones here might break up the people too much, plus the lack of space in T2 for anymore retail. If A and C were connected somehow it might lead to a little more in those since you could get more people to it.

^ A fragmented airport in St. Louis? What a surprise...

Pittsburghs terminal was built in 1992 and they included their "skymall". Ours was built in the mid 1950's.. They were severely hurt when US Air merged with American and this airport was also "dehubbed". They are the 47th busiest while Laambert is a top 30, I couldn't find the latest ranking. 8.1 million passengers through Pittsburgh while there were 12.7 through Lambert in 2015.