Nashville International Airport Development thread

[Binbin98]

I saw a rumor on Anet that WestJet will fly Nashville to Vancouver 3x weekly later on this year, I feel like this route would make sense. 
 

Also this isn’t Nashville related but Qantas has filed a request to start Sydney Australia to Miami direct flights by 2025, which would be really neat to see. Take that Atlanta XD

[Chato_reyes]

On 2/12/2023 at 3:27 AM, Binbin98 said:

I saw a rumor on Anet that WestJet will fly Nashville to Vancouver 3x weekly later on this year, I feel like this route would make sense. 
 

Also this isn’t Nashville related but Qantas has filed a request to start Sydney Australia to Miami direct flights by 2025, which would be really neat to see. Take that Atlanta XD

Quantas is oneworld so it makes sense. 

[Sean blackdog]

Yesterday morning from Instagram Sky5. 

[Sean blackdog]

Today this evening. 
 

BNA Vision Plan 

International Arrivals Facility 

 

Hilton Hotel 

 

Satellite Concourse 

Today this evening.
I noticed that Gate C5 removed. 

[MLBrumby]

From an aerial shot someone posted earlier this week, I saw the gate removed. That will be the location for the shuttle loading/unloading to/from the satellite concourse. 

[tragenvol]

January 2023 numbers;

[downtownresident]

12 minutes ago, tragenvol said:

January 2023 numbers;

11% growth over Jan 2020, not bad! 

[Rick Dalton]

That looks like a big number. Any notable events this January?

[colemangaines]

Historically the lowest month of the year, and it's higher than any month in FY2018. That's insane growth.

[tragenvol]

BNA can realistically hit 22 million for FY23....WOW.

[Pdt2f]

21 hours ago, natethegreat said:

That looks like a big number. Any notable events this January?

I don’t think so. The growth is about the same as other months, and it looks pretty comparable from other years with the ca. 100,000 pax drop from December. I think this is just the new normal, as far as the insane number of passengers. Historically, it’ll drop by a few thousand in February and then start rising again in March, peaking in the summer. 
 

Anecdotal, but I flew to LGA and back in late January and it was pretty packed. The 738M was 100% full on the way there and probably 75-80% on the way back. 

[Luvemtall]

I have a question for those that have knowledge of airports and their design. We all know that the height of buildings in the Downtown area is sorta capped at 750’ under the guidelines of the FAA . Could that not have been addressed during this multi billion dollar revamping of BNA ? Could they have possibly been able to reconfigure the runway or runways to orient them to avoid traffic over downtown? 

[NashRugger]

Relocating the crosswind runway, the reason for the "capping" of downtown, would cost several billion to relocate, easily. There's likely no financially feasible way to do it and not detonate BNA's debt and potentially risk a downgrade in credit rating.

An example was the $1bil price tag on STL's new runway 11/29 that helped with IFR operations and it's a notorious "white elephant" project. You'd have to relocate cargo ops, hundreds to a few thousand residents, and/or the TN Air National Guard base just to get started. 

[Ramrod]

Educate me here on this runway. It allows the planes to take off headed over downtown. This may be a dumb question but “why can’t they take off from this runway going the other direction away from downtown?”

[NashRugger]

15 hours ago, Ramrod said:

Educate me here on this runway. It allows the planes to take off headed over downtown. This may be a dumb question but “why can’t they take off from this runway going the other direction away from downtown?”

That runway is almost exclusively used for when strong northwest winds that would result in at least 20kts of crosswind on the 3 others occur, which is usually between October & April when stronger storm systems transit the region. From taking off on 31, the flight headings send them almost right over the downtown core, notably westbound and southbound departures. 

Use of the same runway, only heading 13 for departures and arrivals, is incredibly rare for prolonged periods. I've personally seen it maybe a dozen times in the last decade because strong enough winds from that quadrant and 20 degrees left or right of 130º. Oddly enough the two highest months that would make that worthwhile are July & August, partly due to tropical systems/remnants passing nearby.

[Sean blackdog]

Today this evening.  
I stand at parking lots behind Holiday Inn Express. 

[UrbanWes03]

Visited Nashville this past weekend with my family and the amount of work being done for the new Donelson Pike interchange for BNA is pretty immense. 

[tragenvol]

45 minutes ago, UrbanWes03 said:

Visited Nashville this past weekend with my family and the amount of work being done for the new Donelson Pike interchange for BNA is pretty immense. 

Right!  I came through twice this week...wow.  Also, the BNA Hilton is fairly prominent coming in from the east.

[Sean blackdog]

Vision Plan 

International Arrivals Facility 

 

Hilton Hotel 

 

Satellite Concourse 

[Sean blackdog]

https://www.axios.com/local/nashville/2023/02/22/top-countries-international-visitors-nashville
 

According to Tourism Economics data provided to Axios by the NCVC, these countries are the top drivers of international tourism to Nashville.

1. Canada
2. United Kingdom
3. Germany
4. Mexico
5. Australia
6. France
7. India
8. Ireland
9. Italy
10. South Korea

[Luvemtall]

^^^ hopefully one day there’s a nonstop to all these destinations ^^^

[PillowTalk4]

I'm in Nashville for a few weeks and on my drive in I noticed that the Hilton tower is now the first high rise that you see as you approach the city from the east.  Pretty cool actually as you drive along I-40 west bound, east of Donelson Pike.

[glamdring269]

We flew out of town last weekend and better believe we walked the entire airport. It felt so liberating no longer having separation between A/B and C/D. I'm a nervous traveler when it comes to getting to the airport on time so usually get there with plenty of time to spare. The problem is I also don't like to just sit there and wait so I would always just walk the place. Great to have that option back. Plus most everything looks so much better than I remember on the A/B side.

[markhollin]

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to Nashville International Airport on Friday to celebrate a $7 million grant to help improve the main airport access road. 

The funding is part of nearly $1 billion in Airport Terminal Program grants announced by the Department of Transportation, with Buttigieg also visiting Memphis International Airport, which received $14.8 million, and Charles W. Baker Airport in Millington, which received $1 million, as part of $22 million in grants for airport projects in the state.

Nashville International Airport is also rebuilding one of their taxiways through an additional $8.6 million from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

More behind the Nashville Post paywall here:

https://www.nashvillepost.com/politics/federal/buttigieg-cooper-celebrate-7-million-grant-for-bna/article_43d30f9c-4bdd-59a6-aabe-84f80d705815.html

[PillowTalk4]

BNA Hilton Progress 3/8/23