OZFLYER86

[removed] What amenities do you keep talking about ? At a small airport you can drive right up to check in almost(at least you can at EGE). If dropping off a hire car, you can do that 100 metres away. 99 times out of 100, you could arrive a very short time before departure & get on ok. Maybe 1 in a 100 you might be delayed. I don't go to any shops, but I might buy a drink(booze) but that's about it.

Breck to EGE will beat Breck to DEN every time in my book. Stop talking about from western denver, I corrected that.

Much of the drive to EGE is 70 mph & we do 80 or more.

Qwkynuf

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I'm *not* the most frequent flyer that I know (by far), and I fly 150-200 segments per year, all over the US. I fly into and out of big airports like LAX, ATL, MSP, ORD, DFW, JFK, and yes, even DEN. I also fly to small regional airports - MOB, PNS, OMA, LKN, GEG, BLI, CHO, ROC, EUG, etc. I have flown into and out of BUR, ONT, SNA, LGB, in addition to LAX. Do I like the smaller airports? Sure, sometimes. I think that LGB is the most beautiful US airport outside of Hawaii. Are they the most efficient? Nope. Not most of the time. They might be quicker from curb to gate. They might have a shorter line at security. But they only work if there is a flight at the time I need, to where I need to go. And smaller airports have fewer flight options and fewer amenities.

Here's a fun example - I once got to the airport in time for my 6:15pm flight from EUG to PDX (last of the day) & found out that my plane had gone MX. They would rebook me on a flight in the morning. So I rented a car and drove, instead.

Had a plane go MX at ONT at 6:30pm. "Whoops, sorry! That was the last flight out! We can rebook you tomorrow or you can take a taxi to LAX and catch something from there...."

Had a late arriving crew once at SNA and missed the noise abatement curfew - "See ya in the morning!"

Twice, airlines have paid for hour+ taxi trips to get me from a small regional airport to a larger one with more options (LNK-OMA & CAE-CLT)

Nearly every time I have had a maintenance delay at one of Delta or American's hub airports, they either repaired it where it sat or just pulled a new plane over and we were on our way within an hour or two.

I think this whole "Moxy" thing is just a vehicle to gin up investors so that the principals can earn fat paychecks while "exploring options" and "gauging viability", and it will quietly shut down without ever boarding a passenger once they have squeezed out all of the pennies that they can.

Glorified pyramid scheme.

COSPILOT

Agree about speed limits, but where are you going to fly to from EGE? You keep dodging this question...

Kevin AA

Speeding is dangerous (with a few exceptions, like I-80 west of Salt Lake City). In the mountains, and in the winter? Are you suicidal?

Besides, if you rack up enough unpaid speeding tickets, you might have a problem being admitted into the country on your next visit.

Since DEN is a horrific airport, then stop whining about it and just fly to EGE. What do you want, nonstop flights from EGE to OOL? You need to charter a plane for that.

BearX220

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When I step back from this thread and take it all in, what I see is a critic on the other side of the world from the US, with narrow and limited experience of US airports and air system conventions, making blanket declarations not only about all of US commercial aviation but the agendas and priorities of US air passengers. I do not sit here in Chicago and tell the people of Darwin or Adelaide how and when to travel.

This could be a nice opportunity to discuss what unmet needs exist in the US market, but not when we cling to fierce (and false) preconceptions about what the US market wants.

You don't say.

Gary has an idle passenger terminal. You can drive past on I-90 and see the unused jetways dangling. It's open for business, but no airline wants to invest in a facility one hour from Chicago in the middle of nowhere. In this case the market is speaking eloquently.

beachmouse

My home airport is a) one of those ten gate airports the OP is talking about and b) a summertime hub for Allegiant. So I'm familiar with the airport experience both before and after a non-Big 4 player moves into town.

I do really like the '10 minutes or less from door to gate' experience you get at many smaller airports; I don't like the limited flight schedule. The legacy presence is the typical 'if you're going to heaven or hell, you have to connect through ATL first' and Allegiant wants to sell me a ticket to Tulsa. Nothing against Tulsa, but it's not a prime work or play destination for folks around here.

And the addition of a new airline that doubles passenger count can bring serious growing pains. Since Allegiant showed up, TSA Pre has become a necessity if you want your '10 minutes or less' experience since their staffing levels haven't kept up with passenger growth and the airport wasn't built with room to add additional screening lanes. Baggage handling is done by contract ramp workers rather than people who work for one specific airline, and there was a noteworthy slowdown in terms of baggage to belt time because of that growth that only seems to have gotten fixed in the second quarter of 2019. (On the upside, my household made very good use of Delta's '20 minutes or 2500 miles' bag guarantee, so I'm rather okay with that period of slowness). Parking is more congested and what used to be the $6/day satellite lot is now something like $10-$11/day.

So I'd say if you're running enough point to point flights from the little airports to have it make financial sense for an airline, it's easy for that additional air traffic to end up causing the same sort of issues the OP claims Moxy will correct.

DenverBrian

Still scratching my head over the idea that Australians don't have to pay speeding tickets in the US.

StartinSanDiego

Moderator Note: This thread has run its course and is now closed.