Norfolk International Airport

[Arctic_Tern]

Also it's official! ORF had over 4 Million Passengers in 2022!!!

 

https://www.facebook.com/NorfolkInternationalAirport/posts/pfbid0DJ7dzKrWh5x778aZKW3mxTrLFb3vBELtivCaDdUKKoa5884SqYKyKcqrG6HYu9Z3l

[BFG]

I was curious about how the Southwest glitches would affect travel, so that’s excellent news. 

[walmartjamesbond]

As for the the Breeze moving to Richmond. Not a chance in the world. I worked for them when the launched at ORF. They invested over 14 million dollars into the airport.

Richmond is a good market for them but so is Norfolk. It’s a prime location. Their whole business model is for regular passenger travel not business travel. Winter months are always going to be slower for airlines here. Wait till April and you’ll see those numbers clime again.

I still have friends at Breeze who work at the airport. Big plans are ahead for norfolk.

As for Richmond; yes it’s a great market. But being a great market doesn’t mean that they make a base there. Otherwise Nashville and San Antonio would have been one a long time ago. 

[Merrittk92]

So. It’s the middle of January, who would like to take a guess at ORF’s PAX numbers for 2023? 

I’ll start with a *wild ass guess* of 4.5 million!

Edited January 13 by Merrittk92

[Urbanlooker]

I'm going to guess 4.4 mil. 

I've attached the official passenger counts for ORF this past year 4.1 Mil is great. Happy we finally broke that 4mil mark. I hope we can surpass 5mil in the next 5 years or so.

December-2022-Media-Release.pdf

[BFG]

I’ll say 4.25M. 

[baobabs727]

Great numbers!

[BFG]

I think losing Norfolk Southern was the wake-up call. They left because ORF didn’t offer enough direct flights to major cities, so hopefully the airport continues building upon this momentum with the new terminal and more flights. 

[NFKjeff]

38 minutes ago, BFG said:

I think losing Norfolk Southern was the wake-up call. They left because ORF didn’t offer enough direct flights to major cities, so hopefully the airport continues building upon this momentum with the new terminal and more flights. 

They also left because Atlanta gave them a true sweetheart deal which was not going to be matched by anywhere else 

[mintscraft56]

On 1/12/2023 at 5:30 PM, walmartjamesbond said:

As for the the Breeze moving to Richmond. Not a chance in the world. I worked for them when the launched at ORF. They invested over 14 million dollars into the airport.

Richmond is a good market for them but so is Norfolk. It’s a prime location. Their whole business model is for regular passenger travel not business travel. Winter months are always going to be slower for airlines here. Wait till April and you’ll see those numbers clime again.

I still have friends at Breeze who work at the airport. Big plans are ahead for norfolk.

As for Richmond; yes it’s a great market. But being a great market doesn’t mean that they make a base there. Otherwise Nashville and San Antonio would have been one a long time ago. 

Well thats a total relief to hear! It was time for Norfolk to attract new airlines anyways, and Breeze is a well welcomed and appreciated one to work with! I was worried our numbers, and ect were being beat out by richmond's. Definitely great news, thx for that!

[mintscraft56]

ORF is looking extremely busy tonight, I do plane tracking and listen in on tower audio to pass time sometimes. Tonight especially, I see the need for a double runway. In this screenshot, You see basically what is a carousel of planes consisting of UA434,  AA1372,  DL4940, & UA2209 (and another aircraft that I forgot to check callsign for), rounding portsmouth and turning towards ORF for landing. Now, at the same time dont forget we have departures pending as well. 
 
Now imagine how many more flights we could fit in and accept with a double runway, and an extra terminal. Would be much easier to beat that 4M passengers mark again. 

[walmartjamesbond]

Here we go! Big news! TWO new Breeze routes:

ORF- Portland, Maine    June 2nd

ORF - Syracuse, NY    June 1st

 

ORF - RDU is being offered with a connection in Charleston starting May 18th. No plane change on this flight.

Resumes service:

ORF - Jacksonville, FL  May 18th

 

Great stuff. After we get our security redone and able to use the international gate for connecting flights… game changer for Breeze.

Edited February 14 by walmartjamesbond

[VBIllini13]

8 hours ago, walmartjamesbond said:

Great stuff. After we get our security redone and able to use the international gate for connecting flights… game changer for Breeze.

This is awesome news! I am intrigued by the last part. Is Breeze in talks with ORF staff to use the international gate??

[Urbanlooker]

8 hours ago, walmartjamesbond said:

Here we go! Big news! TWO new Breeze routes:

ORF- Portland, Maine    June 2nd

ORF - Syracuse, NY    June 1st

 

ORF - RDU is being offered with a connection in Charleston starting May 18th. No plane change on this flight.

Resumes service:

ORF - Jacksonville, FL  May 18th

 

Great stuff. After we get our security redone and able to use the international gate for connecting flights… game changer for Breeze.

Even better Breeze is also offering twice weekly flights to Akron beginning June 1st as well.

[walmartjamesbond]

33 minutes ago, VBIllini13 said:

This is awesome news! I am intrigued by the last part. Is Breeze in talks with ORF staff to use the international gate??

It’s not only breeze. The reason we don’t really use our international gate is because we can’t connect a domestic flight to international or vice versa. This is because of the split security that we have at the moment.

After they complete the remodel and it’s one security for both concourse. An airline like Breeze, could use the gate and connect passengers on another plane in concourse B. They can’t do that now without forcing them to go through security again. 

6 minutes ago, Urbanlooker said:

Even better Breeze is also offering twice weekly flights to Akron beginning June 1st as well.

Looks like they bringing this route back. It was one of there first when they launched out of ORF. It’s probably going to be seasonal, traffic in the winter isn’t high

[BFG]

Last month nearly 275K flew out of ORF, compared to 221K in January '22. They're off to a great start.

https://www.norfolkairport.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/January-2023-Media-Release.pdf

[baobabs727]

Take a look at Breeze's Norfolk to Los Angeles route in the prime heat of Summer. June, for example. First Class with 39 inches of legroom in their beautiful new A220... for under $800 roundtrip? Are you kidding me?  

But wait, there's more!  Did I mention that it was a non-stop flight?! From ORF. To the West Coast. 

Yes, please.

Edited February 16 by baobabs727

[walmartjamesbond]

Not ORF news, but Avelo is officially exiting PHF after April 16th. The competition was just too strong between ORF and RIC. 

[VBIllini13]

12 minutes ago, walmartjamesbond said:

Not ORF news, but Avelo is officially exiting PHF after April 16th. The competition was just too strong between ORF and RIC. 

Wow I feel like that was a super short-lived stint at PHF!

[walmartjamesbond]

2 hours ago, VBIllini13 said:

Wow I feel like that was a super short-lived stint at PHF!

It’s honestly the story of Avelo life. With the exit of PHF they are introducing new flights to CHO (Charlottesville, VA). They will be the first low cost carrier to serve the Airport. Knowing Breeze’s track record, they might be in for some competition lol

[mintscraft56]

Well, I want some fact checking done for us. 
I saw some posts in the richmond version of this feed. Obviously our convos are very similar in terms of news, flights, ect. However one post stuck out at me. They claimed that our Airport could not sustain and is not ready for international fights and that theirs is. Now, inherently that sounds like a harsh way to put it, however I think it begs the question on IF we are actually ready for that type of traffic in light of our faster growth. 

Are we really ready to deal with international flights of ORF? 

And im not saying that I think we will get any, im just asking to see what yall think on this as well. 

[VBIllini13]

10 minutes ago, mintscraft56 said:

Well, I want some fact checking done for us. 
I saw some posts in the richmond version of this feed. Obviously our convos are very similar in terms of news, flights, ect. However one post stuck out at me. They claimed that our Airport could not sustain and is not ready for international fights and that theirs is. Now, inherently that sounds like a harsh way to put it, however I think it begs the question on IF we are actually ready for that type of traffic in light of our faster growth. 

Are we really ready to deal with international flights of ORF? 

And im not saying that I think we will get any, im just asking to see what yall think on this as well. 

I can't really comment on the logistics of the airport's readiness for international flights, but I have also lurked over there a few times and the amount of shade they throw at ORF is insane and unwarranted IMO. Interesting that we don't really compare ourselves to RIC as much...

[BFG]

I dunno how difficult it is, but I have friends who are military couples that flew out of ORF for deployments. I know they have Customs there as well, so I don’t think it’s out of the question but it might take some reconfiguring of the terminals. 

RIC was ahead of us at one point but ORF caught up by adding some nice nonstop destinations, esp. to the West Coast. I think the Richmond forum’s shade comes from jealousy over us being a Breeze hub, even though their airport is more modern. 

[Si7i]

3 hours ago, mintscraft56 said:

Well, I want some fact checking done for us. 
I saw some posts in the richmond version of this feed. Obviously our convos are very similar in terms of news, flights, ect. However one post stuck out at me. They claimed that our Airport could not sustain and is not ready for international fights and that theirs is. Now, inherently that sounds like a harsh way to put it, however I think it begs the question on IF we are actually ready for that type of traffic in light of our faster growth. 

Are we really ready to deal with international flights of ORF? 

And im not saying that I think we will get any, im just asking to see what yall think on this as well. 

I would not go as far to say that our airport cannot sustain, I think what our passenger numbers are showing is that the general population is ready to travel again. I in my opinion despite the areas lacking I think international travel will be very successful here specifically Europe because of VB and OBX. Richmond relies heavily on business travel, which has not totally rebounded due to Covid. However tourism and destination travel has and is growing due to people no longer putting off vacations. As our metro continues to push slowly towards 2 million people I think we will naturally see new developments in both destinations, passenger growth, and physical developments. At the 2 million mark is when metro areas tend to reach a critical mass point. ORF should have never had lower passenger numbers than RIC due to our differing populations. People tend to overate Richmond because it is both the Captial and the central city of its region. ORF crossed 4 million passengers for 2022 with its two competitors in the HR region and RIC crossed a little over 4.1 million being its regions only central airport.  

The Richmond forum talked about populations statistics a lot as well. I have to say I would take those with a grain of salt the growth always happens faster in the outlying areas. Norfolk’s census population statistics are always wrong and readjusted. Typically past leadership would fight population loss statistics but they have not done so this time. HR’s growth will be mostly Chesapeake- Suffolk and outlying areas as water is a central feature in our region that inhibits us to continually spread in all directions like Richmond. Cheap housing is a large factor in growth and we simply don’t have that anymore unless you’re in Suffolk or Elizabeth city.
 

Most people who arnt from HR are shocked when traveling from VB to NFK to the other 7 cities is seamless. People outside the area think the cities are disconnected. Even with the developments of PHF most likely will lead to it loosing commercial status in the long run increasing ORF traffic even more. 

 

[mintscraft56]

19 hours ago, VBIllini13 said:

I can't really comment on the logistics of the airport's readiness for international flights, but I have also lurked over there a few times and the amount of shade they throw at ORF is insane and unwarranted IMO. Interesting that we don't really compare ourselves to RIC as much...

Absolutely. Im not sure if you can tell, but I was really reallying to avoid directly saying that. I did not feel like starting a war just incase any of them happened to get defensive over it. 

Truth is, they do throw alot of shade over us. If you read the comments that are directed towards us, you can see that its usually somthing about flights, size, and how nice the airport is. However, I think they forget we are one of the only Middle Sized Hubs in the state. 

I dont want to throw shade back at them, because RIC is a nice airport too. However, I will say that it looks like they are a little envious of ours. 

 

19 hours ago, VBIllini13 said:

I can't really comment on the logistics of the airport's readiness for international flights, but I have also lurked over there a few times and the amount of shade they throw at ORF is insane and unwarranted IMO. Interesting that we don't really compare ourselves to RIC as much...

We also dont compare ourselves as much to them, because we look towards bigger airports. RIC thechnically looks up to us based on what topic your talking about.

Edited February 24 by mintscraft56