urbanSTL

Grover wrote:Sadly the mega projects that the US was once known for (airports, skyscrapers, bridges, etc.) are being built elsewhere. Just check out the skyscrapers in Dubai!!!

And dams, etc...I agree that it does seem like other countries are in more need of development and willing to undertake huge projects to catch/pass up the US.



Maybe the US just doesn't need megaprojects anymore and sustain itself with smaller upgrades?

Grover wrote:I understand the sexiness of international destinations but it's just not important for myself. I may fly internationally once every-other year. I'd rather see some flights to places like Seattle, San Fran, Boston, etc. I fly to Providence, Manchester, Boston, Cleveland and Columbus on a regular basis and feel that these routes are well-enough served to fit my needs.

That's fine for your needs, but there's nothing sexy about eliminating pure exasperation of flying through, say, both JFK and Heathrow on the same day, just to get to somewhere in Europe. Not having the need to go through one more gateway city made it so much more tolerable just a few years ago.

brickandmortar wrote:I just flew into Dulles yesterday and I heard a few people complaining how the new Airport renovation there will bring them up to the 1980s. Guess we aren't the only ones who dislike our airport. By the way the shuttles b/w terminals there are scary. I'd rather walk like our airport is set up.

I was just in Miami, and their airport is an absolute dump.

DeBaliviere wrote:

brickandmortar wrote:I just flew into Dulles yesterday and I heard a few people complaining how the new Airport renovation there will bring them up to the 1980s. Guess we aren't the only ones who dislike our airport. By the way the shuttles b/w terminals there are scary. I'd rather walk like our airport is set up.

I was just in Miami, and their airport is an absolute dump.

Miami is horrid. If you have to fly to south Florida use Southwest into Fort Lauderdale. That's a nice new, clean airport that's got it's act together.

dweebe wrote:Miami is horrid. If you have to fly to south Florida use Southwest into Fort Lauderdale. That's a nice new, clean airport that's got it's act together.

I agree completely, Ft. Lauderdale is much better. Unfortunately, in this instance I was on a layover, so I didn't have the option.

Flight to Marion, IL return...



http://www.mariondaily.com/articles/200 ... news02.txt



fter long delay, air service to St. Louis finally restarts Nov. 4



Published: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 11:05 AM CDT

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Staff Report



MARION - Great Lakes Airlines plans to begin service from Williamson County Regional Airport to St. Louis on November 4, restarting a service that has not been offered to the region since March 8.



The airline was awarded the Essential Air Service contracts in Marion, Quincy and Decatur after Regions Air - the previous regional airline - discontinued their service to these areas. Customers can begin booking flights on Great Lakes flights from those towns this Sunday, September 23.



U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced the agreement.



“Today’s announcement brings a sigh of relief from travelers, businesses and tourists in downstate Illinois who have had to deal with uncertain and disrupted air service for too long,” Durbin said in a press release Tuesday. “Great Lakes Airlines, American Airlines and the Department of Transportation have worked together with community leaders to mobilize the resources and equipment needed to serve downstate Illinois.



“I am pleased to see that safe, efficient air service will be up and running again in these downstate communities.”



The Essential Air Service (EAS) contracts to Quincy, Marion and Decatur were held by Regions Air, which abruptly halted service on March 8. The two-year contract consists of a $3.5 million per year federal subsidy to operate the EAS program that was established by Congress in 1978 to ensure communities with commercial air service before airline deregulation could continue scheduled flights.



Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all, and residents of smaller cities would have to travel significant distances for flights.



Durbin has worked with American Airlines, Great Lakes Airlines and the Department of Transportation asking that the necessary planes, personnel and equipment are in place so that service between downstate communities and St. Louis Lambert International Airport could resume. On March 19, 2007, Durbin sent a letter to the President of American Eagle Airlines, Peter M. Bowler urging that the airline work with Great Lakes to begin service immediately.

The Post-Dispatch's recent front page article on air travel bill of rights noted some important fights going on in aviation that will impact Lambert directly or indirectly.



Directly, raising the passenger fee from $4.50 to $7.00 and increased fuel taxes on commercial users. Which I understand is the only way Lambert is going to be able fund its desired changes. My employer won't be happy, but its probably only way any improvements are going to be funded.



Indirectly, the legislation appears to finally to start funding a GPS based navigation system to replace the aging ground based radar system. A GPS system would free up air space at the major hub airports. I wondered if AA has ever considered St. Louis for transatlantic flights because of congestion at its main hubs and available capacity in St. Louis.

I wondered if AA has ever considered St. Louis for transatlantic flights because of congestion at its main hubs and available capacity in St. Louis.

dream emoticon?

Great Lakes Adds Flights



We’re a hub, says Great Lakes Airlines.



Great Lakes Airlines has announced that it will be expanding its service at Lambert Airport to include business flights daily to Decatur, Quincy, and Marion. Great Lakes had previously announced flights between Lambert and Fort Leonard Wood and Burlington (Iowa).



The Illinois flights will begin November 4, 2007. Flights to and from the other two destinations will begin October 7, 2007.



There’s a new Great Lakes ticket counter in the upper level of the Main Terminal. There’s a website, www.flygreatlakes.com, for more information.



http://www.mayorslay.com/news/display.asp?prID=725

From Lambert International:



Summer Traffic Surges



Lambert-St. Louis International Airport ® reported a significant surge in traffic over the summer months of June, July and August. During that time, Lambert saw an overall increase of six percent increase in passenger enplanements over the same summer months of 2006. August was the biggest month for boarding passengers with an increase of nine percent over 2006.



The addition of Airtran Airways has certainly helped fuel some of this positive growth at Lambert. AirTran Airways is celebrating a record summer for traffic with strong passenger numbers in St. Louis, as well. More than 15,000 passengers flew from St. Louis with AirTran Airways in July, in only its second full month of operation out of Lambert. That was an 11 percent increase over its June passenger enplanements.

^ I'd just like to add the Lambert handled the increase quite well. I normally fly early in the morning, but I've never waited more than 15mins to get through security. Hopefully traffic continued to increase - there's still quite a big of excess capacity at Lambert.

So do we know then what the pace is for boardings in STL for '07?



-RBB

phoaddict wrote:

STLMO314 wrote:Did anyone catch on Entourage 2 weeks ago, Johnny Chase talks about trying to get to Cannes, France, and having to take a connecting from LA to St. Louis to connect to Paris. Definately not possible on commercial airlines.

In 2000 and 2001 when TWA was still around I flew direct to Paris from St. Louis twice in both years.

Were those flights full? I wonder if STL can sustain or fill planes for flights to places such as LGW and CDG, but I doubt AA will give us back these trans-atlantic flights. It would be nice if British Airways. Air France, or Lufthansa added flights to STL. Is it possible for them to add flights to STL? Will the passenger loads be enough to sustain flights from these European carriers to STL?:(



Hopefully, AA moves some flights to STL from O'****, since O'**** seems to be adding OB/IB flights for UA and its always too congested. It was said by b777stl that AA is frustrated with the city of Chicago and UA.



At least AA isn't hosing us as bad as what US Airways is doing to Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH Oct 3, 2007 -- US Airways said it plans to reduce mainline flying in January from 31 to 22 daily flights, focusing on customers' preferred destinations, as the airline continues to maximize the financial stability of its Pittsburgh operation. Eliminating service to Denver, Chicago, and Toronto competely.



As part of the new schedule, regional flying to smaller cities is expected to be reduced from 77 to 46 daily flights.



With the reduced schedule, the airline's flight crew base will close and approximately 500 pilots and flight attendants will bid for trips that originate from other domiciles within the US Airways system. Also with the new schedule, US Airways mainline airport agents and ramp employees will take over customer service and ground-handling duties for 350 US Airways Express employees at wholly owned carrier PSA Airlines, Inc. Those Express employees, along with about 100 US Airways mainline airport employees, will be offered jobs elsewhere throughout the US Airways system.



Even after these flight reductions, US Airways will still fly more flights to more cities from Pittsburgh than any other airline.

10-intuition wrote:


Were those flights full? I wonder if STL can sustain or fill planes for flights to places such as LGW and CDG, but I doubt AA will give us back these trans-atlantic flights. It would be nice if British Airways. Air France, or Lufthansa added flights to STL. Is it possible for them to add flights to STL? Will the passenger loads be enough to sustain flights from these European carriers to STL?:(



Hopefully, AA moves some flights to STL from O'****, since O'**** seems to be adding OB/IB flights for UA and its always too congested. It was said by b777stl that AA is frustrated with the city of Chicago and UA.



At least AA isn't hosing us as bad as what US Airways is doing to Pittsburgh.

The Open Skies Agreement may change things, but St. Louis doesn't have the O/D demand to sustain transatlantic service. There will have to be a substantial shakeup at AA for it to happen. They're going to have to funnel a great deal of connecting traffic through STL to make it work. With ORD being 250 miles from STL, and DFW being 550 miles from STL, it would be reduant to have multiple transatlantic flights originating from an 800 mile "line" in the midwest.

The AA Arrivals board a week ago Friday showed a flight coming in from Shannon. Is there a direct (perhaps not non-stop) SNN-STL flight these days?

American Airlines adds new route from hubs at Chicago, St. Louis



By Ben Mutzabaugh, USATODAY.com



American Airlines added one new route Thursday from each of its Midwestern hub airports.

From Chicago O'Hare, American's regional affiliate American Eagle began daily non-stop service between Chicago O'Hare and New York JFK.



The carrier offers two daily round-trip flights using 44-seat Embraer ERJ-140 jets.



American also flies 10 daily round-trip flights between Chicago O'Hare and New York LaGuardia, and six daily round-trip flights O'Hare and Newark, N.J.



From American's St. Louis hub, AmericanConnection regional partner Trans States Airlines began daily round-trip service to Florida's Sarasota/Bradenton International Airport.



The one daily round-trip flight is flown on 50-seat regional jets.



American also flies non-stop from St. Louis to the Florida cities of Tampa, Miami, Orlando, Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale.

Believe that AA's Shannon service is seasonal, so must have been a charter or something like that. They code share with Aer Lingus.



As far as Sarasota, this is probably seasonal winter service. Not sure if it used to be mainline or not...

STL has no transatlantic service. It was probably a military chartered 757 with a fuel stop in SNN.

The STL-LGW flight originated @ LAX, and stopped in St. Louis with the same flight number (#720, I think)



The only reason that there is a Raleigh-Durham to London non-stop on AA is that one of the big pharma companies has large operations on both ends, and has some kind of revenue guarantee with AA. I don't see too many other scenarios where a trans-atlantic nonstop would make sense from STL - there just isn't enough O+D or connecting traffic these days.

I don't know. I think we could support a STL to London flight. St. Louis and the state of Missouri does more international business with England than any other country.

Why can't foreign carriers operate inside the US? It's like now allowing Toyota or Honda to sell cars domestically and only allowing Ford and GM. We should open our airport up to the world. How about this incentive, no airport fees for international carriers?!





EDITED!

JCity wrote:I don't know. I think we could support a STL to London flight. St. Louis and the state of Missouri does more international business than any other country.

Why can't foreign carriers operate inside the US? It's like now allowing Toyota or Honda to sell cars domestically and only allowing Ford and GM. We should open our airport up to the world. How about this incentive, no airport fees for international carriers?!

ZUH?

St. Louis and the state of Missouri does more international business than any other country.

whoops! meant to say in terms of St. Louis' international business relations, we do more with England than any other country.