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PostFeb 22, 2025#8801

dbInSouthCity wrote:
Feb 12, 2025
I have an exciting trip coming up with multiple stops across different time zones. Here’s my itinerary:

Departure:
• March 1: Depart St. Louis (STL) for Chicago. (Overnight stay)
• March 2: Depart Chicago at 9:00 AM for Hawaii, arriving at 2:45 PM. I’ll have a one-night layover in Hawaii.
• March 3: Depart Hawaii for Majuro, Marshall Islands.
• March 4: Due to crossing the International Date Line, it will now be March 4 when I arrive in Majuro.
• At Majuro, all passengers deplane.
• A select few of us, who have permission, will continue to Kwajalein Atoll, arriving at 1:00 PM (Tuesday, March 4).

Return Trip (Six Legs):
• March 7 (Friday): Depart Kwajalein on the same island hopper that originally brought me in. The flight makes stops at:
• Kosrae
• Pohnpei
• Truuk
• Guam (overnight stay)
• March 8 (Saturday): Depart Guam for Honolulu and fly into March 7th.
• From Honolulu, I fly to Chicago on a redeye back to March 8th, and then finally back to St. Louis (STL), arriving at 12:12 PM on Saturday, March 8.

Return legs below.  The 3 small island hops are quick 40 min layover at each
Honolulu - Guam is a domestic flight. When you board your United flight in Guam to return to Honolulu, you'll be boarding a domestic flight over 5,800 miles SW of LA.

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PostFeb 22, 2025#8802

https://www.wthr.com/article/money/indi ... 280e6669b2

If Indianapolis can get an on-site premium hotel, surely Lambert can.

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk


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PostFeb 23, 2025#8803

^They're going to have an empty terminal with a good connection that could be made to be either landside or airside easily enough.

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PostFeb 23, 2025#8804

matguy70 wrote:
Feb 20, 2025
chris fuller wrote:
Feb 19, 2025
Southwest Airlines Ends 50 Years of ‘Heart’: Employees Say ‘This Company Will Never Recover’
The “heart” of Southwest Airlines died today, with the company’s first layoffs in corporate history.
https://viewfromthewing.com/southwest-airlines-ends-50-years-of-heart-employees-say-this-company-will-never-recover/?utm_source=BoardingArea&utm_medium=facebook
......says the company employees that just were laid off.  

The airline industry is just not stable right now.  No jobs are stable under the new Federal administration, especially transportation and airline industry.

These employees also retained their high paying jobs during Covid because SWA didn't lay them off.
I worked for a company for 15 years with no layoffs, because management worked hard to anticipate staffing needs and used normal retirements and attrition to smooth the shortfalls.  So when I hear of layoffs, I assume it is almost always the failure of management to correctly forecast, and/or failing to do the difficult task of evaluating, re-training, re-assigning and smoothing personnel to avoid layoffs.  When a meat axe approach is used, the lazy incompetent management who implements this approach should be let go first.  Can AI fix bad management?

PostFeb 23, 2025#8805

dbInSouthCity wrote:
Feb 12, 2025
I have an exciting trip coming up with multiple stops across different time zones. Here’s my itinerary:

Departure:
• March 1: Depart St. Louis (STL) for Chicago. (Overnight stay)
• March 2: Depart Chicago at 9:00 AM for Hawaii, arriving at 2:45 PM. I’ll have a one-night layover in Hawaii.
• March 3: Depart Hawaii for Majuro, Marshall Islands.
• March 4: Due to crossing the International Date Line, it will now be March 4 when I arrive in Majuro.
• At Majuro, all passengers deplane.
• A select few of us, who have permission, will continue to Kwajalein Atoll, arriving at 1:00 PM (Tuesday, March 4).

Return Trip (Six Legs):
• March 7 (Friday): Depart Kwajalein on the same island hopper that originally brought me in. The flight makes stops at:
• Kosrae
• Pohnpei
• Truuk
• Guam (overnight stay)
• March 8 (Saturday): Depart Guam for Honolulu and fly into March 7th.
• From Honolulu, I fly to Chicago on a redeye back to March 8th, and then finally back to St. Louis (STL), arriving at 12:12 PM on Saturday, March 8.

Return legs below.  The 3 small island hops are quick 40 min layover at each
Wow.  When I fly a long ways, I want to stay a month to justify all the flight grief.  Especially if it's winter here and summer there.  Good luck.

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PostFeb 23, 2025#8806

symphonicpoet wrote:
Feb 23, 2025
^They're going to have an empty terminal with a good connection that could be made to be either landside or airside easily enough.
Agree, 

They also could come up with a legit master plan that anticipates demolition of current T2 terminal facilities once new single concourse is up & running and with new metrolink stations(s) geared towards western extension, new top tier hotel airport, consolidated rental car & additional on site parking all interconnected by simple automated people mover that could easily handle 5 minute or less headways .    Time to think at least like your a tier 2 city instead of what will keep St. Louis tier 3 city at best.    Just for fun and giggles do the same for the underwhelming downtown Amtrak station as well as part of a greater connectivity plan.    

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PostMar 17, 2025#8807

December International loads
LH Frankfurt 90.9%
Southwest Cancun 83.5%
AC Toronto 76%
Southwest Cabo 71.7%
Frontier Cancun 66.4%
Frontier PUJ 64.6%
AA Cancun 55.1%

Full year International
Southwest Punta Cana 94.2%
Southwest Cancun 89.1%
Southwest Montego Bay 88.6%
LH Frankfurt 85% (81% in 2023)
Southwest Cabo 82.5%
Frontier Cancun 74.5%
AC Toronto 74.3%
AC Montreal 74%
Frontier Punta Cana 73.7%
AA Cancun 63.4%
Frontier Montego Bay 32.2%

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PostMar 19, 2025#8808

No wonder Lufthansa wants to add more frequency!
We love that FRA flight. My sister's father n law will fly STL-FRA-TLV Home this weekend.

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PostMar 19, 2025#8809

The non stop component is nice, but I just tried to book today many weeks out and the cost for “economy lite” (no bags included, no assigned seat and $300 addl charge to rebook) was more than Delta Comfort class with a short layover in Detroit. I’ll eat the 3 hours of added travel time personally but great to see this route with such demand.

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PostMar 19, 2025#8810


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PostMar 19, 2025#8811

FWIW, booked Lufthansa today for ITFS (Stuttgart) first week of May.

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PostMar 19, 2025#8812

Not an aviation expert, just an enthusiast.  Different here is we have the main Canadian airline (Air Canada) and the ones mostly referred to in the article are more leisure / economy travel.  I preface my next comment that I don't wish livelihood risk to Americans, but I DO hope there is some realization these significant crazy actions impact US consumers and as a result the volatility of these antics are reduced.    I think it is in another thread, but we do need to have some global respect to compete in a global market.  Some of the antics are not much short of bullying simply to throw weight around.

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PostMar 19, 2025#8813

https://crankyflier.com/2025/03/18/with ... e-network/
With Southwest’s Big Change, It’s Time to Rethink the Network


There are five markets that are both big and where Southwest has a significant schedule advantage over the rest:
  • Austin
  • Las Vegas
  • Nashville
  • Orlando
  • St Louis
These are all good markets for the airline, though to me it’s Austin and Nashville that are the real long-term opportunities for future growth and dominance. Las Vegas falls in the same boat, but that’s more as an origin since most other airlines treat Vegas as a destination. It’s still a big city, and Southwest is the airline that caters to people there. That’s similar to Orlando, but I think of Orlando as a tougher market competitively. Then there’s St Louis.

St Louis may not be a huge growth market, but there may be some opportunity, especially if the airline tries to route connections through there more than Midway as it continues to build hubs. (I know, I know, I sound like AA management after buying TWA.) Also, this is the kind of market that’s the backbone of what makes Southwest work. It is a good-sized city that Southwest quickly moved to dominate when the old hub carrier left. Kansas City, though a little smaller, falls into that same bucket, and there are many other cities in red, big and small, from there to the south and west that Southwest will want to rely on.

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PostMar 20, 2025#8814

^I am really curious what this will mean for us. I think it was a mistake, but now that they've made it can they unmake it, or will they have to go all in to survive? (Which will probably mean trying to grow international, partnerships, and . . . one or more new types.) This feels alarmingly similar to Icahn taking over TWA and completely screwing up the company. On the other hand, a weaker southwest leaves us up for grabs from some other player if they want to make the move. On the other other hand, if Trump really does tank the economy as he seems so hell bent on doing then nobody is flying anywhere and we go back to being a backwater with poor connectivity as everyone will have excess capacity at their existing hubs. Again. Right after we start a big expansion project. Again.

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PostMar 20, 2025#8815

symphonicpoet wrote:^I am really curious what this will mean for us. I think it was a mistake, but now that they've made it can they unmake it, or will they have to go all in to survive? (Which will probably mean trying to grow international, partnerships, and . . . one or more new types.) This feels alarmingly similar to Icahn taking over TWA and completely screwing up the company. On the other hand, a weaker southwest leaves us up for grabs from some other player if they want to make the move. On the other other hand, if Trump really does tank the economy as he seems so hell bent on doing then nobody is flying anywhere and we go back to being a backwater with poor connectivity as everyone will have excess capacity at their existing hubs. Again. Right after we start a big expansion project. Again.
If the economy tanks this year, unlikely the new terminal gets off the ground next.

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PostMar 20, 2025#8816

If the economy tanks this year, unlikely the new terminal gets off the ground next.
The US Federal Reserve made a sharp downward revision in its forecast for US economic growth this year at its meeting yesterday amid what chair Jerome Powell referred to as “high uncertainty” surrounding the effect of the economic policies of the Trump administration. 

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PostMar 20, 2025#8817

if the economy tanks this year, its even more likely this happens.  Better rates on money will be had, and you're building for something that will be operational at end of the decade and the other side of the recession 

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PostMar 20, 2025#8818

Reuters - Germany updates US travel advice after citizens detained


https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ge ... 025-03-19/

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PostMar 21, 2025#8819

ldai_phs wrote:
Mar 20, 2025
symphonicpoet wrote:^I am really curious what this will mean for us. I think it was a mistake, but now that they've made it can they unmake it, or will they have to go all in to survive? (Which will probably mean trying to grow international, partnerships, and . . . one or more new types.) This feels alarmingly similar to Icahn taking over TWA and completely screwing up the company. On the other hand, a weaker southwest leaves us up for grabs from some other player if they want to make the move. On the other other hand, if Trump really does tank the economy as he seems so hell bent on doing then nobody is flying anywhere and we go back to being a backwater with poor connectivity as everyone will have excess capacity at their existing hubs. Again. Right after we start a big expansion project. Again.
If the economy tanks this year, unlikely the new terminal gets off the ground next.
They need the terminal regardless. T1 is barely holding itself together. Worst case is they cut some gates. But they are building for the 2030s not 2020s. So I’m not sure a downturn over the next year or so should impact their long term outlook.

PostMar 21, 2025#8820

A couple notes on this. The airline that cut Nashville is a ULCC leisure airline. I would also think Nashville have much more leisure from Canada than we do. I’m guessing leisure travelers are going to be the first one to jump ship. So I would think we would be impacted less. Not to say they won’t cut back seats here, which they already have, but I don’t think it will have the same impact as it will on Nashville.

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PostMar 21, 2025#8821

Yep, Lambert's Terminal project is long overdue consolidation and replacement of old outdated facilities.   A very different situation then a phased expansion based on future traffic growth. 

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PostMar 25, 2025#8822

Not to mention Nashville is one of the reddest major cities in one of the reddest states. I can understand it being an early casualty.

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PostMar 25, 2025#8823


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PostMar 25, 2025#8824

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote:
Mar 25, 2025
Not to mention Nashville is one of the reddest major cities in one of the reddest states. I can understand it being an early casualty.
Davidson county is more blue then STL county

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PostMar 26, 2025#8825

Spirit is starting new nonstop service from STL to Detroit starting August 14th. It will run 4x a week. Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday.

Not one I had on my bingo card

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