urbanSTL

^I think there's at least a few differences between Premium Select and Comfort+. Maybe not a big deal. But they also give you a fancy cocktail, and serve you on actual plates with real utensils. Is it worth the difference in cost? Probably not. But I personally think a more comfortable seat alone is well worth the investment. (Especially on trans-Pac.) So the rest is just gravy.

Anyone with some insights on a realistic timeline on replacing Terminal 1 concourse(s)?

Asked because DOT just handed out first round of $1 billion in airport grants as part of the infrastructure program for gate side improvements.  $5 billion program over 5 years.   The first round had a lot of small ball and small grant awards to get to the $1 billion.   But Lambert seems like an ideal candidate to snag future rounds but not sure how it matches with current timeline, plan, or even what it could reasonable expect.  I don't believe their was a grant over $100 million on first round.  

dredger wrote: ↑

Jul 22, 2022

Anyone with some insights on a realistic timeline on replacing Terminal 1 concourse(s)?

Asked because DOT just handed out first round of $1 billion in airport grants as part of the infrastructure program for gate side improvements.  $5 billion program over 5 years.   The first round had a lot of small ball and small grant awards to get to the $1 billion.   But Lambert seems like an ideal candidate to snag future rounds but not sure how it matches with current timeline, plan, or even what it could reasonable expect.  I don't believe their was a grant over $100 million on first round.  

They mentioned wanting to get some but I don’t think they are to that point yet. I assume they need an actual actionable plan to get money. So I’d say at least a other year. If they need buy in from all parties then 2 or 3 more years

Any speculation on what the JetBlue-Spirit acquisition has on the future operations at STL? AFAIK, JetBlue and Spirit aren't really direct competitors, so routes that are currently Spirit only wouldn't necessarily translate to the JetBlue model.   

https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/11142260 ... eal-merger

I’m happy JetBlue won that process. The times I’ve flown on them, I’m impressed by them (free seat selection, free carry-on, free snacks and free WiFi are all good things to me). Their staff has always been friendly too. The same can’t be said about American Airlines.

Frontier will grow organically as people will continue flying on them even if I strongly disagree with their model of having base fares that you then have to pay for literally everything else. Maybe Frontier will have better luck getting Allegiant or newcomer Avelo.

^I saw some interesting speculation that the only thing JetBlue really needs from Spirit is slots. They've apparently been trying to market their business class with little success, since they have so few slots out west. This really doesn't look like an ideal solution from that standpoint, but . . . I'm really not sure who else they could buy. If that's really what they want I'd expect to see them trim Spirit's thinner routes so they can double down on transcontinental business traffic.

But even if it's not I don't see how this really helps St. Louis. I don't get the impression they're really hurting for a mid-continent hub.

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Jul 29, 2022

Even if they were and they wanted a level of exclusivity to the hub, they might opt instead for MCI (KC) because they already have a presence there and the new terminal on the way.

And a metro that has 400,000 less potential customers

dbInSouthCity wrote:

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Jul 29, 2022

Even if they were and they wanted a level of exclusivity to the hub, they might opt instead for MCI (KC) because they already have a presence there and the new terminal on the way.

And a metro that has 400,000 less potential customers

I don’t know if KC is the best place for a B6 hub but one of its benefit is a larger catchment area.

B6’s closest competitor post-merger will be Southwest. I can see a strong argument for and against copying your biggest competitor. I can also see why you wouldn’t want to launch a hub in your competitor’s den right as your competitor is leading the construction of a mega project there.

I think the gap in population is closer to 600,000. 

In any case, St. Louis is going to have a much larger airport after both cities complete their new airport processes. 

It is estimated the Lambert project is going to be around $3 billion. The KC project is significantly smaller and cheaper. I think $1.5 billion. 

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Jul 29, 2022

^I saw some interesting speculation that the only thing JetBlue really needs from Spirit is slots. They've apparently been trying to market their business class with little success, since they have so few slots out west. This really doesn't look like an ideal solution from that standpoint, but . . . I'm really not sure who else they could buy. If that's really what they want I'd expect to see them trim Spirit's thinner routes so they can double down on transcontinental business traffic.

But even if it's not I don't see how this really helps St. Louis. I don't get the impression they're really hurting for a mid-continent hub.

I’d be curious where they are doing this for slots. No place our west has slots besides SNA (in a round about way). Maybe they get gates at LAX?

I saw somewhere they are going to sell all Spirts slots at LGA and give up Spirits gates at Boston to help keep the AA/JetBlue alliance there intact. But I haven’t verified this.

It still doesn’t make a ton of sense to me what JetBlue is going for with it.

I don’t think they make much of an impact here. Will probably keep Vegas/Orlando/Fort Lauderdale/LAX, add JFK. That might be it.

I can see how the discussion of a JetBlue hub started, but I'm just happy they're going to get rid of that junkhole Spirit. Both the STL and KC airports do a fair amount of business for their size. Both should be able to maintain their sizes and grow slightly overtime. In my view, there's no need to be overkill when we have close(r) proximity to Chicago, Nashville and Denver.

Funnily, throughout the whole JetBlue-Spirit-Frontier acquisition drama, the one thing I kept hearing with regards to JetBlue's intentions behind acquiring Spirit was not really about routes as it was mostly about the fleet size and the aircrafts. By most accounts, Spirit does have the youngest fleet of any non-regional airline and I think they have orders for delivery on a number of Airbus aircrafts to cope with their expansion plans so to JetBlue, what better way to jump from sixth or seventh place currently to fifth place post-merger in terms of fleet size. In the long run, it will definitely play into a larger national/continental expansion strategy, but I can't really believe that it was the routes that JetBlue was after. 

I'm guessing that in the short term, JetBlue may retrofit or gut the seating arrangements of the Spirit fleet to fall in line with the current JetBlue seating model, paint over the Spirit livery and roll these newer planes out in their existing routes while coming up with an expansion strategy. Would anyone on here know what the average age of JetBlue's fleet is currently?

AJ1289 wrote: ↑

Jul 29, 2022

Funnily, throughout the whole JetBlue-Spirit-Frontier acquisition drama, the one thing I kept hearing with regards to JetBlue's intentions behind acquiring Spirit was not really about routes as it was mostly about the fleet size and the aircrafts. By most accounts, Spirit does have the youngest fleet of any non-regional airline and I think they have orders for delivery on a number of Airbus aircrafts to cope with their expansion plans so to JetBlue, what better way to jump from sixth or seventh place currently to fifth place post-merger in terms of fleet size. In the long run, it will definitely play into a larger national/continental expansion strategy, but I can't really believe that it was the routes that JetBlue was after. 

I'm guessing that in the short term, JetBlue may retrofit or gut the seating arrangements of the Spirit fleet to fall in line with the current JetBlue seating model, paint over the Spirit livery and roll these newer planes out in their existing routes while coming up with an expansion strategy. Would anyone on here know what the average age of JetBlue's fleet is currently?

100% agree it’s about fleet and more importantly pilots. But that said I’m not sure they needed to pay this much money and go this route to do it all in one big swoop. I’m not sure long term it’s the best move financially.

They definitely will gut and repaint all spirits jets to match JetBlue. I’m guessing they keep the brands separate for a bit until they transition enough over that they can drop the spirit name/setup.

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Jul 29, 2022

I’d be curious where they are doing this for slots. No place our west has slots besides SNA (in a round about way). Maybe they get gates at LAX?

I saw somewhere they are going to sell all Spirts slots at LGA and give up Spirits gates at Boston to help keep the AA/JetBlue alliance there intact. But I haven’t verified this.

It still doesn’t make a ton of sense to me what JetBlue is going for with it.

I don’t think they make much of an impact here. Will probably keep Vegas/Orlando/Fort Lauderdale/LAX, add JFK. That might be it.

Mind you, this is from a YouTube aviation video, so take it with a grain of salt, but the explanation was precisely those LAX slots. Spirit seems to have quite a lot more of them than JetBlue and they want them to expand business service from New York. The implication in the video was that they're overpaying for the few slots they do have, since the only available gates were widebodies. I'm trying to find LAX gate assignments, but so far it's defeating my Google Fu. That said, the only JetBlue aircraft on the ground in the GMaps photo is indeed at a widebody gate. Surrounded by Spirit aircraft of the same type at smaller and presumably cheaper gates.

So far as I can tell JB departs entirely out of T5, right alongside Spirit. (LAX's own website seems to verify this.) Just going off the imagery, which is incomplete and perilous, Spirit appears to have access to at least four narrowbody gates. Two others appear closed for construction, but they are both adjacent to Spirit. Two others are open and adjacent to American. There are two empty gates next to JetBlue's lonely little A320 at the end of the terminal. And both appear to be widebody gates. JetBlue may well be paying through the nose for perhaps three gates when their latest acquisition might have as many as six locked up. $3.8B is a lot for a few gates, but if that's what they need to make their business class a success . . . maybe it's worth it? They apparently got scooped badly when Alaska outbid them for Virgin America.

Anyway, take all of that with a grain of salt. The planes certainly won't hurt anything, and they'll fit into their fleet perfectly, once the cabins are redone. And extra pilots are absolutely at a premium right now, so that's doubtless also smart. But if they really have invested so heavily in upping their business class game, and that really does make sense, given how much that drives profits, I can almost believe the gate thing. Maybe.

Got an email from Lufthansa telling me to call them asap because they made a change to my flights. So I call and they said my 6:00am from Zagreb to Frankfurt is now at 2:40pm, on it’s face that’s fine but my Frankfurt to STL is at 10:40am. So they’re like what do you want to do?
Me: not miss my flight home?
Long story short I’ll be going to Frankfurt from Zagreb at 6:00pm the day before, annoying change but This way I get a night at Frankfurt that I didn’t plan but wanted

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Jul 30, 2022

AJ1289 wrote: ↑

Jul 29, 2022

Funnily, throughout the whole JetBlue-Spirit-Frontier acquisition drama, the one thing I kept hearing with regards to JetBlue's intentions behind acquiring Spirit was not really about routes as it was mostly about the fleet size and the aircrafts. By most accounts, Spirit does have the youngest fleet of any non-regional airline and I think they have orders for delivery on a number of Airbus aircrafts to cope with their expansion plans so to JetBlue, what better way to jump from sixth or seventh place currently to fifth place post-merger in terms of fleet size. In the long run, it will definitely play into a larger national/continental expansion strategy, but I can't really believe that it was the routes that JetBlue was after. 

I'm guessing that in the short term, JetBlue may retrofit or gut the seating arrangements of the Spirit fleet to fall in line with the current JetBlue seating model, paint over the Spirit livery and roll these newer planes out in their existing routes while coming up with an expansion strategy. Would anyone on here know what the average age of JetBlue's fleet is currently?

100% agree it’s about fleet and more importantly pilots. But that said I’m not sure they needed to pay this much money and go this route to do it all in one big swoop. I’m not sure long term it’s the best move financially.

They definitely will gut and repaint all spirits jets to match JetBlue. I’m guessing they keep the brands separate for a bit until they transition enough over that they can drop the spirit name/setup.

Oh 100%! They spent waayyy too much for this acquisition and that too at a time when the airline industry is strained beyond comfort. I'm sure the possibility of losing this deal out to a "lesser" competitor in Frontier probably spurred them on to put an overpriced bid on the table, but no matter which way you look at it, JetBlue spent way above to get Spirit. I'm hopeful that it'll all even itself out with a larger national network in the long run so that it all makes fiscal sense, but only time will tell. 

My JFK-CLT flight is delayed such that I miss my STL flight. Once again a STL-JFK flight would be nice.

Not 100% sure what that means but it sounds like STL is getting more money for CBP agents. Frontier sponsored it so I don’t know if they plan to pick up more routes, maybe apple vacation ones or if it is nothing.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-m ... services-8

I wonder when United will restart their flight from SFO and if it will drop prices on that route for the holidays.

captainjackass wrote: ↑

Aug 05, 2022

I wonder when United will restart their flight from SFO and if it will drop prices on that route for the holidays.

Right now it’s scheduled to start the first week of January. But it could always get pushed.