urbanSTL

^ Do those numbers count local demand for all travel or only for domestic travel?

Also for KC, they likely get a significant number of people from smaller metros around them that have minimal to no air service that while not part of the metro population, is more or less the same market for air service like St. Joseph, Lawrence, and even Topeka. Here its likely most of the demand is strictly the metro area. The small difference can likely also be explained by its a lot less practical now to fly to Chicago than in the past from here, while its still a much better option than driving from KC. Since a lot of local demand especially before 9/11 was to there, and has since dropped significantly due to TSA along with higher speed limits on highways and faster train service. Since a lot of the places that have higher overall demand is due to having a very high frequency shuttle type route there which has high local traffic. (See NE corridor, Texas, California, and Seattle-Portland)

We also have Midamerica that I would add into the equation when comparing to KC or cities with only one airport. Allegiant flies out of MCI (so KC gets those added to theirs) those passengers don't go into Lambert's numbers. I would imagine all of MidAmericas numbers are orginating here since they don't do connections, that is unless originating only counts people that start an entire trip here not return trips. They have had 66k departing passengers in the last year (August 2015-August 2016). Up 143% from the previous year. They also had 64k arriving passengers for 130K total in that time frame.

I was noticing on that list of what routes Southwest starting to use the larger planes, it seems most of them were either shorter routes or new route (and in Des Moines case both). Wonder if that's an indicator of having success in using here more as a connecting point and the new service doing well. Not sure what routes have that plane used now from here, but likely a number of them. On some of the new routes I know from work is that some of those have been particularly helpful. The Wichita one very much so due to it being quite a drive there from here and connections are rather out of the way making flying not gain much over driving.

matguy70 wrote:I flew one of the new 737-800 planes a few weeks ago from PDX to STL with the new interior. It was lovely. Spacious! More leg room, Awesome seatback table and card / magazine holder, interesting new (memory foam type) seats that don't look all comfy but are and have the new (great) head rest that moves and cradles your neck for sleeping/resting. The mood lighting, retractable overheads and brightness were really nice too. I had been on the 800 before many a times and love them - but this is SWA's new interior for all their new 800's and MAX's.

https://airwaysmag.com/industry/southwe ... ax-8-srov/

Happened to fly one of WN's new 800's about 6 months ago. The attendants were telling us that the plane only had about 20-30 hrs on it and the interior looked just like these pics. All the lights are LED and the ceiling glowed blue from accent lighting, it was a good looking interior.

Volaris might be adding routes to STL. It applied to fly from a bunch of Mexican cities to a bunch of US cities so I don't know if this is just them covering their bases or if it means something might happen in the near term. They did just add Milwaukee to Guadalajara so we will see what happens. If any of you guys know contract stuff feel free to give your take on it.

Authority Requested. The route authority requested is provided for under the Agreement, which was signed by the two governments on December 18, 2015. Pursuant to Annex I, Section A.2 of the Agreement, Volaris requests authority to provide foreign scheduled transportation of persons, property, and mail on the following routing:
a. From a point or points in Mexico to a point or points in the United States;
b. From Acapulco, Hermosillo, Mexico City, Toluca, Monterrey, Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido, T ampico, Veracruz, Villahermosa, and lxtapa/ Zihuatanejo to Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and St. Louis,
and beyond to Canada;

Document is at https://www.regulations.gov/document?D= ... -0135-0001

Thought I'd share the jetBlue investor day slide deck here.

While it doesn't seem like anything is imminent, they certainly see STL as potential growth from both BOS (slide 36) & FLL (slide 42):

http://investor.jetblue.com/~/media/Fil ... 2-2016.pdf

They go into detail about their success launching PIT with a single daily flight and growing to one of the highest RASM routes in the network. With WN serving more flow over STL and the fares they're charging for non-stop it may be viable. FLL IMO is less likely, but could work seasonally as it is a market driven by snowbirds and cruise traffic. Even WN only serves the market once daily, since much of the STL-area Florida traffic is bound for the Tampa-Sarasota-Ft. Myers-Naples corridor.

Lambert scored 728
These Are the Worst Airports in America
But don’t despair—we’ve got a list of the best ones, too.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... in-america

I guess if you plan to hang out at an airport changing planes, spaciousness and newness are desirable. But I do like the short distances in Terminal 2 at Lambert compared to most terminals. It has to have one of the shortest distances (therefore quickest times) from average gate location to luggage and curb pickup/dropoff of any terminal I know of. Some of the newer larger airport terminals take forever to get from gate to luggage to vans.

I don't really see Lambert as that bad. Is it average? Probably. Besides having super slow checked baggage return, I think it is fine. That said, I am not waiting around in it much either. I wish it had some kind of food court/shopping open area but besides that there isn't anything I think it needs. Like Gary said, some airports you have to go a long ways to get to your gates, it is nice that Lambert is pretty compact.

pdm_ad wrote:

matguy70 wrote:I flew one of the new 737-800 planes a few weeks ago from PDX to STL with the new interior. It was lovely. Spacious! More leg room, Awesome seatback table and card / magazine holder, interesting new (memory foam type) seats that don't look all comfy but are and have the new (great) head rest that moves and cradles your neck for sleeping/resting. The mood lighting, retractable overheads and brightness were really nice too. I had been on the 800 before many a times and love them - but this is SWA's new interior for all their new 800's and MAX's.

https://airwaysmag.com/industry/southwe ... ax-8-srov/

Happened to fly one of WN's new 800's about 6 months ago. The attendants were telling us that the plane only had about 20-30 hrs on it and the interior looked just like these pics. All the lights are LED and the ceiling glowed blue from accent lighting, it was a good looking interior.

Just flew an 800 from STL-TPA last Tues and snapped a pic:

I talked to a Southwest employee today while I was at the airport. He said they plan to add 3 more gates down old concourse D as well as a restaurant and Starbucks this summer. He did say something about costs and a leaky roof. I wasn't sure if he meant it might not happen because of that or maybe that just would effect the restaurant part. The new gate numbers are already up on the outside of the doors though (as in I could see them on the side of the building/doors as my plane was backing out.)

He also mentioned that (although it wasn't 100% set in stone) that they plan to add a Cancun flight. He went on to say something about making E29-33 all international. I wasn't exactly sure what he meant though because just adding a Cancun flight wouldn't be enough to really support all that international only. Maybe he just meant they would run that one flight out of that gate. I didn't really press him for more info.

Here is the image of the new gate numbers. The planes were just parked at them but they weren't in use yet.

With the volume of local point of sale and the ability to feed a well timed mid morning departure I'm surprised it's taken WN this long. A big part of the success of Frontier and Vision to their Mexico and Caribbean destinations is they're sold as public charters primarily to vacation package holders, but surplus seats on F9 are sold through their own website and OTAs (Expedia, Orbitz, etc).

Overall would be a relatively low risk add for WN and makes a lot of sense IMO.

I'm baffled they still haven't tried IND from STL. Given that they're running 100+ daily departures even to swap overnighting aircraft and gain some incremental revenue and utilization. Years ago WN wouldn't even sell STL-MDW-IND as a single coupon. This too would make sense but Indy from STL seems to be a driving destination as it's a straight shot out I-70.

JAL007 wrote:I'm baffled they still haven't tried IND from STL.

Southwest used to fly STL-IND, but dropped it as they reduced short-haul flying over the past decade.

With DSM & LIT having been added back, I wouldn't be surprised if it was added back.

However, with 2x daily MDW-IND, the question would be if STL would offer the connecting routes currently available via MDW.

Greg

The STL-IND possibility is interesting. If I remember correctly, I think there was either a poll or an article in the Indy Star that had addressed the continued rise of SWA out of IND, as well as how STL was on a short list of routes they could soon see. Really struggling to find the article however.


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the mo drivers license WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTED after Jan/2018 as an id to board a plane. MO is one of a few states of which their id does NOT comply with the REAL ID ACT

I flew Louisville to STL on Southwest about 9 or 10 years ago. I know Southwest also flew from here to Grand Rapids and Albuquerque a few years back. I am curious if anyone remembers any other routes (IND was mentioned already) Southwest used to fly nonstop from here that they don't anymore. If they are adding gates, I am just wondering what routes they might add we don't already have. I am guessing most will just be more frequency places they already fly at this point though. I think people in Cinncinati are optimistic Southwest might start there this summer, so I guess that would be an option. Plus Cancun, even though both those two we already have flights to on other airlines.

I can check Diio later but ABQ, BHM and SLC come to mind. They also may have tried PBI circa 2007 after AA ended it.

jshank83 wrote:I flew Louisville to STL on Southwest about 9 or 10 years ago. I know Southwest also flew from here to Grand Rapids and Albuquerque a few years back. I am curious if anyone remembers any other routes (IND was mentioned already) Southwest used to fly nonstop from here that they don't anymore. If they are adding gates, I am just wondering what routes they might add we don't already have. I am guessing most will just be more frequency places they already fly at this point though. I think people in Cinncinati are optimistic Southwest might start there this summer, so I guess that would be an option. Plus Cancun, even though both those two we already have flights to on other airlines.

I don't see Southwest touching CVG, as they already have a sizable presence at Dayton, which is less than an hour from most Cincinnati residents. I definitely think this year we will see Int'l expansion on the side of Southwest.


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Chalupas54 wrote:
I don't see Southwest touching CVG, as they already have a sizable presence at Dayton, which is less than an hour from most Cincinnati residents. I definitely think this year we will see Int'l expansion on the side of Southwest.


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Southwest only has 3 flights daily out of Dayton and they go to Midway. That is it besides some seasonal 1 or 2 times a week flight to Florida. From a Business Journal article on the Dayton Airport: "Southwest Airlines also continued a yearlong slide down more than 18 percent to a 10,800 monthly tally." So I figure they could move those to CVG pretty easily.

The only reason I brought up CVG for Southwest is that they are reopening 4 gates for an unnamed airline to be done just after the next schedule update for Southwest comes out. So I was just connecting the dots a little. Obviously, they could be for a current airline though. Four just seemed like a lot for any current airline there to expand (not in the Delta terminal).

But anyways, I agree on international flights. Hopefully they add a couple. I feel like we get enough connections from them now that they could add a few.

dweebe wrote:

jshank83 wrote:I flew Louisville to STL on Southwest about 9 or 10 years ago. I know Southwest also flew from here to Grand Rapids and Albuquerque a few years back. I am curious if anyone remembers any other routes (IND was mentioned already) Southwest used to fly nonstop from here that they don't anymore. If they are adding gates, I am just wondering what routes they might add we don't already have. I am guessing most will just be more frequency places they already fly at this point though. I think people in Cinncinati are optimistic Southwest might start there this summer, so I guess that would be an option. Plus Cancun, even though both those two we already have flights to on other airlines.

I'm about 99% sure Southwest used to fly STL/ABQ non stop.

This is true, flew it multiple times. Went seasonal, then vanished. Very empty flights.


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^ Let's hope WN (Southwest) starts some Mexico flights, at least once daily to CUN. Right now having only F9 (Frontier) fly to CUN is an embarrassment and someone needs to put that flight F9 86/87 out of its misery.