urbanSTL

February numbers for BLV

Passengers 
up 9.81% vs Feb 2021
up 12.16% YTD vs 2021

Loads
Punta Gorda 88% (96% outbound)
St. Pete 80.5%
Destin 79%
Orlando 76% (90% outbound)
Fort Lauderdale 66.5%
Vegas 66%
Mesa 65%
Sarasota 63.25%

^Sweet shot of that Quatari C-17. Saw it fly over on FihghtRadar24. Neat looking plane indeed! Glad you were able to do some spotting out there. I should avail myself of one of our other airports more often.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jun 04, 2022

^Sweet shot of that Quatari C-17. Saw it fly over on FihghtRadar24. Neat looking plane indeed! Glad you were able to do some spotting out there. I should avail myself of one of our other airports more often.

I was playing golf over there before I went to BLV and saw it fly over and do a touch and go at the military side. I was really confused thinking it as a passenger aircraft at first due to the paint and how big it was until I looked it up on the tracker.

Then I saw it was parked at BLV when I showed up so that was a nice surprise.

You're making me think I need to take up golf. Let me know if you ever feel like a complete n00b partner to beat up on at, oh, Landings could be nice in a couple of weeks. Or Berry Hill looks like it should always be a great standby. At the moment the Prairies looks good too. Who knew so many NASCAR teams flew? You'd think they'd drive somehow, but I guess not.

Jshank, when are the new gates supposed to be up and operational? Took a flight thru BLV over the Memorial Weekend and there were two planes boarding at the same time (SRQ and VPS). I've been at that airport a few times when that is happening and there were practically no seats available and the concession line was almost out to the TSA area. 

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jun 05, 2022

You're making me think I need to take up golf. Let me know if you ever feel like a complete n00b partner to beat up on at, oh, Landings could be nice in a couple of weeks. Or Berry Hill looks like it should always be a great standby. At the moment the Prairies looks good too. Who knew so many NASCAR teams flew? You'd think they'd drive somehow, but I guess not.

I played berry hill once. It’s pretty good when landings are coming from the west. Although I guess with the runway down those mostly are going to the new runway at the moment.

Any updates on the Metrolink extension to Mid-America?

The last I heard was that the project is expected to be completed by 2024. 

I can't wait to say that St. Louis' transit system will bring you to not one, but two airports. I think it's a major selling point. 

Costs have gone up, some talk of possible 1-2 year delay in hopes of cost coming down but as of today the plan is to start construction at some point this year, 

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2022

The last I heard was that the project is expected to be completed by 2024. 

I can't wait to say that St. Louis' transit system will bring you to not one, but two airports. I think it's a major selling point. 

I just hope Allegiant is smart enough to market something to the County like, "Park at Brentwood Station and your just a short ride from the cheapest air fares in STL." 

Something a lot snazzier than that but you get the point.

RuskiSTL wrote:

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2022

The last I heard was that the project is expected to be completed by 2024. 

I can't wait to say that St. Louis' transit system will bring you to not one, but two airports. I think it's a major selling point. 

I just hope Allegiant is smart enough to market something to the County like, "Park at Brentwood Station and your just a short ride from the cheapest air fares in STL." 

Something a lot snazzier than that but you get the point.

A 1 hour and 16 minute ride to Scott AFB from Brentwood, with a transfer from blue to red lines.

I want your optimism but if county folk aren’t riding MetroLink to Lambert (32 minutes with a transfer)…

^Just move to the city. Problem solved! And if you're on the No. 70 line you should be able to get to either one in about an hour with one transfer. (I'm about an hour from Lambert and I'm darn near at the south end of the No. 70.)

^Oh, I'm just being a wise ass. No worries. You're obviously a lot closer to the airport than me, even though the transit trip works out about the same.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2022

RuskiSTL wrote:

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jun 15, 2022

The last I heard was that the project is expected to be completed by 2024. 

I can't wait to say that St. Louis' transit system will bring you to not one, but two airports. I think it's a major selling point. 

I just hope Allegiant is smart enough to market something to the County like, "Park at Brentwood Station and your just a short ride from the cheapest air fares in STL." 

Something a lot snazzier than that but you get the point.

A 1 hour and 16 minute ride to Scott AFB from Brentwood, with a transfer from blue to red lines.

I want your optimism but if county folk aren’t riding MetroLink to Lambert (32 minutes with a transfer)…

How many flights a day? Wonder how much it would cost Allegiant to run an airport express timed for those couple flights? Definitely wouldn't be worth it, to try to teach Saint Louis County folk to use Metrolink, but an interesting PR exercise. 

You can park right at the MAA Terminal for only $9 a day.  The (in)convenience of loading up the entire fam into the minivan, driving to a free park-and-ride lot, transferring everyone (and their luggage) to MetroLink (and paying for each person's fare), will be a hard sell for most.

Let's say you fly to Florida (a common destination) with 4 people, for 7 days. It'll cost you $63 to park your vehicle for that amount of time. Meanwhile, it'll cost you $20 in fares, round trip, for that same family to ride the MetroLink.  The more people you have, and the shorter the tip, the more cost effective it is to park. The extra $40 to park vs. Metro is probably a drop in the bucket compared to the overall cost of a vacation, and likely well worth the convenience for most travelers.

That being said, I'm still in support of MetroLink connecting more people/places. But I am curious what kind of ridership they'll see once this opens, especially how many trips (if any) are used by travelers to hop from one airport to another for a "connecting" flight.

I also would not be surprised if the project ends up being delayed, based on what I've heard as well.

If Metrolink expands to this airport, I will probably make it a point to take the train to the airport and catch a flight. 

I love the adventure of it all. 

For me it just helps the options of me flying into and out of different airports. I could fly out of STL and back into BLV and just take metro back home, or closer to home where someone could pick me up from a metro stop.  I know that have a shuttle now so I technically could still do it but I don’t want to deal with the shuttle timing.