urbanSTL

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

imperialmog wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

dabeags wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

I agree with your point about needing more/better amenities in T2, but you must have really not been paying attention or looking very hard. There is a Chilis and a Vino Vino basically right across from the Food court area with the Dunkin Doughnuts. Then on either end of the main terminal there are Tap houses type places. So I think like 6 sit down type restaurants, if not more.

I think the reference was referring to situation in LGA. Thankfully here they have been doing a good job keeping up with this. This is doubly important as connection traffic in T2 increases.

Yes, I was referring to LGA. I am mostly happy with our Southwest Terminal here. They have been doing a good job lately adding things. I would almost argue here its the opposite and they don't have enough fast options. They have a decent amount of sit down places, including the Three Kings that is coming I am excited about. Burger King is the only fast food. I would love to see a Wendy's or something else like that added also. With all the short connections I am surprised they haven't put more in.

Whoops my bad! Yeah, the LGA terminal is terrible, didn't realize just how bad until I was in Delta's there this past summer.

New Starbucks at E29 opens tomorrow

Also- St. Louis Lambert International Airport officials expect to see a 7 percent increase in departing passengers over the 10-day period Nov. 17-26.

Connecting passengers — those who have already cleared security at their originating airports and are connecting through Lambert — is about 30 percent ahead of last year at this point, officials said. Connecting traffic through the first nine months of 2017 saw an increase of 253,000 passengers over the same period last year.

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... rease.html

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

^My issue with the Southwest concourse is there were basically no amenities so once you past security. We were a little early and wanted to get lunch and a beer at more of a normal sit down restaurant/bar and there weren't any. I think there was a Dunkin Donuts then just a bunch of kiosks if I remember correctly. I don't remember anything that had tables. By your post there must have been a coffee shop but I don't drink coffee so I wasn't really looking for that, so I probably bypassed it. Maybe they added something since I have been there last, but I was not impressed for an airport of that size.

I called it a coffee shop, but it was a full service restaurant with (hi top) tables and a full menu. It's casual feeling, but they appeared to have standard fare. And beer. My bad. It's really not a coffee shop at all in the Seattle sense. It's New York. They have coffee. But that's just normal. Call it a restaurant. That's probably closer. Might be the only place in B with tables. But it's not busy, so it's all okay. Next time you're in there give it a shot. (I wasn't looking for coffee. I was looking for a quiet place to sit and relax. But they had coffee, so I got some. Since I always do. Ignore that part.)

In terms of fast/casual at T-2 there's also a combined Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins. And an Auntie Ann's apparently, if that counts. I didn't feel it really lacked anything.

Anyway . . . great news!

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2017

Call it a restaurant. That's probably closer. Might be the only place in B with tables. But it's not busy, so it's all okay. Next time you're in there give it a shot.

Thanks for the tips. I'll check it out next time!

Anyone hear anything few years back where Lambert, Spirit and Mid America were going to be packaged and put under Bi-State control? Slay and Dooley were on board but Kern killed it? anyone know what the point was?

I believe the region at the time wanted to form an airport authority (i.e. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey or the Metropolitan Airports Commission - Minneapolis-Saint Paul) to manage the success of the region's airport assets -- St. Louis-Lambert International Airport, Spirit Airport, MidAmerica Airport and even the St. Louis Downtown Airport (which Bi-State Development currently owns and operates). That airport authority would possibly be managed by Bi-State Development as it has the authority to implement change on both sides of the river. I'm am unaware of any movement beyond the notion at this point.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2017

Anyone hear anything few years back where Lambert, Spirit and Mid America were going to be packaged and put under Bi-State control? Slay and Dooley were on board but Kern killed it? anyone know what the point was?

Chalupas54 wrote: ↑

Nov 13, 2017

It's interesting to see the response many aviation bloggers have said in regards to the new MCI. Virtually all have said STL will take a "substantial" or "significant" hit from it. If Greg or JAL007 are still here, I would be interested to get your perspective on it.

Some of the comments I have read address that Southwest "has no ties to the St Louis market".

EDIT:

No need for alarm on this post. I found the article in question.
http://crankyflier.com/2017/11/09/with- ... nsas-city/

Feel free to read and leave your impression.

A bit late, but my sense is whatever happens at MCI will have minimal to ZERO impact on STL. As it is WN has a very loyal following at Lambert and in STL, their product and brand resonates with locals and they've been able to maintain a good balance of local origination with connecting flows. The biggest positive force for Lambert has been the availability of facilities to expand and the fact that MDW is maxed out. There may be some adjustments, but that would likely depend on other factors in WN's system at the time more than anything else. WN management is conservative and is known to exit unprofitable markets and markets that don't produce the volumes their relatively high costs require to bring down unit costs to a suitable level. That's why they have exited FL markets like CAK, FNT, etc plus some old WN markets like JAN.

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

imperialmog wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

dabeags wrote: ↑

Nov 17, 2017

I agree with your point about needing more/better amenities in T2, but you must have really not been paying attention or looking very hard. There is a Chilis and a Vino Vino basically right across from the Food court area with the Dunkin Doughnuts. Then on either end of the main terminal there are Tap houses type places. So I think like 6 sit down type restaurants, if not more.

I think the reference was referring to situation in LGA. Thankfully here they have been doing a good job keeping up with this. This is doubly important as connection traffic in T2 increases.

Yes, I was referring to LGA. I am mostly happy with our Southwest Terminal here. They have been doing a good job lately adding things. I would almost argue here its the opposite and they don't have enough fast options. They have a decent amount of sit down places, including the Three Kings that is coming I am excited about. Burger King is the only fast food. I would love to see a Wendy's or something else like that added also. With all the short connections I am surprised they haven't put more in.

Wish they would go all local. Lions Choice > Burger King. Kaldi's > Starbucks. Bread Co > Dunkin.

I saw it mentioned on twitter they are using runway 6/24 a bunch today. You don't see that often. Looks like all the landings are at least by looking at flight aware.

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Nov 20, 2017

I saw it mentioned on twitter they are using runway 6/24 a bunch today. You don't see that often. Looks like all the landings are at least by looking at flight aware.

I saw that. I almost tried to get out to see if I could get some shots from a different perspective, but by the time I would have gotten there they were back to normal operations. Still, interesting to see. I'm wondering if the wind was coming from a funny and unusually southwesterly direction, but that's strictly a guess. Would be interested to hear the actual reason from someone in the know.

Winds were out of the SSW up to 20mph yesterday.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/ai ... story.html

Sun Country plane on its way to town. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SCX8143 Some kind of charter I would assume but something different for any of you up that way today. Looks like it goes on to midway after here.

gregl wrote: ↑

Nov 21, 2017

Winds were out of the SSW up to 20mph yesterday.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/ai ... story.html

That makes sense. That'd be a nasty crosswind for any of the other runways.

Trololzilla wrote: ↑

Nov 22, 2017

Only tangentially related to the airport, but I saw yesterday in the RFT that India Palace is moving to a location in Maryland Heights, which is unfortunate as I understand it to be one of the better places to plane spot at Lambert. Are there any other places as good for a view of the airport?

I have sat at the Berry Hill Golf course and watched. It is okay, kind of far away but the planes come right over you. You can't see the new runway though.

Plane related.

While digging around in old satellite imagery I found a classic Southwest right over 64 at the Foundary. March of 2004.

Thought fellow airport/plane nerd would enjoy.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

^Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

Jeff

P.S. Any other plane nerds like me enjoying the “Planes Live” app? Fun to identify what is flying over me

dweebe wrote: ↑

Nov 24, 2017

My wife said she landed on it one time coming from MSP. She has no problem flying and she said it kinda freaked her out when she saw the approach they were taking.

I've also wondered what the situation is to use them?

I assume it is only when they would have really strong cross winds/gusts on their normal runways. Greg mentioned they winds were are 20 mph from the SW that day. That is about the only reason unless they are working on a runway or something.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Nov 24, 2017

I've also wondered what the situation is to use them?

Strong SSW or NNE winds is the only reason 6/24 would be used. We have enough capacity in the typical wind directions that 6/24 would not be needed even if a runway was out of service.

So I had some free time today and wrote out the Southwest schedule in my city breakdown spreadsheet. I didn't update all the airlines because the legacy ones still change their schedules around when it gets closer to June so disregard those. I will update them when we get into March or April.

I was mainly curious as to where the Sunday adds were since we will now have more Southwest departures on Sunday than the weekdays. Saturday departures are way up also (20 more than the last few months). I didn't do this last summer so I can't compare it to last summer by city pair. I know we were at 110 daily last summer during the week (not sure what Saturday and Sunday were) and it is 115 in 2018 summer. I would guess Sundays last summer were in the 105 range. Sundays will be 119 in Summer 2018.

Cities that have higher Sunday than M-F. They are all one more than M-F

BWI (5 on Sunday)
CLE (3 on Sunday)
DEN (6 on Sunday)
DTW (3 on Sunday)
RSW (2 on Sunday) 3 on Saturday
LAS (5 on Sunday)
MSY (3 on Sunday)
MCO (3 on Sunday and Saturday)
PHL (3 on Sunday)
PIT (2 on Sunday)
PHX (4 on Sunday)

Other notes
ECP 2 flights on Saturday (1 m-f)
TPA 4 flights on Saturday (2 m-f)
SAN 3 flights on Saturday (2 m-f)

This will put Southwest at 791 weekly flights from STL for summer. That will be 94 more weekly than they had last month in October.

^ Shows the bad September numbers seemed to have been completely related to the hurricanes in Florida and Texas messing up operations for everyone and a lot more canceled flights. Wonder if some numbers were still dampened in October?

Also of note this number may look better than thought since its the first month after the large fleet retirement by Southwest. The next few months will have some lower traffic than otherwise would happen due to this issue.

Flew through T2 last Thursday.

I have never seen STL so busy.