Nashville International Airport Development thread

[rookzie]

34 minutes ago, volsfanwill said:

I intended to take a picture on Monday when I got back from Orlando. But I was on the wrong side of the plane. 

You shoulda just pushed and shoved them out of the way on the right side of the plane, for your pic.  Besides, the plane already was landing, convenient for TSA to take you into custody, without delaying your flight.

-==-

[LA_TN]

Well, that didn't take long to go from 5x weekly to daily

[Binbin98]

I noticed this from the article I read about this change in frequency.

'Nashville is the fastest new route to move to a daily service in 10 years'

Which means Nashville apparently had faster growth (or at least a faster change to daily frequency' than even Austin (as that route launched 4 years ago), which suprises me but is great news.

I highly expect enough European Airline such as Condor, Wow Air/Icelandair, Norwegian or maybe even a Delta transatlantic flight to be launched from Nashville within the next 1-2 years. This is truly an exciting time for our airport. Now hurry up with the dang permanent IAB! 

[Guest]

Link to above

http://mediacentre.britishairways.com/pressrelease/details/86/2018-247/10163?ref=Home

 

[volsfanwill]

Tennessean https://amp.tennessean.com/amp/1576083002?__twitter_impression=true

 

[Nathan_in_DC]

1 hour ago, LA_TN said:

Well, that didn't take long to go from 5x weekly to daily

Super excited about this. My dad is taking the flight from BNA to LHR on Monday to visit, and I'm flying back around Christmas. Problem is, flights around the week of Christmas are all $800+ round trip, and no direct available...

[dxfret]

20 minutes ago, Nathan_in_the_UK said:

Super excited about this. My dad is taking the flight from BNA to LHR on Monday to visit, and I'm flying back around Christmas. Problem is, flights around the week of Christmas are all $800+ round trip, and no direct available...

I’ve flown the British Airways flight to LHR three times since this service began.  Each flight in both directions was almost completely full, including business class.   Clearly there is strong demand for this service. BA must be very happy with the flight’s performance to go 7X each week so quickly. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by dxfret

[Rockatansky]

36 minutes ago, Nathan_in_the_UK said:

all $800+

That's only a couple hundred less than I pay to fly to the Upper Midwest. 

[Nathan_in_DC]

3 hours ago, Rockatansky said:

That's only a couple hundred less than I pay to fly to the Upper Midwest. 

Problem is, that's just flying one leg of the trip through BNA. If we fly in and out of BNA, they're around $950/ticket, and only the outbound flight is available direct (flying in on a Thursday and out on a Friday). I really hope another airline comes in soon to put a little downward pressure on prices and increases seats if it's this insanely popular!

4 hours ago, dxfret said:

I’ve flown the British Airways flight to LHR three times since this service began.  Each flight in both directions was almost completely full, including business class.   Clearly there is strong demand for this service. BA must be very happy with the flight’s performance to go 7X each week so quickly. 

That was my thought exactly. I wonder how long until they start twice a day flights on high traffic days.

[Pdt2f]

6 hours ago, Binbin98 said:

I noticed this from the article I read about this change in frequency.

'Nashville is the fastest new route to move to a daily service in 10 years'

Which means Nashville apparently had faster growth (or at least a faster change to daily frequency' than even Austin (as that route launched 4 years ago), which suprises me but is great news.

I highly expect enough European Airline such as Condor, Wow Air/Icelandair, Norwegian or maybe even a Delta transatlantic flight to be launched from Nashville within the next 1-2 years. This is truly an exciting time for our airport. Now hurry up with the dang permanent IAB! 

Condor cut AUS when Lufthansa announced they’d begin service, so maybe Condor will move over to BNA instead. 

4 hours ago, dxfret said:

I’ve flown the British Airways flight to LHR three times since this service began.  Each flight in both directions was almost completely full, including business class.   Clearly there is strong demand for this service. BA must be very happy with the flight’s performance to go 7X each week so quickly. 

They’re making money hand-over fist with these routes to mid-sized American cities. If they’re smart they’d be ordering more of the 787-8’s that they use on these routes, if the RR engine issues get worked out. They can make twice as much per business class seat than they could from larger cities with multiple airlines serving LHR. 

[Binbin98]

I really don't know if this means anything or not but I saw recently on twitter and other social medias that Fly Nashville (BNA's social media page name) and Icelandair have been consistently showing love to one another lol. I hope this means potential Icelandair service in the near future, their Boeing 737-800 Max and 767-300 looks really amazing.

[DDIG]

On 10/9/2018 at 11:05 AM, dxfret said:

I’ve flown the British Airways flight to LHR three times since this service began.  Each flight in both directions was almost completely full, including business class.   Clearly there is strong demand for this service. BA must be very happy with the flight’s performance to go 7X each week so quickly. 

As NONSCIENTIFIC as it gets but I swear like the last 10 tourists downtown who have asked me questions had British accents. Don't recall anything near that frequency pre-flight.

[MidTenn1]

And I am sure I saw some commercials on the FX Channel last night that were jokingly comparing an Icelandic alcoholic brew to Nashville Hot Chicken.

 

 

Yeah, I know!?

So, connect the dots.….. 

[Lexy]

The flight has average a mid-90's load factor and has been their best launch on a mid-size route.

[Pdt2f]

1 hour ago, Lexy said:

The flight has average a mid-90's load factor and has been their best launch on a mid-size route.

Heck, it could be a replay of the beginning of BNA’s service to the Bay Area or Seattle, where it took forever to finally get the service but once we did frequencies and airlines multiplied on those routes. Within the next two or three years I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a couple European LCC’s along with another European legacy. Or maybe someone like DL. 

[Lexy]

On 10/11/2018 at 10:28 PM, Pdt2f said:

Heck, it could be a replay of the beginning of BNA’s service to the Bay Area or Seattle, where it took forever to finally get the service but once we did frequencies and airlines multiplied on those routes. Within the next two or three years I wouldn’t be surprised if we got a couple European LCC’s along with another European legacy. Or maybe someone like DL. 

I think we'll see the likes of Icelandair or Condor sooner rather than later.  I know Delta is paying close attention to what's happening.

[Binbin98]

Some other observations about BNA would be that via CAA united kingdom statistics, on average the Heathrow to BNA route was around 88% full, which is already more full than established routes at New Orleans, San Jose, and Baltimore amongst others. Again, in the winter things will likely decrease somewhat, but at the same time I think these types of statistics are why BA made the route daily so fast. To have a new route in 4 months (this didn't include October) outperform already established routes like that is pretty incredible. Plus there is room to grow from here, as for example when New Orleans started it was only around on average 70% full, and then later went up to 82%. 

I have also noticed that BNA now has mainline service to every legacy carrier hub in the country except LaGuardia, JFK and National airport (although two of these airports are already served by Southwest so that sort of evens things out).  I am hoping in the future we get to see renewed service on Jetblue to JFK on an e190 or something like that. With companies such as Alliance Bernstein relocating here and them having a huge New York presence still, I feel it could work. Miami was recently given mainline service again on an A319 from embraer jets (this comes from my dad's close friend who is an american airlines pilot).  All around BNA is on fire. 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Binbin98

[Pdt2f]

1 hour ago, Binbin98 said:

Miami was recently given mainline service again on an A319 from embraer jets (this comes from my dad's close friend who is an american airlines pilot).  

I’ve noticed this recently. They downgraded it from mainline to Eagle when they mainlined the ORD service but it looks like they upgauged it again. 

[NashRugger]

PHX is another hub BNA does not serve with a legacy carrier, granted Southwest is migrating into that category really.

Edited October 14, 2018 by NashRugger

[NashRugger]

I've never been a fan of wanting WOW Air to come into BNA, and this just cements it. The loads were completely solid and performed very well, yet they still pulled it. The airline is allegedly hurting for cash, so something may be up.

They're pulling out of St. Louis in January.

https://www.flystl.com/newsroom/stl-news/2018/announcement-regarding-wow-air

[LA_TN]

1 hour ago, NashRugger said:

I've never been a fan of wanting WOW Air to come into BNA, and this just cements it. The loads were completely solid and performed very well, yet they still pulled it. The airline is allegedly hurting for cash, so something may be up.

They're pulling out of St. Louis in January.

https://www.flystl.com/newsroom/stl-news/2018/announcement-regarding-wow-air

WOW also ended flights to DFW, JFK, and Cincinnati, suspended others, etc. Sounds like they're going under

Interesting quotes from the Post-Dispatch:

(STL was) " one of the airline’s top performing markets in the Midwest that were added last spring," the airport said

The August announcement of the return of regular nonstop transatlantic service from Lambert was widely heralded by local leaders as a key step forward for the region and the airport, which had weeks earlier lost out to Nashville, Tenn., on landing a new British Airways flight to London.

Jeff Lea, a spokesman for Lambert, said St. Louis generated "strong passenger demand (for Wow) with a load factor of 70 to 80 percent at times."

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local/wow-that-was-quick-wow-air-to-end-flights-from/article_24c15891-2ebd-5445-8970-837b36362b34.amp.html

[Pdt2f]

^ Is it just me or is 70-80 percent LF’s “at times” not that impressive on a TATL, especially with an LCC carrier without premium seats to drive up revenue? Is that insinuating that most of the time the LF’s were sub-70%?

[NashRugger]

44 minutes ago, Pdt2f said:

^ Is it just me or is 70-80 percent LF’s “at times” not that impressive on a TATL, especially with an LCC carrier without premium seats to drive up revenue? Is that insinuating that most of the time the LF’s were sub-70%?

Even then, this is a very fast and almost knee-jerk reaction that just sounds very odd. Plus with their well-known financial problems, this doesn't bode well. The only airport that makes sense to pull out of is DFW because you have American AND Icelandair (country's flag carrier) serving the same route. 

[Binbin98]

18 hours ago, NashRugger said:

I've never been a fan of wanting WOW Air to come into BNA, and this just cements it. The loads were completely solid and performed very well, yet they still pulled it. The airline is allegedly hurting for cash, so something may be up.

They're pulling out of St. Louis in January.

https://www.flystl.com/newsroom/stl-news/2018/announcement-regarding-wow-air

I think that Wow air is an airline that expands way too quickly with too small a budget, however, i also have heard that saint louis really isn’t the biggest international market either in terms of airline load factors. Why this is I really am not sure, but in terms of Nashville i still would not be surprised if an icelandic carrier came here sooner than later (hopefully Icelandair). Nashville’s ability to sustain daily nonstop London service and it being talked about as a major success by BA will NOT go unnoticed by other european carriers. I could see Icelandair or Wow air profiting off of the TATL market here with providing a low cost alternative in the future. In any case i feel really bad for the people in saint louis as personally i feel they deserve at least one tatl service at this point. Rambling over lol

[Pdt2f]

2 hours ago, Binbin98 said:

I think that Wow air is an airline that expands way too quickly with too small a budget, however, i also have heard that saint louis really isn’t the biggest international market either in terms of airline load factors. Why this is I really am not sure, but in terms of Nashville i still would not be surprised if an icelandic carrier came here sooner than later (hopefully Icelandair). Nashville’s ability to sustain daily nonstop London service and it being talked about as a major success by BA will NOT go unnoticed by other european carriers. I could see Icelandair or Wow air profiting off of the TATL market here with providing a low cost alternative in the future. In any case i feel really bad for the people in saint louis as personally i feel they deserve at least one tatl service at this point. Rambling over lol

WOW air is kind of a joke. I wouldn’t mind if an Icelandic carrier came here, but I would be irritated if we gave incentives for it. It’s honestly not that big of a convenience to connect for the European mainland in Iceland rather than Atlanta or Charlotte, and the price increase for domestics is kind of worth it just so you don’t have to deal with terrible service and unreliable scheduling. If we incentivize another European carrier, I’d prefer a continental one, or maybe Aer Lingus if they’re wanting to go the hybrid-LCC route.