Nashville International Airport Development thread

[markhollin]

Most of the infill and grading is complete for apron extension.
 

[nashvylle]

Flew into Nashville last night. So I guess this Donelson relocation project will help with 2-lane traffic going into the airport from I-440 (I believe.. ie the main entrance), but I don’t think it will help with traffic on departures/arrivals, since it’s only a few lanes.... and can’t be extended for more lanes. This is going to be a problem, and I think BNA should just build a modern electric shuttle (like you see in Atlanta airport) that can take arriving or departing passengers to the other end of the parking lot closest to Donelson (and avoid the main pickup area all together).  Perhaps this idea is where the light rail in some images leads to? 

Ill try and sketch it out, but bottom of the picture below is what I’m talking about. 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2019 by nashvylle

[markhollin]

A $131 million permit was granted to Messer Construction for work to continue on the massive new parking garage/administrative building next to the terminal that will cover 1.3 million sq. ft.

[Craiger]

Here is a document outlining long term master planning changes for the continued growth at BNA. 

A few things I found interesting:

BNA appears to be range limited right now by runway length combined with how hot summers. For example, Japan seems out of reach right now.

 

They have several concepts that show both a second terminal and extended runways:

 

Any runway extension will involve property acquisition such as the concept below

They seem to realize BNA Vision is already not enough. There are several concepts on how to expand the current terminal. Below is my favorite. 

[dmillsphoto]

Interesting that they'd propose extending 2L and not 2R to accommodate the extra length. Seems like land acquisition over there would be far more expensive and difficult. 2R could, by my guesstimate, be expanded by 2500' or, while more of a pain, extending 31 over Donelson Pk. Neither requires relocating Genesco HQ.

[Craiger]

10 minutes ago, dmillsphoto said:

Interesting that they'd propose extending 2L and not 2R to accommodate the extra length. Seems like land acquisition over there would be far more expensive and difficult. 2R could, by my guesstimate, be expanded by 2500' or, while more of a pain, extending 31 over Donelson Pk. Neither requires relocating Genesco HQ.

The images I uploaded were just a sampling of their proposals. They also had one showing the ramifications of extending 2R. I didn't want to clog up the thread too much by uploading each slide. 
 

[Will]

1 hour ago, Craiger said:

BNA appears to be range limited right now by runway length combined with how hot summers. For example, Japan seems out of reach right now.

Based on that graphic of runway lengths, Japan seems to be currently within reach of Nashville with a 787-8 or -9. Either one could reach Japan from Nashville with more than 1,000 miles of range to spare. 

[Craiger]

2 minutes ago, Will said:

Based on that graphic of runway lengths, Japan seems to be currently within reach of Nashville with a 787-8 or -9. Either one could reach Japan from Nashville with more than 1,000 miles of range to spare. 

I think that is referencing a 787 loaded for a shorter range. The current BA flight to London, for example, is a 787. I assume the added weight of fuel for extended flights such as Japan requires a much longer runway:

[Pdt2f]

Southwest finally listed their flights to Hawaii for sale, beginning from Oakland in late March and San Jose, Sacramento, and San Diego afterwards. I would expect increased service from BNA to Oakland, San Jose, and San Diego, along with  eventually adding service to Sacramento, to follow at some point. Increased service would also serve to increase Southwest’s appeal to tech business travelers, considering the amount of tech business links that are growing between Nashville and California (see Oracle). United will be running 3 dailies to SFO this summer so the demand is obviously there. 

[LA_TN]

Southwest is going to increase capacity through BNA by about 30%. Will go from, currently, 101 daily flights to 133 by June. Official announcement, routes, etc will be revealed at a later date

[Hey_Hey]

27 minutes ago, LA_TN said:

Southwest is going to increase capacity through BNA by about 30%. Will go from, currently, 101 daily flights to 133 by June. Official announcement, routes, etc will be revealed at a later date

Where did you hear this? I couldn’t find anything in news articles on it. Also, is the 101 daily flights a yearly average? I thought they were at 110-115 during the summer months and in Sunday’s when they beef up the schedule. 

[MLBrumby]

Have Burbank, Omaha, and San Jose on SWA been announced? 

Additional flights on Allegiant too.  Allentown, Bentonville, Cedar Rapids, Cleveland, Grand Rapids, Harrisburg and Sarasota

I'm aware of the Sun Country flights announced. LA, Portland , Providence

[smeagolsfree]

1 hour ago, LA_TN said:

Southwest is going to increase capacity through BNA by about 30%. Will go from, currently, 101 daily flights to 133 by June. Official announcement, routes, etc will be revealed at a later date

That is if the get their mechanics to get all their planes up and running.

[markhollin]

NBJ put out a list of the passenger count lists of the airlines serving BNA:
 

[MLBrumby]

You'd never know that American Airlines once had a hub at BNA. Second worse major airline behind United, IMHO. 

[NashRugger]

46 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

You'd never know that American Airlines once had a hub at BNA. Second worse major airline behind United, IMHO. 

American really needs new leadership because the front office right now is mostly former US Airways execs and they need to right the slightly listing ship. That said, they're fantastic to me being a current service member and always fly with them. 

Apparently there's a contract with Envoy for ground crew at BNA and once that term is over, we could see some heavy changes wither regards to BNA and AA, such as more mainline flights and perhaps more destinations, such as PHX at the least.

JetBlue's numbers aren't that shocking given the heavy competition with WN on the FLL route and them and DL to BOS. I do wish they would expand some service, such as back to JFK and maybe even MCO, granted the latter is already heavily served. 

[Craiger]

18 minutes ago, NashRugger said:

Apparently there's a contract with Envoy for ground crew at BNA and once that term is over, we could see some heavy changes wither regards to BNA and AA, such as more mainline flights and perhaps more destinations, such as PHX at the least.

Any idea when that contract is up? 

[GreenHillsBoy]

Agree with MLBrumby that both United and American have provided the worst service, attitude, etc. that I have experienced over the past several years.  I fly a lot and both United and American are pathetic, connections way to close to be realistic, gate agents that are rude, don't care, seem to have no training.  Both of these need to study European airlines like KLM, SAS, Air France to name a few.  

[dxfret]

I fly a lot both domestic and international.  Domestic favorite hands-down is Southwest.  American has always been good, however Delta has made huge improvements in recent years. The one major airline I always try to avoid is United.  

[jmtunafish]

5 hours ago, GreenHillsBoy said:

Agree with MLBrumby that both United and American have provided the worst service, attitude, etc. that I have experienced over the past several years.  I fly a lot and both United and American are pathetic, connections way to close to be realistic, gate agents that are rude, don't care, seem to have no training.  Both of these need to study European airlines like KLM, SAS, Air France to name a few.  

I'm no longer a fan of KLM.  My Delta ticket to Marseille included a layover in Amsterdam with a transfer to a KLM plane.  But I had to pay KLM separately to reserve a seat on that plane, à la Allegiant.  I could've taken my chance that the seat the gate agent would've given me wasn't a middle seat in the aging 737, but I chickened out and paid the $40 ($20 each way) to have a guaranteed aisle seat.  I don't recall ever having to do that on KLM before, so I don't know when that heinous policy started.  And Schipol is really showing its age, too; I wandered that airport for about a half hour before finding a waiting area with electric outlets for my cell phone (there were zero in the entire concourse where my flight to Marseille was). I know, First World problems.  But still.

By the way, BNA was hopping when I left Saturday morning.  I'd never seen it so busy.  And it still took only about 5 minutes to breeze through security.

[DDIG]

4 hours ago, dxfret said:

I fly a lot both domestic and international.  Domestic favorite hands-down is Southwest.  American has always been good, however Delta has made huge improvements in recent years. The one major airline I always try to avoid is United.  

I'm flying FRONTIER for the first time in a month. How bad is it? I see their customer service scores are usually near the bottom, but their fare this route is about half what others were offering. 

[Bos2Nash]

25 minutes ago, DDIG said:

I'm flying FRONTIER for the first time in a month. How bad is it? I see their customer service scores are usually near the bottom, but their fare this route is about half what others were offering. 

My girlfriend and I flew Frontier to Orlando and were pleasantly surprised (we heard horror stories prior to our flight). Boarding is a cluster, and the fact you have to pay for just about everything, but both have to be expected with a budget airline like Frontier. 

[DDIG]

3 minutes ago, Bos2Nash said:

My girlfriend and I flew Frontier to Orlando and were pleasantly surprised (we heard horror stories prior to our flight). Boarding is a cluster, and the fact you have to pay for just about everything, but both have to be expected with a budget airline like Frontier. 

Yeah they definitely nickel and dime you every single step of the check out process, but all in was still half of what even Southwest had. As long as they get me there!

[BnaBreaker]

39 minutes ago, DDIG said:

I'm flying FRONTIER for the first time in a month. How bad is it? I see their customer service scores are usually near the bottom, but their fare this route is about half what others were offering. 

It's fine.  Some people talk about it as though they were punched in the face as they boarded and duct taped into some Korean War era military cargo plane when flying Allegiant.  But the reality is that if you're used to flying economy class you probably won't have an out of the ordinary experience.  I don't think I'd want to fly an Alleigant caliber airline to Johannesburg or anything, but for their short routes I think it's just fine.  And do they nickel and dime you?  Yeah, but if your only extra expense is your luggage, you're still going to come away with significant savings.

Edited March 11, 2019 by BnaBreaker

[Mr_Bond]

57 minutes ago, DDIG said:

I'm flying FRONTIER for the first time in a month. How bad is it? I see their customer service scores are usually near the bottom, but their fare this route is about half what others were offering. 

Thanks for asking the question.  I, too, am flying them for the first time in a few weeks and want to know what to expect.

21 minutes ago, BnaBreaker said:

Yeah, but if your only extra expense is your luggage, you're still going to come away with significant savings.

For a weekend trip, my wife and I are putting everything into one suitcase.  With no carry-on and sitting in the back of the plane, this quick trip to a family wedding was really cheap!