HNL

DL will soon exit the STL-DCA market.

ksweeney

I suspect that may be related to DL swapping DCA slots in exchange for LGA slots with US. DL is adding a ton of capacity at LGA and doing selective cuts at DCA. I wonder if that will cause AA to go back to MD-80s on STL-DCA?

hockeystl

There is absolutely a correlation.

As far as the latest at STL...well....enter the main terminal through Door 3, 4 or 5. It's been a year and we still get an eye full of plywood as the first impression. And, please, don't give me the "custom glass" excuse for this area

ksweeney

Yeah, the custom glass excuse worked for the large panes in the arches - it doesn't play well with these little entry corridor panels. I suspect that any local STL glass supplier could measure, cut, and install that glass in 24 hours. If you look at the Lambert web site they are very full of themselves bragging on how "quickly" the rebuilding on the C concourse went. I use to leave in Los Angeles and we had disasters there as well (often actually) and I saw entire freeways and hospitals rebuilt in 90 days after the Northridge earthquake. A year to repair the C concourse is not "record" time!

JimboM1391

Does anyone know if the renovations stop at the middle of the C Concourse (where the people movers are up to the old int'l gates) or does it continue all the way down? That end's been empty for quite some time now and I'm just wondering if the airport spent money down there.

ksweeney

There is no visibility to what was done past the moving walkways on C. There is a wall at the upper end of the moving walkways. That said, when construction was in full swing, construction activity was visible the full length of the concourse when taxiing around the C concourse after pushing back from D in the past couple of months. That may have been focused on repairing damage as a opposed implementing the upgrades that have been made to C18 and lower as well as the A concourse. Sadly with AA down to 4 gates on C unless US uses something like 7 gates when they move to C there will still be open gates on C before reaching the new wall at the top of the moving walkway.

abk

I took a quick walk on C before boarding today and noticed a number of the C gates have no jet bridges. In addition to the one(s) Cape Air is using I would say another 4 to 6 are not set up to handle aircraft.

ksweeney

If you added jet bridges to the remaining gates on the part of C that are not walled off, there would only be a couple gates short of the capability to support the American, Frontier, Cape Air, Delta, United, and US Airways. In fact US Airways will be moving to C very soon. There might be significant operating cost savings to the airport by shutting down A and keeping it along with the now empty B and D terminals in standby mode until/if someone decides that STL makes sense as a low operating cost middle of the country hub.

JimboM1391

Moving all operations to C makes complete sense, but as we all know, the City of St. Louis won't see it that way. So, we'll be stuck with what we have until/if another carrier moves in and makes STL its hub. It would be a great airport for JetBlue or another LCC to move in. But who knows... Maybe AA will re-up its presence in the city after the Bankruptcy restructuring.

MrMan

I wouldn't hold my breath with JetBlue. No one IMHO is going to go in and try to take the WN powerhouse down. STL will no longer be a hub airport. Actually St Louis residents may be better off without a hub. Lots of competition with many airlines keeps fares down.

ksweeney

I think that is an excellent point. Not being a hub our fares are low. I travel on both AA and DL out of STL and when comparing notes with my co-workers many of whom live in AA and DL hubs like DFW, CVG, and ATL, my fares with connections are almost always lower than their non-stops. Obviously the down side is increased travel time and risk of missed connections. For example tomorrow I'm leaving STL at 10:50 a.m. and won't arrive in MCO until 6:35 p.m. due to a 2 hour connection at DFW. Upside is that when flying from STL flying is still an adventure

I do miss the TWA days with non-stops seemingly everywhere, but alas Lambert is unlikely to become a hub to anyone in the near future. If the competitive landscape in the airline industry changes, Lambert has incredible advantages as a hub. It is located relatively close the the population center of the country, the new runway allows an excellent capacity for high volume operations, there are plenty of available gates, and I've hear that the airport management is very willing to offer low fees to anyone who will come here. Seems like a natural hub to me!

JimboM1391

Just received an email from the Airport raving about the new concourse...
Here's a link to it: Lambert-St. Louis International

dartagnan

The problem is we do have non-stops, but they're on WN. WN has 5 nonstops to MCO. On a Wednesday. That's pretty good if you want to fly direct, but then you're stuck with RR2.0 and, well, WN.

ksweeney

Every now and then I think about flying WN. I do have great memories of WN before they became too large and impersonal. For a few years when I lived in LA in the early 90s I was one of their top 10 California flyers. They were great for quick hops to Oakland or Las Vegas and did really wonderful customer service events - went to a Lakers game with a great diner hosted by Herb Kelleher. I don't think they do that kind of thing for their customers anymore. It looks like you don't have to fly very many trips to make "A" list, but it's hard to make a switch to WN when you know that you have carriers that will put you in FC. I realize that I would get much of my life back in terms of time on planes and time in intermediate airports by flying WN, but I like Admirals Clubs and Sky Clubs and would hate to give that up. Even the very limited amenity temporary Admirals Club in STL still is an attraction since they definitely recognize loyalty - I think flying may be more emotional than practical

abk

Friday i went to Dallas for the day and to make it work time wise I took WN and I have to say it was efficient and pleasant . I couldn't have pulled it off going into Dfw. Other than the obvious benefit of first class, WN can save you a lot of time on a lot of routes not to mention money.