Tallahassee Regional Airport

[jpl02]

I know far too many people that drive all the way to JAX to fly out. I haven't flown out of TLH in awhile, but Airtran's departure was way too bad. They're Florida's official airline for heaven's sake! I know they and Delta have a feud going on, but Delta's bankrupt, and Airtran is making money. Take a cue, Delta.

I'd like to see Spirit Airlines come to TLH. They fly to every metro area in Florida except JAX and Pensacola, but those are in driving distance anyway. They're based in South Florida, and it'd be desirable in as far as attracting students, politicians and other people around Florida to TLH. I'm sure they'd be a big hit.

I've never personally flown Spirit, but they don't seem bad at all.

[psycuda]

It's a lot like where I'm from in NY, where the two airports that have Southwest (Buffalo and Albany) have been growing like mad, where the other airports that have only Jetblue or Spirit are just growing a bit and the airports that have only 1 or 2 airlines (Ithaca) are getting killed. Of course the other problem is that the 1 airline is usually US Airways.

[Florida]

I approached Assistant City Manager, Michael Wright, about the posibility of Tallahassee getting Southwest Airlines to fly in and out of our airport and he told me they won't consider us because they don't serve markets our size.

As much as I love being an island city (isloated) sometimes it can be a thorn.

Could we not offer Southwest the same incentives we offered AirTran to do a little 1-Year trial in our city to see if they'd like to serve us. What would they have to lose?

[stjoe]

"Could we not offer Southwest the same incentives we offered AirTran to do a little 1-Year trial in our city to see if they'd like to serve us. What would they have to lose?"

Delta.

As a Platinum member of Delta, I can tell you, they feel it is unfair to subsidize their comp. You can say "who cares" and that is fine, but if Delta leaves Tally....we are screwed.

Bottom line is this. Tally has to focus on getting high paying jobs FIRST. Yes, it is a catch 22...ie you need airlines to attract jobs, etc. But the first win eventually must be better jobs.

Tally has NEVER understood it is about brining in better jobs. It has always been anti business and this situation is just one of the many fruits of that attitude. But t simply doesn't know how to do this unless they get lucky enough to ride the coatails of one of the universities (like the recent get from Canada...that was all about the Mag Lab). The city should of worked hard with FSU....pushed a REAL research park (Innovation Park is a complete bust) with FSU running it....perhaps pushing another one for FAMU right next to FSU's (so they are near each other....but with one DISTINCT boss...ie you can't have two bosses...you get nowhere).

At the end of the day....Tally simply doesn't know how to be a player with high paying jobs....and that creates a airline market that is of no interest to anyone.

[Florida]

I agree with you that its a catch 22 with regard to the high paying jobs and the airport. However, keep in mind, Leon County, not FSU, FAMU or the City runs Innovation Park. So the failure to coordinate success may be a fault of theirs, look at how they run everything else they do. The city should have assumed control of Innovation Park years ago, I could assure you, it would be Kth times better than it is right now.

As far as Delta is concerned, they could leave and I bet AirTran would be knocking down the door to come back to Tallahassee. AirTran citied as a reason for leaving, that the could not compete with Delta' ability to lower cost below theirs and steal customers away. Of course you could argue its all in the name of competition, but what Delta did, in the eyes of many, was dirty. I could see if their prices stayed low, but No, Delta allowed them soar (no pun intended) upon the departure of AirTran... it was dirty and I lost my respect for Delta because of that.

[stjoe]

I agree with you that its a catch 22 with regard to the high paying jobs and the airport. However, keep in mind, Leon County, not FSU, FAMU or the City runs Innovation Park. So the failure to coordinate success may be a fault of theirs, look at how they run everything else they do. The city should have assumed control of Innovation Park years ago, I could assure you, it would be Kth times better than it is right now.

I realize Leon County runs IP and that is why I believe it is a failure. Either you mistyped or I don't understand what you are saying. If FSU had control of IP years ago, it would be a large source (MUCH larger than it is now) of high paying jobs. That would of been a good start for the city.

As far as Delta is concerned, they could leave and I bet AirTran would be knocking down the door to come back to Tallahassee. AirTran citied as a reason for leaving, that the could not compete with Delta' ability to lower cost below theirs and steal customers away. Of course you could argue its all in the name of competition, but what Delta did, in the eyes of many, was dirty. I could see if their prices stayed low, but No, Delta allowed them soar (no pun intended) upon the departure of AirTran... it was dirty and I lost my respect for Delta because of that.

No airline will every be knocking down Tally's door begging to come or come back (as stated in your scenerio). That is pure hope as opposed to fact. I never said Delta didn't take advantage ....they did. But that doesn't change that Tally is not a desirable market for anyone...including Delta and subsidizing ANOTHER comp for them could send them packing. Doesn't matter..Tally won't get another in Tally unless high paying jobs come to Tally. Whether you respect Delta or not is COMPLETELY irrelevant...your emotions are thinking for you here (not an insult...I do this all the time). I am simply saying...Tally has ONE OPTION...Delta...period...the end.

[Florida]

Now, I don't think I'm speaking from pure emotion here. I personally believe it's rational to think there is a market for airservice here in Tallahassee, and if a company which flys over 40% of our passengers decides it wants to leave our market, I think it would be more than fair to assume another airliner would move in.

With regard to the Innovation Park thing, you made it seem as if the park belongs to FSU... but I wasn't sure if that was your intention. I believe I read and interpreted it as "FSU has this park, so FAMU needs one too." Not in those exact words.

Good news is the County has announced it plans some sweeping changes for the park, which includes beefing up the marketing. There should be an article in tomorrow's paper about it.

[TD]

Man, our airport is such a hard thing..... I thought we were finally turning the corner but then delta cut out non stop NY to TLH flights as well as cincinatti and other routes.... im so mad,,,, I love airplanes and airports... I thought we were doing so well....

And its nto like we will be getting better air service anytime soon, all companies moniter markets constantly and choose to enter if they find it profitbale..... so another discount airline would have filled the void left by airtran if they thought they would make it already....

[csmurphy8885]

in 2 quarters, I think things will look better to the market consultants. if not by then, and If they were haveing a hard time finding us from the air, it will be easier certainly by 2007.

[Florida]

LoL! Is that what it is... they can't find us from the air... nice one! LMAO. I agree with you. I was going to go before the city commission last night to talk about the airport and changed my mind at the last second fearing I hadn't done all of my homework. I'm still going to make a presentation to them, to try to convince them that our airport needs a stand-alone website that is easy to remember.

[poonther]

In my household, we use the Tally airport at least once a month. Many of those flights are for biz, but we do use it frequently. On leisure trips, I'd rather pay $50 more to use TLH than to fly 6 hours home from the West Coast and THEN still have to drive 2.5 hours home in the car from JAX.

I used and was very sorry to see Airtran go. Delta (who we use all the time) did do some mean tricks w/Airtran and many in Tallahassee fell for them. First when Airtran came to town, Delta's tickets lowered to meet their levels (actually this a trick but also good biz practice.) Then Delta would change their scheduled flights to ATL to correspond exactly with the times that Airtran flew to ATL. I would look over as I was boarding Airtran and see that the Delta flights were more full (I think because people were just use to using Delta) and think "people if you don't start using Airtran, we are gonna lose them."

As for losing flights from TLH to Cincy, that's because Delta cut their hub at Cincy and most cities lost their flights there. As for the JFK thing, when Delta filed for bankruptcy, they cut a lot of their regional flights that were not doing so good and TLH to JFK wasn't, so that's why it went.

As for Southwest not flying to small markets, that's bunk. They flight to Lubbock, Amarillo and Midland/Odessa TX which are all about our size. To be fair, I think they still service these cities because when SW was smaller and a Texas regional airline, they serviced those cities and continue to do so.

I think that Mayor Maddox understood the importance of the airport more than our current Mayor, but the new interior improvements such as the food service, bathrooms and signage are all very nice.

It is true that the airport improving is tied to better and more jobs in the area.

[Relient J]

My wife and I were at the Tallahassee airport this week. I think it's a great airport for a city of Tallahassee's size. Unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to try out any of the restaurants there. As for the earlier question regarding making it an international airport, it seems like that should be a market driven thing. If there's enough traffic to support it someday, I'm sure it'll happen. For now though, I'm satisfied with the airport as it is.

[Go Gators]

I picked my girlfriend up here about a week ago, coming in from memphis, and 47 minutes later, her luggage finally came through the turn-about. What is it, about 150 yards from the jet to the luggage area? The worse thing is, no one there could seem to find out what was wrong. It was pathetic.

[Relient J]

When we landed at Tallahassee this past Tuesday night we got our luggage within probably about ten or fifteen minutes. This is all the more impressive because I think that two other planes landed about the same time ours did.

[laneyj34]

same with me. last time i flew in to tlh, i had my bags within a few min. i was amazed at how fast it went b/c the last time i flew into atl, it took over an hour to get my bags. i was pissed.

[Go Gators]

well thats good. bigger airports get bags to the carosels when multiple planes land in a timely manner. i have always had bad luck tlh.

[TD]

well thats good. bigger airports get bags to the carosels when multiple planes land in a timely manner. i have always had bad luck tlh.

hmm well, its true our airport sucks.... we need more people. without people we dont have demand for flights.

[Florida]

hmm well, its true our airport sucks.... we need more people. without people we dont have demand for flights.

oh my...

[DaiDreamer5]

It would be nice if the airport had more direct flights (I have to fly to Atlanta to get to West Palm Beach), but I was really hoping that High Speed Rail was not overturned. I prefer to take a train than fly.

[poonther]

It would be nice if the airport had more direct flights (I have to fly to Atlanta to get to West Palm Beach), but I was really hoping that High Speed Rail was not overturned. I prefer to take a train than fly.

Why? There are 3 directs to PBI and returns back to TLH daily? We fly to PBI often and find that it's cheaper to fly directly to there than go through ATL and it only takes an hour. There are also 4 directs to and from FLL (Lauderdale) daily.

[TD]

Why? There are 3 directs to PBI and returns back to TLH daily? We fly to PBI often and find that it's cheaper to fly directly to there than go through ATL and it only takes an hour. There are also 4 directs to and from FLL (Lauderdale) daily.

IM hoping taurean will present at the city commision meeting... and stress our airport needs a standalone web site with a catchy URL like FLYTLH.com or FLYTally.com

Pensacola has a much better website, and their airport looks nicer also. flypen.com if u wanna check it out....... we need a parking garage.... pensacola has one. we suck.

sorry, but we need to get with the times.

[AlaninTally]

Pensacola has a much better website, and their airport looks nicer also. flypen.com if u wanna check it out....... we need a parking garage.... pensacola has one. we suck.

sorry, but we need to get with the times.

Could we please get off the "suck" kick? Every city has room for improvement. Tallahassee is not exclusive in needing better or improved facilities such as the airport.

This forum is supposed to be about urban planning and development in Tallahassee, not a bash Tallahassee for what it doesn't have that other cities do.

[Florida]

Could we please get off the "suck" kick? Every city has room for improvement. Tallahassee is not exclusive in needing better or improved facilities such as the airport.

This forum is supposed to be about urban planning and development in Tallahassee, not a bash Tallahassee for what it doesn't have that other cities do.

[poonther]

What does talking about direct flights to West Palm have to do w/"no parking garage=we suck" TallahasseeDowntown? Just askin since you took the time to quote me.

Second, I'm not here to debate general topics like Tally sucks or not. I'm here to learn about development and new things going on around Tally. If you wanna debate the merits of a project or an idea or a city/county policy, that's cool. We can all learn from that type of discussion, but the immature spouting out of Tally Sucks.....is just juvenile and not worth my time debating it. Some like it here some don't, that's understandable. But if you really hate Tally and want to get out as fast as you can, there are tons of other city threads on this board where you can go over to them talk all about what you love about those cities. That's the last I'll ever say on that subject.

You guys are absolutely right. Tally needs its own stand alone website for the airport! I think since the revamping of the City's website, the airport site has gotten even worse. Are you really gonna bring this up to the commission TJ? If so when? The Pensacola site is a great one to show to them as an example. However the CORRECT link to their site is not flypen.com, but flypensacola.com My link works, check it out.

While Pensacola has more air traffic than TLH:

2003 total air traffic:

1.38 million at PNS

1.11 million at TLH

2004 total air traffic:

1.48 million at PNS

1.16 million at TLH

Pensacola has a metro area of 4.5K while Tally only has a metro area of 3.3K and within an hours drive of Pensacola there are over 1 million people and in the same radius of Tally there are barely .5 million. So our airport does pretty good. It's true that PNS has to compete with Moblile and Ft. Walton airports, but it is the dominate one in the region. The other two aren't even as big as Tally.

PNS has two more airlines than us: Airtran (is was first in Mobile then moved to Ft. Walton then to PNS) and American. You can fly directly to Dallas and Chicago at PNS which you can't at TLH, but at TLH you can fly directly to Miami and West Palm which you can't from PNS. We also have many more flights to TPA and Orlando than they do, but they have more ATL flights than us.

PNS had a 32% drop in commercial traffic in Oct. 05 over Oct. 04, we only had a 10% drop in the same month. Over the course of 2005 PNS has had less traffic every month than the previous year while TLH has had less traffic in only 6 of those month and 4 months have had gains.

In December, PNS is also losing their Cincy and JFK direct flights as we did.

So based on this info., I'd say we aren't doing that bad at all.

As for not having a parking garage making us "suck." That's the least of my worries. I like the garage in the picture at PNS, love those palm trees around it. They did expand our parking a few years ago and I'm sure if they ever expand it again, we'll have to go w/ a garage too. But not having a parking garage is the least of my worries. When I land, I get my luggage (I've never had trouble in slow luggage return) and I'm home in my living room in about 30 minutes...that's sweet! What sucks is going through security at Ft. Lauderdale. Why on earth does it take so long there. Several airports I go to that are much bigger take way less time. What sucks is why have I never had an on time departure out of Newark...ever? That sucks. Why at San Francisco does it always take hours to get your baggage, that sucks. So not having a garage is low on my list of suckage, but not having a good website, now that does suck!

[jpl02]

Parking garages? If we don't need it, then we shouldn't build it. To think our airport "sucks" without a parking garage is asinine! For years, Dulles Airport didn't have parking garages.....now are you going to tell me that Dulles, the gateway to Washington D.C., sucks?

We need a standalone website for the airport, and we need one that looks nice. Some "major" airports have relatively crappy websites (Indianapolis and New Orleans to name a couple). And despite not having our own website, what web pages we do have look nice compared to those two airports!

To make our airport attractive may not be with the airport itself, but it's surroundings. I've said it before and I'll say it again.....we need development adjacent to the airport (lodging, shopping, dining). Keep people near the airport, give them something to do and the odds are that they'll stay at the airport. Wouldn't it be nice to land at TLH, take a shuttle to a Holiday Inn next door, and not have to pay up the wazoo in cab fare to get to downtown? What about a nice restaurant in or next to the restaurant, perhaps an "exclusive" restaurant that will draw people to the airport? People go to Palm Beach International just for a restaurant.....Tally can do that too! For example, what if the Silver Slipper or Cafe Cabernet relocated to the airport? Those are exclusive restaurants with a popular base....if they moved to the airport, then people would be sure to follow.

And while we're on the subject of standalone websites, StarMetro needs one. I just had to throw that in there