Richmond International Airport

[I miss RVA]

59 minutes ago, eandslee said:

Size of the airport has nothing to do with it.  Might have something more to do with the Southwest manager or Southwest lead guy at RIC or the airport has to show promise and be a part of Southwest's future plans.  Perhaps RIC is not on Southwest's radar for growth for one reason or another.

But doesn't that play into the "size" argument? I'm not talking about the size of the physical plant or the physical footprint of the airport. Rather, I mean passenger volume, passenger growth, year-over-year growth, competition, destinations, etc.

How about market size? Are they more favorable about flying to/from 2 million and larger markets? Does a 1.4 million market put them off for some reason?

[blopp1234]

I doubt it has anything to do with market size as similar sized and even smaller markets have more air service from southwest, such as Memphis, Birmingham, Tulsa, Rochester and even Wichita have more service from Southwest. It could be for other reasons but it certainly isn’t market size, passenger volumes or year over year growth.

[I miss RVA]

16 minutes ago, blopp1234 said:

I doubt it has anything to do with market size as similar sized and even smaller markets have more air service from southwest, such as Memphis, Birmingham, Tulsa, Rochester and even Wichita have more service from Southwest. It could be for other reasons but it certainly isn’t market size, passenger volumes or year over year growth.

Good to know. Thanks, good sir! 

[Niccckk]

 

iTripReport just posted a trip report from TPA - RIC with the A220! The flight seemed moderately packed, but certainly not full. This was in June. Hopefully demand increases down the line with breeze.

[eandslee]

3 hours ago, Niccckk said:

 

iTripReport just posted a trip report from TPA - RIC with the A220! The flight seemed moderately packed, but certainly not full. This was in June. Hopefully demand increases down the line with breeze.

What an outstanding trip report!  Loved the narration and the picture is super crisp and clear!  Also, I must point out that this route is doing very well now.  If it wasn't doing well, Breeze would be reducing or eliminating flights between RIC and TPA.  Just the opposite, in fact - Breeze is increasing frequency between the two cities to 6x per week (virtually daily flights) on A220s and not the E-Jets!  Thanks so much for posting.  I'm going to go and subscribe to the channel now! 

Edited August 21, 2022 by eandslee

[Shakman]

Great report!  As an aviation enthusiast, love the takeoff and landing!

Edited August 22, 2022 by Shakman

[I miss RVA]

1 hour ago, Shakman said:

Great report!  As an aviation enthusiast, love the takeoff and landing!

I enjoyed it as well. Definitely love these kinds of "travelogue" types of videos. Very well done on the part of the person who did it.

[blopp1234]

Good news today! After looking at possibly booking a trip on Allegiant to Nashville, it seems that starting at the end of February 2023, Allegiant will up the frequency from 2x per week to 4x per week. Great news as this route sees very high PAX. Would love to see this route become daily within the next year or so. Also this hopefully is a confidence builder for Allegiant, who doesn’t fly to anywhere other than Nashville or Florida from RIC for future routes to cities like Austin, Indianapolis, Kansas City or Savannah.

 

 

Edited August 30, 2022 by blopp1234

[upzoningisgood]

Great for me!

[I miss RVA]

5 hours ago, blopp1234 said:

Good news today! After looking at possibly booking a trip on Allegiant to Nashville, it seems that starting at the end of February 2023, Allegiant will up the frequency from 2x per week to 4x per week. Great news as this route sees very high PAX. Would love to see this route become daily within the next year or so. Also this hopefully is a confidence builder for Allegiant, who doesn’t fly to anywhere other than Nashville or Florida from RIC for future routes to cities like Austin, Indianapolis, Kansas City or Savannah.

FANTASTIC news!!!  Now -- we gotta work to get Allegiant to add these other cities as direct-service routes for RIC. 

[Downtowner]

Nashville is a very popular destination nowadays. My best friends brother moved from Richmond after finishing college and Washington and lee to Nashville for work and loves it met his future wife in Nashville who is from Hampton roads getting married this year and possibly moving back to Virginia soon but not sure where they are leaning towards back to Richmond or Hampton roads mainly because my best friends dad is from the Hampton roads are and so is my best friends fiancé so it could be Hampton but she has also wanted to come back to Richmond and I would love that as my best friend has really missed his brother living in Nashville and would love to have him back in Richmond. Lots of people from Virginia I have heard have moved to Nashville. Mainly because of no income tax. My best friends brother has met tons of people from all over Virginia who have moved to Nashville 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Downtowner

[I miss RVA]

2 minutes ago, Downtowner said:

Nashville is a very popular destination nowadays. My best friends brother moved from Richmond after finishing college and Washington and lee to Nashville for work and loves it met his future wife in Nashville who is from Hampton roads getting married this year and possibly moving back to Virginia soon but not sure where they are leaning towards back to Richmond or Hampton roads mainly because my best friends dad is from the Hampton roads are and so is my best friends fiancé so it could be Hampton but she has also wanted to come back to Richmond and I would love that as my best friend has really missed his brother living in Nashville and would love to have him back in Richmond. Lots of people from Virginia I have heard have moved to Nashville. Mainly because of no income tax. My best friends brother has met tons of people from all over Virginia who have moved to Nashville 

Here's hoping they relocate to Richmond!! 

[Downtowner]

8 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

Here's hoping they relocate to Richmond!! 

I hope so too for my best friends sake. He has Asperger’s and doesn’t do well with change at all nor does any Asperger’s syndrome people. My wife’s grandmother has a son who as Asperger’s and he had to move back in with his mother because his apartment burnt down in winston salem nc. But I really hope he moves back here it would make my friend really happy his other brother lives in Chicago in wrigleyville but has very little contact with his parents or both of his brothers which my friend said he doesn’t get along with him as well as he does with his brother who lives in Nashville.

[eandslee]

So, the statistics on the airport's passenger traffic came out yesterday for July and it looks like passenger numbers were just a hair over the June total passenger numbers (June:  367,807).  However, May has been the best month thus far this year with 372,838.  For July, the total passenger count stands at 370,838, which isn't bad for RIC since the pandemic, but what this statistic tells me is that we aren't seeing much growth right now.  There were some things that may have affected some of the total numbers in July:  the airline industry is still suffering from a lack of pilots/staff/equipment, so because of that, there were quite a few flights that were cancelled last month.  That issue remains an issue for August as well unfortunately (the numbers will probably reflect that when they are released next month).  Still, this month's total numbers were 4.38% better than last July (but we were at the brink of 400K in 2019).  It just seems like RIC should be doing better at this point.  As mentioned, RIC is still not back to what it was doing just before the pandemic and although we're close...we're just not quite hitting the mark yet...even despite adding additional flights/destinations, most notably on Breeze Airways.  We got some good news a few weeks ago that Breeze will be adding flights between RIC-LAS to 4 per week and RIC-TPA (virtually daily) in November, which should help bring those total numbers up some.  Also, blopp1234 mentioned that Allegiant is adding frequency between RIC-BNA.  All good news, but it isn't all good news:  we still haven't seen the return of Southwest's flights between RIC-DEN and we received the announcement that RIC lost JetBlue's RIC-LAX route permanently.  Disappointing for sure, but who knows what's going to happen next.  Lots of possibilities out there (i.e. JetBlue/Spirit merger).  Funny thing is that as I was typing this, I kept thinking about that total number for the month of July (370,838) and thought, "Wow, some airports do 150,000+ passengers in just one day!"  We've got a long way to go.  For now, enjoy the passenger trend chart for this month (you'll notice that I've started dropping months off of 2019 to make this chart more manageable):

Edited August 31, 2022 by eandslee

[wrldcoupe4]

14 minutes ago, eandslee said:

There were some things that may have affected some of the total numbers in July:  the airline industry is still suffering from a lack of pilots/staff/equipment, so because of that, there were quite a few flights that were cancelled last month.  That issue remains an issue for August as well unfortunately (the numbers will probably reflect that when they are released next month).   
 

Don't you think this sums up the issue at the moment?

[eandslee]

20 minutes ago, wrldcoupe4 said:

Don't you think this sums up the issue at the moment?

Primarily yes, for now.  When this issue gets resolved, we'll see where the numbers fall then.  I think business flyers aren't back in full force either, so that could be another major factor that playing on the lower numbers.  There are some others who may still be afraid to fly due to the risk of getting COVID as well.

Edited August 31, 2022 by eandslee

[benstyree]

51 minutes ago, eandslee said:

we still haven't seen the return of Southwest's flights between RIC-DEN

It looks like this flight is coming back on Sept. 11.  As best I can tell right now, it will only fly on Sundays.  I might be wrong about that, and that isn't ideal, but at least it's a start!

[I miss RVA]

1 hour ago, eandslee said:

Funny thing is that as I was typing this, I kept thinking about that total number for the month of July (370,838) and thought, "Wow, some airports do 150,000+ passengers in just one day!"  We've got a long way to go.  
 

Yes - we do. We're nowhere near where we could be. Mind you - that 150K daily passenger haul is pulled by the very top-tier airports.  But your point, @eandsleeis spot on. We have a LONG LONG way to go (quoting Phil Collins). To put it in perspective, here are the latest rankings of busiest U.S. airports with data through July of this year, courtesy of the fine folks at stratosjets . com. They source monthly data direct from the airports and yearly data from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation.

This should give us some REAL perspective of just how far down the totem pole RIC, and by extension RVA as an air-service market, REALLY is. Certainly, there are a myriad of factors that drive this - the city/market/region as a destination, the size of the market, in some cases (for smaller markets) exclusivity of the airport (lack of proximity to other competing airports) ... and RIC gets hurt by a lot of these factors that help pump up passenger totals at other airports. We have a lot of room to grow and really need to get after it!

In case you're wondering (I was) - Norfolk checks in at #69 with 1.987 million enplaned passengers - about 200K behind RIC, year-to-date (through July).

https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/busiest-us-airports/

Edited August 31, 2022 by I miss RVA

[blopp1234]

The JeBlue and Spirit merger will be very interesting at RIC as they serve the same destinations, meaning that where we once had two airlines for routes such as Richmond to Orlando and Richmond to Fort Lauderdale, we will only have one carrier, which does mean less competition in the short term, however it’s an attractive route with 97,000 (MCO) and 67,000 (FLL) each year so there is plenty of room for multiple carriers. Hoping Southwest or Frontier push into the market due to both having focus cities at Orlando, so breaking up a JetBlue monopoly, especially for Frontier, would seem very obvious.

Regarding JetBlue’s cancelled route, I wouldn’t expect it to stay vacant for long as JetBlue will be acquiring A220s which work best for long skinny air routes connecting mid and large sized cities transcontinentally. Likelihood is that they will look to pick this route back up once they start acquiring them. 

[eandslee]

1 hour ago, I miss RVA said:

Yes - we do. We're nowhere near where we could be. Mind you - that 150K daily passenger haul is pulled by the very top-tier airports.  But your point, @eandsleeis spot on. We have a LONG LONG way to go (quoting Phil Collins). To put it in perspective, here are the latest rankings of busiest U.S. airports with data through July of this year, courtesy of the fine folks at stratosjets . com. They source monthly data direct from the airports and yearly data from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation.

This should give us some REAL perspective of just how far down the totem pole RIC, and by extension RVA as an air-service market, REALLY is. Certainly, there are a myriad of factors that drive this - the city/market/region as a destination, the size of the market, in some cases (for smaller markets) exclusivity of the airport (lack of proximity to other competing airports) ... and RIC gets hurt by a lot of these factors that help pump up passenger totals at other airports. We have a lot of room to grow and really need to get after it!

In case you're wondering (I was) - Norfolk checks in at #69 with 1.987 million enplaned passengers - about 200K behind RIC, year-to-date (through July).

https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/busiest-us-airports/

Thanks for posting this chart!  I was looking at the cities that beat us out like Hartford, Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Fort Myers, Raleigh/Durham, even Salt Lake City...RIC should be up there with those guys given the size of our city.  I understand that there are other factors at play that makes us smaller, but geez...Charleston, SC is even seeing more passengers!  We need some factors that play into RIC's growth, more air service, and just more folks using RIC over the other airports that are within a 3-4 hour drive.  How can that drive be much better than boarding a flight in Richmond?  I know...cost, flight options, etc.  These need to change.  Hate that the Richmond Metro area bleeds potential passengers to other airports!  This has very much to do with the economy in Richmond.  We need the big corporations...we need the Apples, the Amazons, the Googles...we've got Lego...and CoStar.  Don't get me wrong, Lego is a huge win; CoStar probably more so, but we need more and bigger to get the airport service that this place deserves.  We have the basis for something huge...we just haven't arrived yet (we're so close I can feel it)!

[wrldcoupe4]

I’m not surprised about Charleston. It’s a massive tourism destination. 

[I miss RVA]

2 hours ago, wrldcoupe4 said:

I’m not surprised about Charleston. It’s a massive tourism destination. 

Mazal Tov to them!  So is Philadelphia (and Orlando, too, while we're at it...)

Edited August 31, 2022 by I miss RVA

[Niccckk]

6 hours ago, benstyree said:

It looks like this flight is coming back on Sept. 11.  As best I can tell right now, it will only fly on Sundays.  I might be wrong about that, and that isn't ideal, but at least it's a start!

  I said this back a while ago and so far it's pretty much unchanged. Definitely isn't ideal since if my memory serves me correct this used to be a daily flight (or bi-daily flight) out of Richmond... and now they're just giving pretty much all of the traffic back to United? I don't really understand Southwest's plan at RIC... they're just letting other airlines gobble up routes that they could easily dominate. For example in this conversation, a Southwest route to Nashville would be great competition with Allegiant, but I doubt we'll see that happen in the near future....

On 6/16/2022 at 9:15 AM, Niccckk said:

Hey all. 

Southwest opened up their schedule for reservations through early January 2023, and there seems to be some promising news for RIC - DEN.

It appears according to their schedule that the flight will return service on September 4th, with a late non-stop flight leaving for denver at 7:20pm. It will only operate on Sundays. However the flight appears to suspend service again on November 6th, and it doesn't return for nonstop at all for the rest of the current schedule.

Southwest non-stops to Atlanta appear to be increasing in frequency as well after Septermber 3rd. Unfortunately still no sign of the RIC-MCO route returning this year at all. Frequencies for MDW appear unchanged.

That's ya southwest schedule update

https://www.southwest.com/air/flight-schedules/results.html?departureDate=2022-09-04&destinationAirportCode=DEN&originationAirportCode=RIC&scheduleViewType=weekly&timeOfDay=ALL_DAY

 

[I miss RVA]

33 minutes ago, Niccckk said:

  I said this back a while ago and so far it's pretty much unchanged. Definitely isn't ideal since if my memory serves me correct this used to be a daily flight (or bi-daily flight) out of Richmond... and now they're just giving pretty much all of the traffic back to United? I don't really understand Southwest's plan at RIC... they're just letting other airlines gobble up routes that they could easily dominate. For example in this conversation, a Southwest route to Nashville would be great competition with Allegiant, but I doubt we'll see that happen in the near future....

 

It's sounding more and more like they plain and simply want out of the RIC market, period. For whatever reason, they don't want to be here. At least that's the vibe they're giving off. And it flat doesn't make ANY sense.

[Niccckk]

9 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

It's sounding more and more like they plain and simply want out of the RIC market, period. For whatever reason, they don't want to be here. At least that's the vibe they're giving off. And it flat doesn't make ANY sense.

I have a deep feeling it has to do a huge part with our neighbor... Norfolk. Southwest definitely has more of a "base" there than in Richmond. It really does make 0 sense. They've even gotten rid of the old Airtrain route (TO MCO) which used to be daily, then Southwest took over and it was still a daily flight until like 2017.. then it was just a seasonal flight, then weekendly flight, then just a saturday flight, and now not a flight. They completely gave that route back to Spirit and Jetblue. I won't be surprised if you see Breeze try to pop in with the RIC - MCO route since that route is now daily out of Charleston..  I dunno, just need to figure out why Southwest isn't doing anything here.  

Like, one of the biggest underserved markets at RIC is Austin, which is a fairly big Southwest base... you'd think you'd see flights there? Or even, you have Southwest interrupt American with their Dallas flight and you have Southwest go straight to Love Field, their HQ... idk.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Niccckk