Columbus CMH - no SkyClub
 

I'm really surprised that Delta doesn't have a Sky Club in Columbus. Especially considering the fact that Columbus is the second-biggest city in the Midwest, beyond only Chicago. Yes, I realize Columbus isn't a hub -- it isn't a hub for any airline -- but it's amazing there isn't a Delta lounge, let alone a Priority Pass lounge.

Stepping off the soapbox now.

City size is not a very important metric for airlines. Catchment area is a far more important metric and the Columbus catchment is likely somewhat smaller than Cleveland (which also has no Sky Club).

There really isn't any space for any lounge even if DL wanted to put one there. The concourse that DL uses is pretty small and is not connected to either of the other two post security.

Population has nothing (or little to do with it). Question is what is the market for a SC? How many people willing to pay for a membership, pay a CC fee, or fly D1?

When America West announced the end of its Columbus hub it had 49 flights a day to 15 destinations from CMH. That's very small by today's definition of a hub.

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus...10/daily5.html

This is misleading. You really need to consider the size of the metro area, not just the city. When you do Columbus drops down to 8, and it's smaller than both Cleveland and Cincinnati.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...opolitan_areas

There is space in a vacant upper level closed restuarant. Maybe if Delta and CMH can come to agreement on an AMS flight a Skyclub would follow.

My biggest complaint about CMH and Delta is they make you walk past all these unused gates to get to the farthest gate (C56) to get your flight. I think they do it so you have to walk past all the stores and the airport gets more rent. They are the biggest airline in the C concourse and they should have gates closest to security.

Is it possible that the gates they use are better for operational reasons?

Regardless of how you split hairs, Columbus is the biggest city in Ohio and is the second biggest in the Midwest. I can't think of another city with 800,000-plus people without a Sky Club. Plus, you have Fortune 500 companies in or near Columbus on top of one of the biggest public universities in the country.

Just seems odd not to have even a Priority Pass lounge.

Umm PIT, just 2-hours away, does not have a SkyClub...and it had the PIT-CDG flight for a decade. It is also a very similar sized operation to CMH (if not a bit larger). I personally have never even wished that PIT have a SkyClub as I never spend any large amount of time there. Like CMH, it is a quick and-and-out for O&D traffic with no one loafing around for connections like in the hubs. PIT does have a new Priority Pass lounge though that, once again, I have never had the need to use.

For an even larger operation, look at BWI with no SkyClub (granted, not in the Midwest...but I am not sure how that fits into your metric)

I also don't consider it to be "splitting hairs" to call CVG and CLE larger populations...because they are. CMH, IND, BNA, etc have all annexed their suburbs to become much larger geographically. PIT, on the other hand, still has the same borders from 1907 I believe. Therefore, in the "city" of Pittsburgh, the population is only 300,000 people with it's relatively tiny geographic footprint. We all know there is not more than double the amount of people that fly out of CMH vs PIT. The catchment area (i.e. people who identify "Pittsburgh" as their home airport) for PIT is somewhere between 2.5 and 4 million people...which would make it quite a bit bigger than CMH. ;)

It's not splitting hairs to point out that airports serve entire regions, not just the city they are located in. Therefore, the population of the city itself is meaningless. You have to, as I said in my above post, consider the population of a metropolitan area. Since you (bizarrely) are basing your argument about SC's on population, you should also consider this.

What unused gates? Every gate from the security checkpoint down to C56 is in active use. One by Alaska, the rest by DL.

Columbus is awful.

Go Blue!

I kid.

Kinda...

Not every Delta location has a Skyclub. CMH happens to be one that doesn't. Apparently DL has not determined that it is in their best interest to put one there, at least for now. Maybe some of the earlier posters know something about the market that Delta doesn't. Or maybe they just have superior business judgement..

Fear not. Columbus is in America. Anyone is allowed to acquire sufficient capital and open an airline club in an underserved market, thereby earning a ton of money. That's how the system works.

las vegas

Miami and Nashville don't have a population of 800,000. But, Houston, San Antonio, and San Jose do have more than 800,000 and they don't have Sky Clubs.

oh so did I

"The airline industry continues to face very difficult economic conditions and the outlook for the foreseeable future offers little relief," Douglas Parker, America West's chairman and chief executive, said in a release. "A necessary and critical component of restoring industry profitability is the elimination of consistently unprofitable flying."

New Delhi

During a roundtable over the summer, CMH's CEO said that a SkyClub would likely be part of a Europe flight (provided it was Delta service).

DL's decision where to place SCs is all about premium and elite passenger volumes and not total passenger counts. From DL's POV there must not be enough volume for the numbers to work. Not only do the number not work for DL, but they seem to not work for AA or UA either, and AA has more traffic in and out of CMH than DL does.

No SC aside, the DL terminal in CMH, and the CMH airport as a whole is so bland and uninspired. Limited food options post-security worsened by the fact that the three concourses are not connected post-security. A major fail for an airport this size. Not an airport on the top half of my favorite airports list.

You are the one splitting hairs by using an arbitrary metric to justify the existence of this thread. City population is 100% irrelevant. It's based on city zoning which is largely arbitrary. If you use metro area you would at least be halfway logical.

CMH doesn't serve a huge amount of passengers. Full stop. That's a massively more important metric for an airline and whether they make capital investments at an airport.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

Delta has ~32 domestic SkyClubs and CMH is the 50th busiest airport in the USA.

CMH is a mid-size airport and DL isn't even the airline serving it with the most flights. There are other factors besides airport size, like premium traffic and international routes. CMH must not rank high enough in these to make it. Hardly a surprise.

But these airports have other options, be they lounges run by partner airlines (until this year, you could access the KLM/Air France lounge in Houston) or third-party lounges accessible with Priority Pass.

Fair enough.

Atlanta (inside city limits) is smaller than Columbus.
I vote they box up the Concourse B Sky Club and ship it up to you.
You can mount it high above one of your concourses.

On a side note, the funny thing about the Concourse B lounge is it proves that science is right. As with highways, enlarging something doesn't reduce the congestion and overcrowding. It just makes it worse.

This post reminds me of the bizarre heated arguments on a.net between Midwesterners (IND, PIT, CLE, CVG, CMH, etc.) about how *their* airport DESERVES transatlantic service and the other airports don't.

Folks, the airline industry is a commercial enterprise. This is not a grant funding application. If it's profitable enough, they will probably do it.

I agree. On the plus side though, I can get from my couch downtown to the gate in 28 mins, so I don't have to spend a lot of time in the terminal.

I agree the former Mulligan's restaurant would be the perfect spot for one. If CMH were ever to get a TATL flight (CRAA and DL have both acknowledged mutual interest), the location would make sense as the flight would presumably leave C46 (FIS gate).

DL DID use the gates closest to security (today known as C46, a door (call it C47A) for RJs, C47, and C48) before the expansion of C in 2002 (WN had C49 and 50). When the expansion was finished, they moved to C52-56 and added C51 for NW in 2009 as the merger was taking place.

The majority of mainline flights leave C54-56. This could be because the holdrooms are much larger than at other gates and/or these gates are the most versatile in terms of the fleet types used (see below). I'm typically there in the 4-7pm range, with an RJ to DTW usually at 54, mainline to ATL at 55, and mainline to MSP at 56. Occasionally, you'll have a mainline flight go off C50, especially early morning, and LAX tends to leave from C51. (C52 and C53 are on a double jetway that can't handle anything larger than an E175.)

CRAA had an RFP for jetways last year which gives you an idea as to which gates can handle which planes:
What gets interesting are the RONs/early morning flights. CMH has 3 to ATL (which are typically some combination of 738/739/M88/M90/occasional 757), a 738 to MSP, a 738 to LAX and, in a couple months, will add a 319 to SLC.

City limit populations are meaningless when measuring catchment area. Obviously, people who live in adjoining towns/suburbs also use the airport. Most major airports aren't even in the city limits of the cities they serve. CSA (Combined Statistical Area), is a far better metric for air travel catchment populations.

CSA's (in millions):
BNA is 2.03
MIA is 6.8
Houston: 7.09
Bay area: 8.8
SAT is not part of a CSA due to geography, but MSA is 2.47mil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_statistical_area

Love you TTUN folks coming to Columbus and giving us your tax dollars, etc. every 2 years for your annual beat down. Heck, TTUN has not won a game in Columbus since 2000!

I've lived in Columbus for most of my life. We used to have a Southwest non-stop to Oakland. That stopped a few months ago.

Alaska just started direct service to Seattle. Hope it sticks around.

Columbus is supposed to be the 2nd largest city in the Midwest during the upcoming decade.

Red coat last year told me they are planning on putting a SkyClub in when the new terminal is built...who knows when that is.

Not having a direct flight to Europe hurts. CVG, IND, DTW and PIT all have them.

CIty or metro area? I don't see Columbus surpassing Detroit or Minneapolis-St.Paul in terms of metro area.