US intends to offer 3 daily flights from MEM to DCA. They're on CR2s, which sounds like a hellish 750 mile flight to me, but it's nice to have the service.

Is this good news or bad news for MEM? It could mean competition on the MEM-DCA flights, but it might also signal that Delta intends to drop the route. Does anyone know?

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news...s-memphis-rea/

I used to be MEM based and have always loved the MEM airport. I flew back into MEM for the holidays, and I had never seen the airport so dead. There were, literally, 3 arriving flights on a Saturday. It was like a scene from the Langoliers. Then, leaving on a Friday, there were more flights listed on the board (not many, but more), but there was not a single person in the TSA line. I walked right up and through. That had never happened to me before.

It has me very worried for the future of MEM. It seems to me that all of DL's cuts are a self-fulfilling prophecy. DL cuts a flight, leading to less traffic, leading to fewer passengers and emptier flights, and ultimately to even more cuts. (Meanwhile ATL just gets worse and worse to go through every week.) Now fares to/from MEM are sky-high, and the local paper has run articles about how high airfaire is leading companies to leave and driving away convention business. It's a real mess.

(One bright spot: a Moe's Southwestern Grill has opened where the Einstein Bagels used to be in Terminal C. Who knows if it will survive, but it's good to see a food addition after so many stores have closed shop in the last year.)