The brunt of the snow will be between 6pm Thursday and Friday 12am. You should be fine

Weather kind of fizzled as mostly rain. Expecting an additional 1-3 inches before it's over. A few degrees cooler and it would have been a mess.

BTW your aircraft for tomorrow appears to be routed MSY-DEN-SEA-MKE. ;)

So, when is the great Delta gate move supposed to be taking place? United as well?

I have heard "early 2013" for the Delta move to D, but am not any clearer that on the specifics.

As for United, I'm not sure that's been ironed out yet. Frontier still controls and is paying rent on all those gates on D they're on the hook for. Delta is moving over to D as a gate swap with Frontier -- Delta will get 6 gates on D from Frontier, and Frontier will take over 6 gates on E (which they will not use -- the remaining Frontier flights will still operate from the many remaining gates on D in Frontier's lease.)

For United to move to D, they have to work something out with the airport and Frontier to get gates on D. Frontier is still paying for all those gates, and if something can be worked out to the benefit of Frontier, they will probably play ball. But if there's no benefit to Frontier, they may not want to cooperate out of the goodness of their heart to help out United. It's in the best interest of the airport to be able to mothball E, and in the best interest of United to consolidate operations. Somebody probably has to make it in Frontier's best interest to cooperate. A simple gate-for-gate swap which doesn't save F9 any money probably isn't enough for them.

I wonder if United has any assets out in DEN that they could offer F9 to sweeten a deal. Of course any deal that lowers F9's payments in MKE they would likely jump at.

Speaking of MKE's future, I wonder if with all the consolidation there would be space to move the FIS gate to one of the main terminals. As I understand it, people flying into MKE from out of country have to walk outside to get back to the main terminal.

Had to spend the night in the Southwest terminal here the day after Xmas. The place looked like a 50s bomb shelter. Took half the night before someone told us there were uncomfortable couches and chairs upstairs. Good times...

This is Concourse C at MKE where Southwest operates:

http://www.examiner.com/article/mke-...ort-news-finds

You think it looks like a 50s bomb shelter?

I spent most of my time outside security, should've taken pictures.

Where did you find couches in Milwaukee?

Also, mind if I ask how you were unlucky enough to end up spending the night at the Milwaukee airport?

Upstairs where the Burger King, Starbucks, and some bar was in the Southwest terminal.

I would suggest avoiding the E/F gates in O'Hare.
I've been stuck in MKE waiting to go to GRB (there was a major snow storm that day) for several hours, about the equivalent of overnight. I wouldn't call it a bomb shelter by any means. Yes, when the services are closed it isn't any fun, but unless you're in a stairwell it is fairly contemporary as far as airports go. The chairs there are no more/less comfortable than anywhere else. There's also several hotels with free shuttles (which were all probably booked) as well as inexpensive cabs to downtown Milwaukee.

Crap, we were stuck in Kansas City, not Milwaukee. Recognized the pic since we also had a layover in Milwaukee a few days before Xmas.

Ahh -- now it makes more sense! The KC airport does have the poured concrete architecture of its era that could bring bomb shelter to mind, and even with some fairly recent renovations (which helped updated the place) it's not exactly a space I would want to spend the night in. The Southwest area, with the upstairs businesses, is actually nicer than most of the rest of the airport.

I wouldn't want to spend the night in MKE either, and I don't think there are any couches at all. But I didn't think bomb shelter quite fits MKE. Thanks for the clarification!

Okay, yeah I could see this. MCI was designed for a different type of security.

When the lower level gates on Concourse D were being actively used, there would always be one or two people stretched out in the seating areas, napping.