Nashville International Airport Development thread

[BnaBreaker]

1 hour ago, Pdt2f said:

That also says Allegiant to me, unless it’s just the idiotic misuse of the English language that many reporters use these days. Flying to a lot of secondary airports (already mentioned by others - St. Pete, Sanford, Mesa, etc) would mean that technically they are “new” destinations. Heck, maybe they’re seeing a golden opportunity to make some big money and they’re starting a BNA-PDX flight?  

Or perhaps Nashville is being added as one of Allegiant's destination cities (like Las Vegas and Orlando) and all of the new domestic destinations are small to mid sized cities like Des Moines, Boise, Harrisburg etc.  That's really the only thing that makes sense to me seeing as how Nashville already has flights to nearly all major domestic markets.

Edited March 6, 2018 by BnaBreaker

[jmtunafish]

8 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

That also says Allegiant to me, unless it’s just the idiotic misuse of the English language that many reporters use these days. Flying to a lot of secondary airports (already mentioned by others - St. Pete, Sanford, Mesa, etc) would mean that technically they are “new” destinations. Heck, maybe they’re seeing a golden opportunity to make some big money and they’re starting a BNA-PDX flight?  

That makes a lot of sense.  They didn't say five new markets, but five new destinations.  I'm not a fan of Allegiant so I hope that's not the case.  But if it is Allegiant, I suppose that's still better than nothing.  I mean, Allegiant already flies to the other four commercial airports in Tennessee (MEM, TYS, CHA, TRI) so why not BNA as well.  I know a lot of people love Allegiant, so maybe having Allegiant at BNA will draw travelers who currently drive to MEM, CHA, and TYS to catch a cheap flight.

Edited March 6, 2018 by jmtunafish

[samsonh]

9 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Same here... nothing but positive experiences with Frontier for me.  

Agreed. Southwest is easier but the couple times I’ve flown frontier have been good.

[tragenvol]

I think I saw recently that Allegiant just announced Birmingham, and they just began operations in Indianapolis.  Maybe we can get that direct flight to Indy now....

Looks like Allegiant is coming to town.

[Pdt2f]

9 hours ago, BnaBreaker said:

Or perhaps Nashville is being added as one of Allegiant's destination cities (like Las Vegas and Orlando) and all of the new domestic destinations are small to mid sized cities like Des Moines, Boise, Harrisburg etc.  That's really the only thing that makes sense to me seeing as how Nashville already has flights to nearly all major domestic markets.

Could be a combination of the two: a few Florida/coastal flights and a few midwestern flights for both tourists coming from and going to Nashville. 

3 hours ago, jmtunafish said:

That makes a lot of sense.  They didn't say five new markets, but five new destinations.  I'm not a fan of Allegiant so I hope that's not the case.  But if it is Allegiant, I suppose that's still better than nothing.  I mean, Allegiant already flies to the other four commercial airports in Tennessee (MEM, TYS, CHA, TRI) so why not BNA as well.  I know a lot of people love Allegiant, so maybe having Allegiant at BNA will draw travelers who currently drive to MEM, CHA, and TYS to catch a cheap flight.

I’d be very interested to see their prices and if the other BNA carriers lower theirs to match. The more carriers the better, IMO. I just hope it doesn’t scare off Spirit if it’s Allegiant, because I still think they have something to offer Nashville, mainly their Caribbean/Central American route structure flown from FLL. They would also do well on a Vegas flight and I think a ULCC route to Chicago could do well. Frontier only ran theirs for a short amount of time but they give up too easily on routes, many of which have >80% load factors. 

[Rockatansky]

On 3/4/2018 at 9:40 PM, samsonh said:

 They took the giant horrible west Nashville regions bank and made it an airport!

Horrible?

[Hey_Hey]

Allegiant will be starting up twice weekly service from BNA to RIC, MYR, PGD, SAV, and VPS beginning in June. 

[Pdt2f]

That’s Richmond, Myrtle Beach, Punta Gorda (FL), Savannah/Hilton Head, and  Destin/Fort Walton Beach (FL), to the non-airport code memorizers  

[Binbin98]

11 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

That’s Richmond, Myrtle Beach, Punta Gorda (FL), Savannah/Hilton Head, and  Destin/Fort Walton Beach (FL), to the non-airport code memorizers  

I personally think these flights are very good for Nashville and will ultimately work in the long run due to connections. For example, If i got on a flight to richmond, I could connect to Williamsburg, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach in about an hour or so. Likewise in terms of Myrtle Beach, you can drive an hour and a half to bald head island (where my family has a beach home lol)

[dxfret]

Southwest Airlines set to announce new nonstop service between BNA and Oklahoma City this morning

[Pdt2f]

A round trip offered only on Sunday’s. That’s bush league, Southwest. You can do better than that!

[NashRugger]

It’s pretty conservative, even for an untested route.

[Binbin98]

Still this is a good sign for BNA as I believe Southwest Airlines wants to bring it up to a base like St. Louis or Tampa in the future. I personally believe that Little Rock and Omaha will he added by southwest in the future as well as some Caribbean routes. And Delta Connection will add Hartford very soon (due to the numerous healthcare companies and links between the two). Portland will either be Alaska airlines or southwest, and I honestly can see Alaska once they get new boeings to do the Same expansion tactics they did with their Seattle routes with Portland (I.E. PDX-RDU, PDX-BNA, PDX-IND etc..)

[AUNash]

So with regard to Southwest, where do we rank in their route structure? And what is the significance of a “base” or what I’ve heard before “focus city”?

[Hey_Hey]

With the exception of PDX there are no glaring holes in BNA's nonstop offerings.  Sacramento would be a nice target for 1x daily as would Ontario/San Bernardino and Providence, but those are not what I would consider significant holes.  IND would also be nice, but it is a drivable destination anyway. 

IMO, the best thing for Nashville would be if Southwest beefs up its connecting passengers at BNA. There are several destinations that would be great to have as nonstop but I doubt that there is adequate volume from Nashville to support them without factoring in transferring passengers.  For example, I'm thinking of places like San Juan, Punta Cana, and Montego Bay in the Caribbean as well as small-to-midsize cities in the Midwest like Omaha, Little Rock, Tulsa, Des Moines, Grand Rapids, and Wichita.  From Nashville's perspective having connections to those cities would be great, but would be dependent on filling half or 2/3 of the plan with transfers. 

[NashRugger]

2 hours ago, AUNash said:

So with regard to Southwest, where do we rank in their route structure? And what is the significance of a “base” or what I’ve heard before “focus city”?

"Focus city" is a term mainly used by lower cost carrier for cities with significant numbers of flights and connections. It's basically saying a hub without the actual term.

A "base" is just where you have an actual crew base to start flights/legs, originators and terminators, for their trips usually. STL is still a base for American even though they're no longer a hub for them. 

[Pdt2f]

2 hours ago, AUNash said:

So with regard to Southwest, where do we rank in their route structure? And what is the significance of a “base” or what I’ve heard before “focus city”?

Base is where their crews operate out of, focus city is just a place where they offer lots for flights and connect passengers, maybe 10-15% of BNA’s pax are connecting on southwest. As far as where we rank, maybe like 15th? I think after the Atlanta flight starts in August there will be around 110-115 flights per day operated by Southwest at BNA. This compares to 200+ at places like Baltimore, Chicago-Midway, Denver, and maybe Las Vegas, and over 150 at places like Phoenix, Dallas-Love, Orlando, Houston-Hobby. We’re comparable with St. Louis and Tampa (WN does connect more pax through STL though, I believe), and a little behind LAX and ATL. I would submit though that BNA’s importance in their route network is increasing yearly, as they seem to be adding 2-4 new routes per year like clockwork. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next route expansion in May includes a few new destinations. 

31 minutes ago, Hey_Hey said:

With the exception of PDX there are no glaring holes in BNA's nonstop offerings.  Sacramento would be a nice target for 1x daily as would Ontario/San Bernardino and Providence, but those are not what I would consider significant holes.  IND would also be nice, but it is a drivable destination anyway. 

IMO, the best thing for Nashville would be if Southwest beefs up its connecting passengers at BNA. There are several destinations that would be great to have as nonstop but I doubt that there is adequate volume from Nashville to support them without factoring in transferring passengers.  For example, I'm thinking of places like San Juan, Punta Cana, and Montego Bay in the Caribbean as well as small-to-midsize cities in the Midwest like Omaha, Little Rock, Tulsa, Des Moines, Grand Rapids, and Wichita.  From Nashville's perspective having connections to those cities would be great, but would be dependent on filling half or 2/3 of the plan with transfers. 

A Hartford, Conn flight could also be possible. Apparently Hartford is big in the healthcare industry. 

[FriendlyFlier]

I’d like a San Jose, CA direct on some airline. Was just there and Birmingham has a direct on United...

[jmtunafish]

3 hours ago, insulin9846 said:

I’d like a San Jose, CA direct on some airline. Was just there and Birmingham has a direct on United...

I've scoured the internet, from the San Jose airport web site, the Birmingham airport web site, both airports' Wikipedia web sites, and the United Airlines web site, and none of them shows a nonstop between San Jose and Birmingham.  United's only nonstops out of BHM are to Houston-IAH, Chicago-ORD, and Denver.

[dxfret]

3 hours ago, insulin9846 said:

I’d like a San Jose, CA direct on some airline. Was just there and Birmingham has a direct on United...

I’m unable to find any nonstop flights between SJC and BHM on any airline.  All scheduled flights on this route require a stop or change of planes somewhere.  

Doubtful BNA really needs a nonstop to San Jose since the Bay Area is already well covered with multiple daily nonstop flights  to SFO on United and Virgin America/Alaska, and nonstop to OAK on Southwest 

Edited March 9, 2018 by dxfret

[SoundScan]

It should probably be mentioned that direct =/= nonstop.

[Pdt2f]

They don’t have a nonstop, but it could be a direct with a stop in Denver. It’s basically 2 different flights, but they’ll market those as direct because they don’t have a plane change. Of course, he could have just seen a one-off charter plane or something. Those happen all the time. 

[FriendlyFlier]

Sorry yes it must have been a connecting flight that read Birmingham as I walked by. My bad. 

[Will]

Interim International Arrivals Building is done.

[21jump]

I love the signs!