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Nashville International Airport Development thread


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17 minutes ago, NashRugger said:

The more you look at our biggest competitor, Austin, and its airport debacle, you have to appreciate more and more the foresight and strategy BNA's leadership and the overall economic community took in expanding the airport at the start of the area's boom period. The long-term benefits are almost incalculable. 

Meanwhile, the sister city that is like a rocket still has yet to even break serious ground on their long-range plan that has been talked about for over a decade and is resulting in significant issues now that we're beyond the Covid chaos. While staffing issues are everywhere, AUS is stuffed to the gills and their wiggle room until they actually expand is almost zero.

BNA and greater Nashville can easily use it as a metric in recruiting and growing corporate relocations, expansions, etc., as well as the continued explosion in tourism. "Austin may be a beacon, but at least we have our ducks in a row to get our airport setup for the future while the "other" music city languishes to even expand their fuel farm, much less terminal space."

Austin has way more international flights and has opened an international wing, which BNA has yet to open and keeps delaying.

On 7/19/2022 at 8:09 AM, Nathan_in_DC said:

As of right now...no, not beyond BNA-LHR on British Airways (not counting the Canadian destinations, or seasonal tourist flights to Mexico). But, the rumor mill is churning with talk of flights to Asia and Europe. We're just coming off the COVID air travel crash and a lot of airlines are still feeling the squeeze trying to ramp back up while still facing COVID-related crew shortages. This isn't limited to the US, it's just as bad in Europe.  Until the industry sorts itself out and COVID becomes less of a factor, I doubt we'll be seeing any additional international service in the near term. And, as @nashscan said, the new terminal will include better international arrivals and departures facilities, which will probably increase the likelihood of more airlines looking to put direct overseas flights into Nashville. Unless things have changed drastically in the last two years with international arrivals, it's a mess trying to offload a 787 into the tiny customs area that currently exists.

There will be more overseas flights but only once the new international wing opens.

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Questions - Does Austin draw from as wide an extended area as Nashville for air travelers? Does San Antonio's nearness affect the Austin airport numbers? Or that Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston have their own regional draws. Our closest competition (related to scale) seems to be Atlanta. Does Austin "need" an airport as big as Nashville seems to need?

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2 hours ago, Nash_12South said:

Questions - Does Austin draw from as wide an extended area as Nashville for air travelers? Does San Antonio's nearness affect the Austin airport numbers? Or that Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston have their own regional draws. Our closest competition (related to scale) seems to be Atlanta. Does Austin "need" an airport as big as Nashville seems to need?

Knowing little about the Texas airport scene, here is a rough sketch of it from the most cursory of internet research:

  • AUS draws about 60% more emplanements than SAT and has a greater diversity of destinations, so it would seem to work the other way around (AUS numbers are inflated due to the proximity of San Antonio)
  • There are a number of airport shuttles advertising service to/from AUS and downtown San Antonio (as opposed to SAT) supporting the above conclusion
  • Four of SAT's top ten destinations are to the Dallas / Fort Worth and Houston airports* while AUS's numbers to the same are much lower, which with the destinations/airlines implies SAT is functioning more as a connector/commuter airport and San Antonio traffic simply drives to AUS for certain flights/destinations due to the Ron White principle
  • SAT is landlocked and can only use one runway at a time so its capacity is limited in any case

* Interestingly the San Antonio - Dallas / Fort Worth airplane traffic is higher than the Dallas / Fort Worth - Houston traffic, which is a major driver behind the purpose/need of the Texas Central high-speed rail line.

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I saw in the Southwest Airlines 2021 Q4 Earnings Call that Gary Kelly (in his final call as CEO) stated that Southwest is going to be picking up substantial gates in key cities such as Denver, Phoenix, Baltimore....... and Nashville.

What gates are they going to be taking here? I've heard a lot of rumors in the last few years that Southwest wants to grow to over 200 flights a day here and wants to set up everything from a crew base to a maintenance hanger. Is there any truth to this? I think it makes sense, considering the rapid growth of the area plus the fact that they don't really have a large station in the vein of Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc, in the southeastern United States.

Does anyone have any information here? 

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48 minutes ago, RSmith1902 said:

I saw in the Southwest Airlines 2021 Q4 Earnings Call that Gary Kelly (in his final call as CEO) stated that Southwest is going to be picking up substantial gates in key cities such as Denver, Phoenix, Baltimore....... and Nashville.

What gates are they going to be taking here? I've heard a lot of rumors in the last few years that Southwest wants to grow to over 200 flights a day here and wants to set up everything from a crew base to a maintenance hanger. Is there any truth to this? I think it makes sense, considering the rapid growth of the area plus the fact that they don't really have a large station in the vein of Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc, in the southeastern United States.

Does anyone have any information here? 

Best shot for them is the Satellite concourse. The new international gates will also be common use, so they might be able to use some of those. D extension seems to be to replace the A concourse while that is being built out. 

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  • smeagolsfree changed the title to Nashville International Airport Development thread
On 7/14/2022 at 2:39 PM, Melrose said:

Re-upping this observation just to second the emotion that the ceiling down here on the ground level is reaaaallly low,  it feels very weird. 

Came back through yesterday...had noticed previously, but wow....feels like I could jump directly into this ceiling without a running start, and my vertical jump isn't what it once was.

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2 hours ago, Chato_reyes said:

Combing through the June board meeting minutes:

New terminal is scheduled to open 1/17/23 with 24 screening lanes and the return of cartoonishly large led boards with departures and arrivals. IAF will open later in the year.

TN Rickhouse in C (where Starbucks used to be) is behind schedule but moving forward. 

Should be continuing progress by NES in relocating utilities along Donelson Pike as well. 

Anything about gate assignments?

I wonder what is going to happen now with the Frontier/Spirit merger dead and JetBlue acquiring Spirit instead. Wasn’t it rumored they were eyeing the satellite? I can’t imagine they (JetBlue) would grow much here with Southwest so dominate.

On that note, I was thinking, I really wonder how big Southwest wants to get here long term. They will take a good chuck of the gates in C/D/Satellite when all said and done, and honestly, I could totally see Nashville cracking the top 5 of their largest stations one day. 

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13 hours ago, RSmith1902 said:

Anything about gate assignments?

I wonder what is going to happen now with the Frontier/Spirit merger dead and JetBlue acquiring Spirit instead. Wasn’t it rumored they were eyeing the satellite? I can’t imagine they (JetBlue) would grow much here with Southwest so dominate.

On that note, I was thinking, I really wonder how big Southwest wants to get here long term. They will take a good chuck of the gates in C/D/Satellite when all said and done, and honestly, I could totally see Nashville cracking the top 5 of their largest stations one day. 

They don't post board minutes until they're ratified at the next meeting, so those notes were from June. Last board meeting was July 20, so I'm sure it will be a hot topic next month. 

The email I got from spirit says they expect the deal to close in 2 years so there could still be lots of moving parts. Sounds like the deal is equal parts fleet expansion and killing competition. AA could use jetblue as their springboard to the northeast and instead focus on flights to Charlotte, DFW, Phoenix, LA etc. And JetBlue would increase frequency to BOS, JFK/LGA, DCA, and obviously FLL. Spirit also just got slots at EWR and the new airline could compete with WN on MYR and even start service to ACY, I'm sure the fine people at the borgata are wondering where I've been.

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Grammar
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1 hour ago, Chato_reyes said:

They don't post board minutes until they're ratified at the next meeting, so those notes were from June. Last board meeting was July 20, so I'm sure it will be a hot topic next month. 

The email I got from spirit says they expect the deal to close in 2 years ago there could still be lots of moving parts. Sounds like the deal is equal parts fleet expansion and killing competition. AA could use jetblue as their springboard to the northeast and instead focus on flights to Charlotte, DFW, Phoenix, LA etc. And JetBlue would increase frequency to BOS, JFK/LGA, DCA, and obviously FLL. Spirit also just got slots at EWR and the new airline could compete with WN on MYR and even start service to ACY, I'm sure the fine people at the borgata are wondering where I've been.


I see. I’m kind of hoping the American/JetBlue NEA gets terminated as part of this merger. American needs to fix their own problems in the Northeast, it’s their own fault for giving up so many NYC slots over the last 20 years.

I also think they’d have to divest slots at EWR and FLL so I can’t see additional flights there. Maybe Las Vegas and/or Los Angeles will start on JetBlue from Nashville? 

Regardless, like I said above, I can’t see JetBlue increasing a ton out of Nashville because of Southwest’s dominance. Southwest will be running over 200 flights a day here eventually, and I wouldn’t even rule out as high as 300 in the long term. They need to bulk up in the southeast, and Nashville is pretty much their only option as Atlanta and Florida are too competitive for any type of 200+ flight operation. Plus, with Nashville’s rapidly growing Origin and Destination traffic and prime geographical location in the center of the eastern United States, it’s pretty attractive to put a large connecting operation like what they are doing in Denver.

Now if Southwest would just open a crew base here, it would be much easier to expand quicker…..

We’ll see what happens with JetBlue, this is gonna get interesting.

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21 hours ago, Chato_reyes said:

Combing through the June board meeting minutes:

New terminal is scheduled to open 1/17/23 with 24 screening lanes and the return of cartoonishly large led boards with departures and arrivals. IAF will open later in the year.

TN Rickhouse in C (where Starbucks used to be) is behind schedule but moving forward. 

Should be continuing progress by NES in relocating utilities along Donelson Pike as well. 

 

Anything on Five Daughters or was that one a covid casualty?

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