Nashville International Airport Development thread

[Nash_12South]

2 hours ago, DDIG said:

Has anyone flown at BNA recently since the shut down? Longer lines than normal? Is Pre-Check still open? I'm flying next week.

I flew out last week with no issues, going or returning. Lots of staff at the 4 airports I flew through and no real lines. 

Having said all that, I think it is getting a little worse daily as more staff get fed up with  the current situation. I wouldn't be surprised if some kind of  organized slow down occurs. 

[markhollin]

5 hours ago, DDIG said:

Has anyone flown at BNA recently since the shut down? Longer lines than normal? Is Pre-Check still open? I'm flying next week.

Have flown out and in twice in last two weeks for trips to Idaho and Africa.  TSA PreCheck was open both times, and moved quickly. There were longer lines than normal going through customs in Newark, NJ, though.  

[thenorthchannel]

8 hours ago, DDIG said:

Has anyone flown at BNA recently since the shut down? Longer lines than normal? Is Pre-Check still open? I'm flying next week.

Ive flown 4 times this month.  Lines have been non-existent and TSA staff have been wonderful.    

[LA_TN]

Here's a good picture that shows the difference between the old garage and the new garage(s)

[Nash_12South]

Current news - air delays spreading from the northeast (NYC)

In looking at the BNA arrivals/departures lots of delays related to NYC. 

[GreenHillsBoy]

Just returned from trips through Miami and Washington Reagan and there did appear to be some slower issues with connections, mostly due to the Air Traffic Controller issues in the Northeast.  There were no issues in Nashville, but again the terminal appeared to be extremely busy and all of the flights to and from Nashville were totally full  with a long list of standbys.  I now also think we were lucky to NOT have an American Airlines hub as their routings/connections are poorly organized and we saw delays twice related to their own staffing, pilots and support personnel having to be pulled because of too many hours.....how can that happen?  They also have some VERY short windows for connections that make no sense especially in Miami where going from one concourse to another can take an extremely long time with no moving sidewalks, at least between D and E.  

Edited January 26, 2019 by GreenHillsBoy

[MLBrumby]

Flying out of DFW to London about 5 years ago, we were forced to wait 4 hours 'for a part'! Just another in a whole list of things that screwed up a trip. I will now pay a premium NOT to fly AA. 

[NashRugger]

3 hours ago, GreenHillsBoy said:

Just returned from trips through Miami and Washington Reagan and there did appear to be some slower issues with connections, mostly due to the Air Traffic Controller issues in the Northeast.  There were no issues in Nashville, but again the terminal appeared to be extremely busy and all of the flights to and from Nashville were totally full  with a long list of standbys.  I now also think we were lucky to NOT have an American Airlines hub as their routings/connections are poorly organized and we saw delays twice related to their own staffing, pilots and support personnel having to be pulled because of too many hours.....how can that happen?  They also have some VERY short windows for connections that make no sense especially in Miami where going from one concourse to another can take an extremely long time with no moving sidewalks, at least between D and E.  

FAA mandates for flight crews and also likely union contract guidelines. 

[Craiger]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2019/02/01/nashville-airport-bna-restaurants-biscuit-love-princes/2735947002/

Basically every local eatery is trying to get a spot at the airport under this new deal. 

Very excited for restaurants at the airport to actually be owned and run by locals!

 

Gulch pizzeria Emmy Squared, fast-food burger joint Hugh Baby's, barbecue restaurant Peg Leg Porker, Vietnamese restaurant Vui's Kitchen, sandwich shop The Grilled Cheeserie, Mexican restaurant La Hacienda, local brewery Tennessee Brew Works, Southern bar and grill Puckett's, Blake Shelton-branded honky-tonk Ole Red and sweet shop Christie Cookie are among the names.

Several coffee shops, including 8th and Roast, Barista Parlor and Bongo Java, are included. Hot chicken eateries Prince's, 400 Degrees, Party Fowl and Hattie B's are on the list.

 

Fraport USA President and CEO Ben Zandi said there were 432 applications for roughly 90 spots.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Craiger

[Rockatansky]

Hot Chicken and air travel are not a good combination IMO.

[leggy77]

Here are the locations HT NBJ

 

[markhollin]

Diagrams showing where all the eateries/retailers will be in revamped terminal. Over 90 in total.

More at NBJ here:

https://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/news/2019/02/01/see-the-restaurants-stores-headed-to-a-revamped.html?iana=hpmvp_nsh_news_headline

 

[CenterHill]

This will be amazing and a huge improvement over BNA's current offerings!      My first thought was "when?"      The headline and first paragraph of the Tennessean article leads you to believe this is happening "now" or "soon", but when you look at the diagrams, this is clearly after the terminal and concourse renovations happen.     For example, the food court at the bend in Concourse C is completely redesigned in the rendering.        The answer is further down in the article: "over the next four years as the airport is renovated."    I'm sure it will roll out in phases.  

Now arriving at the Nashville airport: New local restaurants, retail coming to BNA

Nashville's airport will soon feature dozens of popular local restaurants and retail shops as part of a multi-million-dollar overhaul set to bring in Biscuit Love, Prince's Hot Chicken Shack, Acme Feed & Seed and scores of other new businesses. 

The businesses are expected to open over the next four years as the airport is renovated.

[MLBrumby]

Wow! Those are going to be great options to eat. 

Maybe this should be taken to the CH, but as they show 4 N'ville hot chix places, I'd like to know what the posters here think of how they compare. I have only ever gone to Prince's just a handful of times and Party Fowl. Specifically, these at BNA. Opinions? 

And for some reason, I thought 400 Degrees and Bajo Sexto went out of biz. Am I wrong? 

Edited February 1, 2019 by MLBrumby

[jmtunafish]

That looks fantastic!  It's like the ideal mall food court.  When this is all done, I'll probably start arriving at BNA about 10 hours early just so I can eat at a few places.

[Vrtigo]

I'm most excited about the "street pricing"!

[PruneTracy]

16 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

Maybe this should be taken to the CH, but as they show 4 N'ville hot chix places, I'd like to know what the posters here think of how they compare. I have only ever gone to Prince's just a handful of times and Party Fowl. Specifically, these at BNA. Opinions?

PruneTracy's Hot Taeks Chicken Power Rankings

OG Tier

1. Prince's

2. 400 Degrees

tourists plz gtfo Tier

3. Hattie B's

This Presentation Is All Wrong and What the Hell is an Aioli Tier

4. Puckett's

5. ACME

6. Ole Red

Your Hot Chicken Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad Tier

7. Party Fowl

LOL Putting Hot Sauce on Chicken Doesn't Make It Hot Chicken Tier

8. Popeye's

 

[MLBrumby]

Thanks! LOL.. didn't want to say anything before but I did get a little sick after eating Party Fowl. It was only once, but it tasted like it was cooked in bacon grease. I don't drink much beer... so it could have been the three beers I had with it. You know, cooling the mouth and all that. 

[bnacincy]

With all the food and retail options planned, I wonder how many passengers are just making connections thru Nashville and not flying in to see the city. After all, Southwest Airlines has over half the passengers coming to Nashville and so with all the hoopla over passenger growth in recent years can anyone tell me what percentage of passengers are just passing thru? From the looks of the concessions it could be a lot.

[dxfret]

Adding such a wide offering of retail,concessions, restaurants and amenities with direct links to Nashville is a smart move by German firm FRAPORT who is managing this effort.  With the full BNA Vision and expansion of the airport now fully underway, passenger growth will only continue to grow and the new space/gates/parking/hotel/offices will be needed.  

Southwest Airlines is increasingly adding flights and also connections at BNA, moving several flights and destinations from Atlanta to BNA.  This is among the reasons behind SWA’s  addition of 5 daily flights to ATL, finally breaking Delta’s expensive monopoly on that route.  Yes, many more connecting passengers are using BNA,  and growth will continue. Also, BNA’s local origination and estimation (O&D) passenger traffic is also quite impressive.  

Growth at BNA mirrors the booming growth happening in Nashville and across the region. 

[BnaBreaker]

Wow, if I still lived in Nashville I might make the airport a regular day trip destination!  "Come on kids!  We're going to the airport for the day!*"

*Okay, I have no kids, but that sounded better than just saying straight up that I'd shamelessly go hang out at the airport by myself for an entire day.  

[Hey_Hey]

4 hours ago, bnacincy said:

With all the food and retail options planned, I wonder how many passengers are just making connections thru Nashville and not flying in to see the city. After all, Southwest Airlines has over half the passengers coming to Nashville and so with all the hoopla over passenger growth in recent years can anyone tell me what percentage of passengers are just passing thru? From the looks of the concessions it could be a lot.

Someone over on airliners.net requested information from the airport about connecting passenger volume.  For the 12 months ending in October, 2018 it was 12.2% transfer volume and 87.8% O&D. The bulk of that is on Southwest as well, meaning concourse C.   https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1382463&p=20889937&hilit=12%#p20889937

It will be interesting to see what effect this has on additional traffic. If BNA knocks this out of the park and the restaurants and pricing are a huge success then it would make sense to see Southwest send more of its connecting traffic through BNA than a place like Midway or STL. 

I'm also interested in seeing how street pricing works. The Atlanta Falcons experimented with street pricing for their concessions over the last couple of years and it has been a tremendous success.  One of the things they found was that even though profit margins were slimmer, total revenue was significantly up. Maybe something similar could happen in the airport.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/sports/football/nfl-concessions.html

[Pdt2f]

10 minutes ago, Hey_Hey said:

It will be interesting to see what effect this has on additional traffic. If BNA knocks this out of the park and the restaurants and pricing are a huge success then it would make sense to see Southwest send more of its connecting traffic through BNA than a place like Midway or STL. 

I know if I didn’t live in Nashville I’d sure as hell want to connect through BNA now. 

[titanhog]

If they would just put some amusement park rides in there...this city would be BACK! 

[LA_TN]

Site Selection conversion with President and CEO Doug Kreulen

Ceiling Unlimited

Doug Kreulen: BNA is and has been one of the fastest growing airports in North America. The number of passengers in our terminal has grown by more than 1 million people each year for the past five years, and all projections indicate continued growth as far as the eye can see. This year, we had roughly 16 million passengers flying in and out of BNA, an extraordinary increase of about 13 percent over last year. By the time BNA Vision is complete in 2023, we anticipate more than 17 million passengers visiting our airport. That number continues to soar as we project long term.

 

My summary:

- This year, we had 16 million passengers
- grown by more than 1 million people each year
- all projections indicate continued growth
- in 2023, we anticipate more than 17 million passengers

Seriously Mr. Kreulen? How about we hit 17 million in 2019