Nashville International Airport Development thread

[Hey_Hey]

Check out Flightradar24.com sometime after 9:00 or 10:00 PM and watch the flow of Fedex planes into MEM. It is amazing to see that many wide bodies going into one airport. Nothing like it elsewhere in the US. 

[MidTenn1]

Quote

Check out Flightradar24.com sometime after 9:00 or 10:00 PM and watch the flow of Fedex planes into MEM. It is amazing to see that many wide bodies going into one airport. Nothing like it elsewhere in the US. 

I was a passenger on a small King Air years ago landing on the east-west runway at Memphis while a line over the horizon of FedEx planes were landing side by side on the two North-South runways. It was exciting. I remember the tower instructing our pilot to 'expedite your turn off' once we hit the pad. I was impressed.

[NashRugger]

So in retaliation to Southwest starting BNA-ATL routing 5x daily, Delta is upgauging several flights per day to 757s. I forgot exactly which ones but they start in August as well. 

Delta sees the chips laid down and raises by a ton. 

Edited May 2, 2018 by NashRugger

[Pdt2f]

1 hour ago, NashRugger said:

So in retaliation to Southwest starting BNA-ATL routing 5x daily, Delta is upgauging several flights per day to 757s. I forgot exactly which ones but they start in August as well. 

Delta sees the chips laid down and raises by a ton. 

While booking dummy flights on Southwest they actually have quite a few connections through ATL that are cheaper than direct flights (unusual for WN). I thought initially the flight was about creating O&D demand, but I think they’re doing more connections than I thought, both ways. 

[MLBrumby]

I'm taking my family to Colorado in July and flying to Denver. I shopped SWA (and a  few others) out of BNA and ATL.  Southwest out of Atlanta for approximately the same flight will save my family nearly $80 per passenger. Surprised the difference was so great on the same airline. 

[arkitekte]

7 hours ago, Hey_Hey said:

Check out Flightradar24.com sometime after 9:00 or 10:00 PM and watch the flow of Fedex planes into MEM. It is amazing to see that many wide bodies going into one airport. Nothing like it elsewhere in the US. 

As someone who lived in Memphis for a while and did some design work on FedEx facilities at MEM,  I'm always amazed at their operation there; it's quite impressive.  

Edited May 2, 2018 by arkitekte

[jmtunafish]

2 hours ago, arkitekte said:

As someone who lived in Memphis for a while and did some design work on FedEx facilities at MEM,  I'm always amazed at their operation there; it's quite impressive.  

It really is impressive.  MEM comes alive in the middle of the night when everyone else is asleep.  It's like a war zone with all the planes taking off and landing almost simultaneously and in such a small time frame.  Hard to imagine what the entire city of Memphis would be like had FedEx stayed in Little Rock.

Edited May 3, 2018 by jmtunafish

[dxfret]

Passenger wise Memphis (MEM) is very weak.  There are only 85 total flights per day on all of the carriers flying there. Service to the west coast is miserable.  

[WebberThomas4]

3 hours ago, arkitekte said:

As someone who lived in Memphis for a while and did some design work on FedEx facilities at MEM,  I'm always amazed at their operation there; it's quite impressive.  

My father in-law was one of the first pilots for FedEx. He flew the 727 until he retired and would still be flying today if not for the age limit. Anyways, I was able to go on a tour of the FedEx facility during the week of Christmas a few years and it was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.  

[Pdt2f]

2 hours ago, dxfret said:

Passenger wise Memphis (MEM) is very weak.  There are only 85 total flights per day on all of the carriers flying there. Service to the west coast is miserable.  

The bottom fell out when Delta dehubbed them. They inherited the hub from Northwest and didn’t really need it, considering they had CVG. 

[NashRugger]

The inaugural British Airways flight just took off and is on the way! Should arrive on time at roughly 545pm.

[nashvylle]

do we know if it was sold out?

[Pdt2f]

50 minutes ago, nashvylle said:

do we know if it was sold out?

Presumably, they ran a pretty good deal for like the first week of the flight. I actually considered taking a trip with the family flying business class because it was so cheap, comparably speaking. There may be empty seats for corporate reservations though, but even those are paid for by the companies that keep them in reserve. 

[NashRugger]

1 hour ago, nashvylle said:

do we know if it was sold out?

Not sure, but it is guaranteed to have a load factor >80%, and I feel that's a very conservative low figure.

[wboarder44]

Looks like there is one business class, 3 premium economy, and 10ish economy seats available as of 12:30 May 4th.

[Pdt2f]

2 hours ago, wboarder44 said:

Looks like there is one business class, 3 premium economy, and 10ish economy seats available as of 12:30 May 4th.

That’s like a 94% load factor, which is extremely high for a transatlantic flight. The empty seats could also be permantly reserved by a company with a corporate account with BA, like maybe HCA or one of the music companies. I’d also be interested to see if the cargo deck is full. Flights like this are profitable because of the premium seats and cargo, the economy seats are just icing on the cake. 

[NashRugger]

That’s like a 94% load factor, which is extremely high for a transatlantic flight. The empty seats could also be permantly reserved by a company with a corporate account with BA, like maybe HCA or one of the music companies. I’d also be interested to see if the cargo deck is full. Flights like this are profitable because of the premium seats and cargo, the economy seats are just icing on the cake. 

Load factors that high will have an immediate impact in either this flight going daily, upgauge in aircraft, or both in the long run.

[Pdt2f]

8 minutes ago, NashRugger said:

Load factors that high will have an immediate impact in either this flight going daily, upgauge in aircraft, or both in the long run.

Austin got upgauged to a 747 for this summer by BA, and I think their flight started with 4 788’s per week, as opposed to our 5. That’d be insane, if we ever got regularly scheduled 744 service to little Nashville. I’d just be happy if it went daily. 

[Binbin98]

I am super super excited for this service starting, and I am trying to look at the glass half full this week as even though the transit vote lost, A new transatlantic flight started and Alliance Bernstein moved their entire global headquarters to Nashville. Even in a bad week Nashville shines lol.

Also my dad's friend who is a pilot for oneworld alliance member American Airlines says that the gossip with British Airways and this flight is that already they are heavily considering making it daily at least in the summer months, I dont know if that is on a 787-8 or 787-9 but still good news. I have close family friends who are taking this flight to Heathrow and then making a quick one-stop connection to Athens this summer, it saves them a good 12 hours at least connecting. People who use this flight can get to even smaller airports in Europe with only one connection such as Innsbruck and Gibraltar, and also can make very fast and easy connections to Africa, The middle east and even Asia. This flight will without a doubt generate good feedback and be a huge positive to the city of Nashville and British Airways in my opinion, NOW EVERYONE MAKE SURE TO USE IT!

P.S. I am patiently waiting Portland, Iceland, and hopefully even Frankfurt on Condor to follow up with this *fingers crossed*

[Pdt2f]

10 minutes ago, Binbin98 said:

a huge positive to the city of Nashville and British Airways in my opinion, NOW EVERYONE MAKE SURE TO USE IT!

Agreed it’s a huge positive, and the connection aspect definitely makes it something I would use on future Europe trips, but it’s still hella cheaper to get to London by connecting at CLT, ATL, DTW, or EWR. Hopefully with additional direct European service the price will drop some and it’ll become more affordable to leisure travelers. 

[LA_TN]

Some images I collected from Friday's LHR - BNA - LHR inaugural flight on British Airways

Nashville on the board at London Heathrow!

Boarding

Inbound flight 223 on British Airways bound for BNA

London-Heathrow on the board at Nashville!

Flight BA 223 landing on 20 R

787 Dreamliner

There was cake!

British Airways had some special edition guitars for the event

British Airways ticket counter at Nashville International Airport!

Passengers received a Hatch Show Print poster

[TNinVB]

Those are some nice shots. Glad to see this finally happening. Looks like they brought English weather with them!

[PruneTracy]

I think the Dreamliner service is as important as the carrier (not that Southwest's -800s and MAX 8s aren't nice, but we don't see them on a regular basis).

19 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

Austin got upgauged to a 747 for this summer by BA, and I think their flight started with 4 788’s per week, as opposed to our 5. That’d be insane, if we ever got regularly scheduled 744 service to little Nashville. I’d just be happy if it went daily. 

747s with full loads can only take off on the crosswind runway, though.

[Hey_Hey]

13 hours ago, Pdt2f said:

Agreed it’s a huge positive, and the connection aspect definitely makes it something I would use on future Europe trips, but it’s still hella cheaper to get to London by connecting at CLT, ATL, DTW, or EWR. Hopefully with additional direct European service the price will drop some and it’ll become more affordable to leisure travelers. 

I have mixed emotions on the prices, currently.  On one hand, I wish the prices were less expensive so that more people could utilize the flights.  On the other hand, however, I am glad that they are expensive because that indicates demand is strong. I guess in the end I would rather have high prices at this point than low prices. 

That being said, my wife and I were able to book BNA-LHR-DUB for later this summer on World Traveller Plus for ~$1250 round trip.  That seems to be reasonable.  It has been interesting to see that connections through LHR are cheaper than if LHR is the destination. I don't know enough about the industry to figure out why or if that is a good or bad thing. 

1 minute ago, PruneTracy said:

747s with full loads can only take off on the crosswind runway, though.

I believe the 787-8 has to take off on the crosswind 31/13 as well.  They did last night, and I believe I read somewhere that they have to use that runway for take off. They can use the 2/20 runways for landing since they have burned off the fuel.

[PruneTracy]

13 minutes ago, Hey_Hey said:

I believe the 787-8 has to take off on the crosswind 31/13 as well.  They did last night, and I believe I read somewhere that they have to use that runway for take off. They can use the 2/20 runways for landing since they have burned off the fuel.

Hmmm, that's right. Looks like the takeoff is 8,500 feet. I would not have expected it to need that much.

In any case I don't guess it matters for takeoffs only once or a few times each day. If BNA were busier and fielding heavier jets it would start to gum up the works though.