urbanSTL

gregl wrote:I really with they had used the final TWA livery. I think it was the classiest we've had in the US for sometime.

I agree. That livery was awesome.

Before TWA folded, I flew on a new TWA 757 from New York's LaGuardia to St. Louis. It was a very nice plane - newly-delivered - with that last livery.

Funny to think that if TWA was still around that livery might be outdated.

arch city wrote:
Before TWA folded, I flew on a new TWA 757 from New York's LaGuardia to St. Louis. It was a very nice plane - newly-delivered - with that last livery.

Funny to think that if TWA was still around that livery might be outdated.

The TWA Pratt 757s were well liked by passengers and nAAtive crews alike. The F-cabin seats were better than the Eisenhower leather seats upfront on the AA Rolls fleet and F/As liked the galley configurations and placement of the Y-cabin lavs. Unfortunately they were dumped in 2007 and are now flying premium transcons and European services for DL from BOS/JFK. At this stage across the three major U.S. carriers any opportunity to fly a 757 is becoming an increasing rare treat. AA withdrew them from STL in November 2013, but DL still has them cycle through occasionally, primarily to ATL but there have been a few isolated trips to DTW & MSP.

Go-Getters go Ozark.

JAL007 wrote:

arch city wrote:
Before TWA folded, I flew on a new TWA 757 from New York's LaGuardia to St. Louis. It was a very nice plane - newly-delivered - with that last livery.

Funny to think that if TWA was still around that livery might be outdated.

The TWA Pratt 757s were well liked by passengers and nAAtive crews alike. The F-cabin seats were better than the Eisenhower leather seats upfront on the AA Rolls fleet and F/As liked the galley configurations and placement of the Y-cabin lavs. Unfortunately they were dumped in 2007 and are now flying premium transcons and European services for DL from BOS/JFK. At this stage across the three major U.S. carriers any opportunity to fly a 757 is becoming an increasing rare treat. AA withdrew them from STL in November 2013, but DL still has them cycle through occasionally, primarily to ATL but there have been a few isolated trips to DTW & MSP.

Maybe you guys will remember the year the first 757s came online for TWA, I want to say it was 97-98? One of the first routes was STL-SNA and I took a non-rev flight about 2-3 weeks after they switched out one of the M80s with the 757. It was brand spanking new and absolutely beautiful, very quiet with lots of seat space.

My favorite non-rev flights though were the weekend trips to SJU on the 747. If you got upstairs it was awesome! You had 8 seats + your own FA and lav.

British Airways formally announced London-Heathrow to New Orleans service this morning.

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/ ... _brit.html

dweebe wrote:Any further details on LHR-STL service being a done deal?

I would be shocked if it happened this year. If you read through the article, St. Louis has done nowhere near all the work New Orleans did over a multi-year effort to win service (in my opinion).

^ I think it can't be this year due to they have no planes available to do it. I saw somewhere this one was able to start was due to them cancelling service with a 788 to a city in China. And I think they are getting some more that would be delivered to them by spring of 2018. Also note New Orleans is a bit of a different market than most other cities mentioned due to tourism potential there, though it is a lot more expensive now for UK people to visit the US due to much weaker pound.

I think locally there has only been a push to get this in the past year with the real strong one just last week with the visits to their HQ. Likely the reason there wasn't much push until recently is the business community wasn't as proactive before (why now is a question) and they were focusing on filling in domestic holes and more west coast service which is now present. I think compared to other cities trying like Nashville, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, et. al. is that there is more demand to/from London and Europe overall from here. New Orleans had similar demand to here and they were working at this a lot longer than here, so this isn't too much a surprise. That and its a different sort of market as well.

Maybe this is partly lack of planes or maybe this happens but I just don't know about it.. But why doesn't BA (or whoever) do routes where, for example, the plane flies to the USA seven days a week but to a different city every day or three cities twice a week. Even coming here once a week would be something. It could just share a gate with one of its partners here. You normally see these cities get 3 or 4 days a week but I would think there are plenty of cities that could support two a week. Let's say STL, Nashville, and Cleveland. spread them three days apart. I figure for a business trip that lines up pretty well for 3 or 4 days and if it doesn't they can take a non direct one of the other directions. Vacationers can take 7-10-14 day trips. Obviously, there is a reason they don't do one or two day a week destinations very often though. I know Condor is doing 2 for New Orleans though.

Anyways, maybe someone here can clue me in on it.

dweebe wrote:

gregl wrote:

dweebe wrote:Any further details on LHR-STL service being a done deal?

I would be shocked if it happened this year. If you read through the article, St. Louis has done nowhere near all the work New Orleans did over a multi-year effort to win service (in my opinion).

Of course. St. Louis never does anything right.

That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that New Orleans officials began courting service in 2013 or 2014. The visit Mayor Slay took recently is, as far as I'm aware, the first visit by St. Louis area officials. We're probably 2-3 years behind New Orleans in trying to win a route:

2013

• The latest courtship between New Orleans and British Airways started after a spring 2013 GNO Inc. viability study into international flights placed London at the top of a list of "most attractive destinations," followed by Paris and Frankfurt. Actual discussions with the airline began that fall.

2014

• In January 2014, Armstrong's then-Aviation Director Iftikhar Ahmad, Hecht, Perry and businessman Greg Rusovich went to London to meet with British Airways. Rusovich's extensive local roles have included the chairmanship of the Convention and Visitors Bureau and GNO Inc.

2015

• A year later, the-Gov. Bobby Jindal accompanied Hecht and Rusovich to continue talks in London.

2016

• A British Airways route planning executive visited New Orleans in January to meet with local tourism, business and government leaders.
  
  Negotiations continued in July when Gov. John Bel Edwards' commissioner of administration, Jay Dardenne, and state economic development officials joined Hecht for another round of talks in London.
  
  By September, the particulars of the deal were being locked in place.

Additionally, I don't think St. Louis has any ground presence in the UK similar to this:

• The New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau has an office in London, and Perry said its staff worked with every major tour operator and travel broker in the United Kingdom to convince British Airways there was demand for the new service. The bureau has spent more on marketing New Orleans to European travelers thanks to a self-imposed room charge that local hotels started collecting in April 2014. Perry said those resources have been critical to securing the London and Frankfurt flights.

And finally, specific marketing and revenue guarantees which are not yet in place:

• Final terms of a Convention and Visitors Bureau agreement with British Airways are still being refined, Perry said, including significant marketing resources and "back stop" provisions that ensure the airline sees revenue from the flights. Specifics on Convention and Visitors Bureau contributions to nail down the London flight weren't immediately available, but the bureau's budget calls for it to spend $1.4 million in the United Kingdom on sales and marketing next year.

I don't think any of this disqualifies St Louis from getting one. I would agree with Greg, it's not imminent, however I do very much feel that we are on the right track. If all continues to go to plan, I optimistically see us getting one in 2018-19. That is pending we have a Clinton in the White House and not Drumpf

^ I doubt the Ferguson effect was much in play, and it isn't at all now due to it popped up in many other places. And the Rams thing was a fix from the get go so that's not really indicative of this, though could have been a distraction in terms of civic and business energy.

Guess is there wasn't activity on this a few years ago due to business community not willing to do much and work on filling in domestic service holes. Since here the push would be from the business community instead of the tourism bureau like in New Orleans due to the nature of the market. Guessing some of the fresh blood in the business community is pushing this forward like those at CORTEX, since they have done so with other service. Another factor now is someone like Lord Paul of Caparo/Bull Moose who lives in London is pushing for the case, and is becoming heavily invested in some development projects in St. Louis at Grand Center and the Federal Mogul sites.

Its more than likely when not if this happens, and likely when is more about when theres the available planes to add things on their end. It is likely helping that traffic growth here lately has been very strong at 9% so far this year.

We have been hearing for a number of years that Lambert has been seeking out a London Flight.

Here is an article from 2014
https://www.google.com/amp/www.stltoday ... ent=safari

imperialmog wrote:^ I doubt the Ferguson effect was much in play, and it isn't at all now due to it popped up in many other places. And the Rams thing was a fix from the get go so that's not really indicative of this, though could have been a distraction in terms of civic and business energy.

Guess is there wasn't activity on this a few years ago due to business community not willing to do much and work on filling in domestic service holes. Since here the push would be from the business community instead of the tourism bureau like in New Orleans due to the nature of the market. Guessing some of the fresh blood in the business community is pushing this forward like those at CORTEX, since they have done so with other service. Another factor now is someone like Lord Paul of Caparo/Bull Moose who lives in London is pushing for the case, and is becoming heavily invested in some development projects in St. Louis at Grand Center and the Federal Mogul sites.

Its more than likely when not if this happens, and likely when is more about when theres the available planes to add things on their end. It is likely helping that traffic growth here lately has been very strong at 9% so far this year.

I agree. Also, the NOLA route appears to be heavily seasonal. It's only thrice a week.

Chalupas54 wrote:I agree. Also, the NOLA route appears to be heavily seasonal. It's only thrice a week.

It's not seasonal (where you'd have daily frequency in certain months and less than daily in others). It's full-year at 4x/week.

Greg

Am I the only one not super jealous of New Orleans' situation? It seems to be an awfully high subsidy to bring in a few flights. I mean obviously from an ego perspective it's great. But I really hope St. Louis doesn't end up doing the same thing. I'd rather invest resources in higher cost/benefit options.

New Orleans' leadership in general has been very wasteful and goes for these big photo-opp types of development. I'd rather see nitty-gritty investment that has higher chance of success long term.

moorlander wrote:We have been hearing for a number of years that Lambert has been seeking out a London Flight.

Here is an article from 2014
https://www.google.com/amp/www.stltoday ... ent=safari

That article was referenced in an April 2016 story about two new gates opening for Southwest, posted here previously:

And the airport is still pushing for European flights, which disappeared with TWA. American Airlines ceased its hub operations here through a series of cuts after absorbing the bankrupt airline in 2001.

Hope again looms that such flights could return. Lambert is on a short list to get flights to London on British Airways and to Frankfurt, Germany, on Lufthansa, Hamm-Niebruegge said.

Lambert came close to securing a London flight a few years ago on British Airways, but was beat out by the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas. The airline had stressed that the market it chose would need to support selling its more lucrative business-class seats.

A factor in British Airways’ decision was that Austin showed a stronger economy, Hamm-Niebruegge said.

So Lambert is working to highlight economic growth in St. Louis in areas such as technology and bioscience. Airport officials are set to meet this summer with British Airways and Lufthansa to make a pitch to bring them to Lambert.

The airport also is working to attract and retain airline service in other ways, including by reducing its landing fees, which are based on the weight of an inbound aircraft and paid by airlines.

-RBB

rbb wrote:That article was referenced in an April 2016 story about two new gates opening for Southwest, posted here previously:

But that article talks nothing beyond "we want international service".. none of the relationship building that New Orleans was doing in 2014.

Greg

gregl wrote:

rbb wrote:That article was referenced in an April 2016 story about two new gates opening for Southwest, posted here previously:

But that article talks nothing beyond "we want international service".. none of the relationship building that New Orleans was doing in 2014.

Greg

You're probably right. I was just pointing out that two years ago they were meeting with British Airways in Chicago and had made a pitch for Service and narrowly lost out to Austin (per the article) because Austin could also pull from San Antonio.

It sounds like we're finally on the right track and I'm excited to see what may cove of this effort over the next few years.