Richmond International Airport

[Wahoo 07]

3 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

Mind you, if you measure the buildings in "CoStar feet", umm... 

Instead of sea level (i.e. CoStar feet), we should measure from the center of the earth.  Take that Dubai!

[Icetera]

22 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

This would be a GREAT poll question! Is there any way to put a poll up on this forum? (Does the software allow for it?)

Mind you, if you measure the buildings in "CoStar feet", umm... 

In CoStar specs, RIC is already a hub.

[I miss RVA]

32 minutes ago, Wahoo 07 said:

Instead of sea level (i.e. CoStar feet), we should measure from the center of the earth.  Take that Dubai!

In which case, we''d be building the "Burj CoStarlifa" tower then! 

[flack4ric]

I miss RVA, imagine that you ran a publicly-traded airline based in the US and focused on domestic service, then entertain your own your own questions.

DowntownCoruscant, thank you.

[I miss RVA]

2 hours ago, flack4ric said:

I miss RVA, imagine that you ran a publicly-traded airline based in the US and focused on domestic service, then entertain your own your own questions.

DowntownCoruscant, thank you.

Okay - I would - except, the thing is, I know absolutely, 100% nothing about the economics of how all of this works. So I can try to project or speculate all I want, but I'm sure it will be miles off base. I'm currently pursuing a back-half-of-life career as a historian - and a  goodly portion of my front-half-of-life career was spent as a  journalist and later on a data-mining expert. (Research is what I've always done!)  So business and economics are not something I can rationally relate to. If that makes sense. Hence - that's why I ask the experts, such as you!  Because I honestly don't know - and I don't have the background, training or experience to make even a modest attempt a speculating on matters such as these.

Trust me - I do the same thing to our CRE industry gurus in our little community here - because I know absolutely nothing about the industry. All I know is that there are certain results I want to see - for RVA city, RVA metro and -- in this case -- for RIC. Even through I'm "going to school" learning from the experts on here, I always contend that I know JUST enough about a given subject to be 100% wrong. 

Anyway - that's why your weigh-in is particularly meaningful and important to me. 

[Merrittk92]

So I’m flying out of RIC today & I noticed some apron work/expansion going on next to concourse B.

 

[eandslee]

26 minutes ago, Merrittk92 said:

So I’m flying out of RIC today & I noticed some apron work/expansion going on next to concourse B.

 

Great photo!  Yes, that is the Concourse B Apron Expansion I mentioned in my monthly report.  This extension will do a couple things: 1) in the short term, it will serve as a de-icing area for planes before they take off.  2) more long term, this expansion sets the stage and allows room for there to be a Concourse B expansion as well as opens the door for a new terminal and Concourse C to be constructed according the the airport's master plan.  The cargo area on that side of the airport will move to the other side (east side) of the airport "buying" even more room for RIC to expand the aforementioned passenger service facilities.  Thanks for taking and posting the pic!  Also, thanks for using RIC!

[eandslee]

Bad news...

JetBlue is cutting the RIC-LAX route for the summer.   Who knows if they will ever re-instate the service, but right now it looks like just a suspension of service.

https://paxex.aero/jeblue-summer-2022-schedule-cuts/

[I miss RVA]

1 hour ago, eandslee said:

Bad news...

JetBlue is cutting the RIC-LAX route for the summer.   Who knows if they will ever re-instate the service, but right now it looks like just a suspension of service.

https://paxex.aero/jeblue-summer-2022-schedule-cuts/

Oy vey - we didn't need this gut punch.

HOWEVER - I'm glad that the article is grouping this under "limited suspensions" - so perhaps as Jet Blue work out their own staffing and other internal issues to get flight schedules back to normal, we'll see RIC-LAX back sooner rather than later. Note they trimmed LAX-SEA as well, if that tells you anything. So I don't think it's an RIC-market problem. It's internal within Jet Blue.

[Shakman]

jetBlue has been reducing service throughout the U.S.  Airlines reducing service is not just as internal issues but the cost of commodities as well.

Edited April 19, 2022 by Shakman

[I miss RVA]

7 minutes ago, Shakman said:

jetBlue has been reducing service throughout the U.S.  Airlines reducing service is not just as internal issues but the cost of commodities as well.

Very true. This leads me to believe all the more than suspension of the RIC-LAX route is only temporary - and we'll see it back in operation before the end of the year, particularly IF (huge word) economic factors level off a bit.

[Downtowner]

I think the price of plane tickets is another issue. I read last night the price of a ticket to fly has sky rocketed like everything else. I think a lot of people will be rethinking there long range flight plans. I think a lot of people will be taking shorter trips this, year with the cost of everything. I’m not doing much traveling this year one I have a newborn daughter. Two I’m not really wanting to take her cross country yet until she gets a little older. 3 yes prices are a factor at the moment.

[I miss RVA]

1 hour ago, Downtowner said:

I think the price of plane tickets is another issue. I read last night the price of a ticket to fly has sky rocketed like everything else. I think a lot of people will be rethinking there long range flight plans. I think a lot of people will be taking shorter trips this, year with the cost of everything. I’m not doing much traveling this year one I have a newborn daughter. Two I’m not really wanting to take her cross country yet until she gets a little older. 3 yes prices are a factor at the moment.

A heartfelt Mazal Tov to you and your wife! May your daughter grow healthy and strong and may she bring you a lifetime of happiness, pride and joy that only a dad can enjoy! 

Edited April 19, 2022 by I miss RVA

[Downtowner]

19 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

A heartfelt Mazal Tov to you and your wife! May your daughter grow healthy and strong and may she bring you a lifetime of happiness, pride and joy that only a dad can enjoy! 

Thank you she’s a really good newborn.  Very quiet so far. That will change I’m sure some point soon. She turned a month old on Monday.

[I miss RVA]

1 hour ago, Downtowner said:

Thank you she’s a really good newborn.  Very quiet so far. That will change I’m sure some point soon. She turned a month old on Monday.

Are you and your wife getting ANY sleep yet?

[blopp1234]

The bottom of this article talks about RIC looking for grant money to help Breeze take the San Francisco flights from twice weekly to daily service. Hoping that Breeze starts upgrading to daily service on more flights as more a-220s come online and route markets develop more. It sucks having to plan a trip around flights 2-3 days per week.

https://paxex.aero/sacramento-rapid-city-breeze-airways-funding/

Edited April 21, 2022 by blopp1234

[eandslee]

24 minutes ago, blopp1234 said:

The bottom of this article talks about RIC looking for grant money to help Breeze take the San Francisco flights from twice weekly to daily service. 

https://paxex.aero/sacramento-rapid-city-breeze-airways-funding/

Thanks for finding and posting that article!  This is good news and it appears that a lot goes on behind the scenes that one wouldn't know about if you weren't looking.  This is a case in point.  It makes sense that this route should be offered everyday to make the route viable.  Otherwise, it will be doomed to fail.  Hoping RIC can secure the grant to pay for daily service!  We also need a heck of a lot more destinations on Breeze from RIC.  I don't like seeing the city to the southeast of us getting all the love.  So Breeze, be "nice" and give us more routes/destinations!

Edited April 21, 2022 by eandslee

[blopp1234]

54 minutes ago, eandslee said:

 We also need a heck of a lot more destinations on Breeze from RIC.  I don't like seeing the city to the southeast of us getting all the love.  So Breeze, be "nice" and give us more routes/destinations!

Would love some Midwest destinations, ie. Columbus, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, St Louis, Kansas City. It a LONG drive out there from central Va and having to do a connecting flight that costs $400 and takes 6-7 hours isn’t worth it. 

[eandslee]

4 minutes ago, blopp1234 said:

Would love some Midwest destinations, ie. Columbus, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, St Louis, Kansas City. It a LONG drive out there from central Va and having to do a connecting flight that costs $400 and takes 6-7 hours isn’t worth it. 

I feel ya.  What we need is a hub where all of those markets, and more, are served from RIC.  It pained me to see that one of the local TV stations this week ran a news story, basically advertising for a new Breeze route to the NY area from Norfolk - encouraging people in Central Virginia to drive to Norfolk to catch a flight to this new NY destination.  Are you kidding me?  Why would they do that?  Hell, if that's okay then go ahead and encourage Central Virginians to drive up to DC and fly IAD or DCA!  That's the way to support your local airport!  /s

Geez...RIC had been bleeding potential passengers, losing them to the DC airports, for years and years.  Now RIC is making some progress to keep people from going up the DC to catch a flight and to use RIC instead...prices are low now, we have some good destinations...and this TV station encouraged people to fly from elsewhere?!  Just boggles the mind!  I was down-right angry about it.  We may be cities fairly close to one another, but there is heavy competition between RIC and ORF.  These airports are almost identical in service...except now Breeze put a base there and they have more destinations on Breeze.  I'm still scratching my head on that one since putting the base at RIC would allow for access to more people.  Kind of pissed me off that Breeze made, what I think is, a poor decision.  I'd better stop now....

[blopp1234]

My guess is it has more to do with Norfolk being right next to VA Beach, which is a major draw for areas in the rust belt, northeast and the Midwest. It’s similar to all their other hubs (outside of Hartford), which are directly on the coast. I don’t know if we will ever get a hub, or even a focus city sadly (atleast from one of the big 4), as none of the big 4 airlines seem intent on growth outside of adding routes to their existing hubs.
Growth from low cost airlines such as Breeze, JetBlue and Allegiant seem like our best bet for expansion.

Who knows, Breeze seems to be doing well at RIC as we have the most routes out of any city that isn’t already a focus city. Wouldn’t doubt that as they eventually increase frequencies that they start overtaking some of the already established airlines in passenger count and add even more routes from RIC. 

JetBlue has no mid Atlantic hubs and the fact that even during the pandemic they were willing to add two west coast flights shows their confidence in RIC. I’m guessing that the only reason they cut the LA route this summer is due to staffing issues resulting from the pandemic which all airlines are experiencing right now. They are currently the third largest carrier in passenger numbers at RIC, only behind American and Delta. Maybe they would consider adding a base at RIC as it would be cheaper than some of the other mid Atlantic airports, such as Dulles, Reagan or BWI and is easier to expand at than Norfolk.

Allegiant is known for establishing focus cities in smaller markets (they have 18 routes from Grand Rapids which is considerably smaller than Richmond) and they currently have 22 focus cities in markets ranging from Las Vegas to Flint Michigan and Asheville. They tend to operate lower frequency routes, just like Breeze, but I’m sure we could beat out some of the other smaller cities such as Asheville and Knoxville in terms of demand to midsized and smaller markets.

Thankfully, growth at RIC, even if it’s not as fast as we all want, is very steady and looks like it won’t slow down in the future. 

[Icetera]

30 minutes ago, eandslee said:

I feel ya.  What we need is a hub where all of those markets, and more, are served from RIC.  It pained me to see that one of the local TV stations this week ran a news story, basically advertising for a new Breeze route to the NY area from Norfolk - encouraging people in Central Virginia to drive to Norfolk to catch a flight to this new NY destination. 

In the time it takes to drive to ORF you could have already flown to NY via JetBlue.

[I miss RVA]

@eandslee-- fully 100% agreed on a number of fronts.

1.) Beefing up the RIC-SFO route to daily service:  this is a must. I agree with you that it should be no head scratcher at all why routes that fly twice or even three times a week end up getting dumped. There's not enough consistency to establish the route as just that - an established route! So flying twice a week to LAX or LAS - as wonderful as it is (it's better than NOTHING - and frankly I'm sick and tired of Richmond constantly being in the 'beggars can't be choosers' role - it's infuriating and it's time for it to bloody well stop!!) -- but it's hard to support a route that flies out of here on a Friday and a Monday (or whatever days) - do the airlines actually expect a bumper-crop of passengers on two-flights per week? Like you said - no wonder they fail. What will garner passengers is having that route established so that business people can travel on whatever day per week they need - and vacationers can travel on whatever day they want. I realize having X number of flights coming and going that are -- at best -- half full (at first) isn't a cost-effective way to run an airline (and an airline isn't a charity) - but how do they honestly expect to garner enough passengers when the flights and routes/schedules themselves are SO flaky (or for many travelers, just flat out bloody inconvenient!)?? I will argue this until my fat carcass is lowered into the grave - this is what we get for so "fiscally responsible" so as to turn down establishing a hub here nearly 25 years ago.

And as for the BS about getting Central Virginians to drive to fly out of ORF - why isn't someone laying the ever-living WOOD to that TV station for airing such a blatently stupid and irresponsible story? They should be ashamed of themselves, especially since you say it was one of the LOCAL TV stations. If anything, that story should have focused on "well, it's nice that ORF has this route - LET'S LOBBY THE POWERS THAT BE HERE TO PUSH HARD TO GET A COMPETING ROUTE FLYING OUT OF RIC!!!"

Jesus - the amount of damage to RIC that news report might have done. And aside from the military component (and perhaps the tourist vs business traveler aspect) - I honestly don't see why ORF is garnering more support from Breeze than is RIC. Yes, Hampton Roads is technically a larger market - by maybe a half million at most. Not something to sneeze at - but it's not like comparing a market of 1.35M and a market of 2.6M -- now THERE is a major difference!

You mean to tell me that folks living on the Peninsula side of the James - say the Williamsburg/Jamestown (even into Newport News) area, etc., couldn't just toddle right up I-64 to grab a flight out of RIC as opposed to schlepping through traffic to get to ORF? 

Which TV station did this? Lmk - and I'll be happy to fire off an email to them complaining and giving them what-for about this.

I swear - I'm with you - stuff like this flat out makes my blood boil.

Edited April 21, 2022 by I miss RVA

[eandslee]

57 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

Which TV station did this? Lmk - and I'll be happy to fire off an email to them complaining and giving them what-for about this.

I swear - I'm with you - stuff like this flat out makes my blood boil.

https://www.wric.com/business/us-world-business/breeze-airways-offering-49-nonstop-flights-from-virginia-to-new-york/amp/

[I miss RVA]

33 minutes ago, eandslee said:

https://www.wric.com/business/us-world-business/breeze-airways-offering-49-nonstop-flights-from-virginia-to-new-york/amp/

Perfect. Thanks! I'm going to let them know my thoughts. While I get that it's techincally newsworthy - it's NOT so newsworthy in the RVA market. If they want to use that story as the basis for promoting a push to get similar service established at RIC, then fine. But I'm not happy about promoting out-of-market stories like this when they can have a direct impact on service locally.

Much appreciated!

[eandslee]

 

Well, it's time for your monthly Richmond International Airport update!  I'll start with passengers numbers for the month of March.  Let's just say it was a very good month for the airport.  March 2022 was the strongest March since the pandemic and was just 32.5K passengers less than in 2019 when the airport saw the most passengers ever.  We're getting there!  Here are the details:

March enplanements:  167,197

March Deplanements:  166,838

March Total Passengers: 334,035 (a 96% increase over March 2021)

**See the line graph below to see how March rack-n-stacks with the previous 3 years**

As for passenger service, these are some of the observations I've personally made:

• Southwest ended its nonstop flights between RIC and DEN this month (this is due to equipment and pilot shortages, so I expect it to return at some point)
• JetBlue announced the temporary cancellation of its nonstop flights between RIC and LAX for the summer.  Someone said that they saw the flight back up for the fall, but I have not personally verified that yet
• United Airlines nonstop flight equipment between RIC and DEN have mostly been downgraded from A319/A320s to Embraer 175s.  I usually only see an A319 on this route in the early morning or late at night.  This surprised me since there's no Southwest Airlines service on that route right now...you'd think that the demand would bolster United ridership.  Well, I guess a decrease in Southwest service does not translate to additional ridership on United Airlines on the same route.  Interesting (carrier loyalty?  Where all the other travelers going who would normally fly Southwest from RIC on this route?  DC?  If so, that would be unfortunate).
•  Breeze Airways seems to be doing well with its existing routes, but in May it will add some very important nonstop flights from RIC:  Jacksonville, FL on 19 May; San Francisco, CA on 25 May - everyone please take advantage of these routes as they are rare from RIC!  Plus, we want to keep them and encourage expanded service from Breeze (which they've promised to do).  In fact, I've been seeing "chatter" that RIC - MBJ (Montego Bay, Jamaica) may be one of the first International Routes on Breeze from RIC in a very long time, which they may announce sometime this year.  There may be even more than that...so keep your ear to the ground!
• As someone posted here earlier (about a week or so ago), RIC is applying for a grant that will add daily nonstop service between RIC and SFO on Breeze Airways.  This would be significant and I have all fingers and toes crossed that it comes to pass!
• I'm hopeful that there will be new service announcements soon, so I'm standing by and I will monitor the "chatter" I hear for any details
• Cargo at RIC has been lagging compared to the pandemic days, but hopefully, the cargo numbers increase again (without a pandemic this time)
• The Concourse B Apron Expansion is ongoing and is progressing along.  Saw some photos the other day - the expansion is MASSIVE and will provide tons of aircraft parking space for deicing and one day...room for an expanded Concourse B!
• New cargo facilities on the north east side of the airport appears to be progressing.  Also, the move of the Army National Guard facilities (to make room for that parallel runway) seems to still be in the works (just haven't seen anything tangible yet)

I think that's it for this month based on my personal observations (of course, there's probably more going on that I don't see).  I'll end this post with the normal passenger numbers chart and a couple photos:
 

Concourse B Apron Expansion. Photos courtesy of Dereck Tingfah and RIC Aiprort:

Edited April 28, 2022 by eandslee