Memphis International Airport

[paribasomw]

I found an interesting statistic about Memphis Intl Airport in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Memphis has the highest percentage of regional jet service of any major airport in the US. 75.4% of all passenger service to/from MEM is on a regional jet. Mainline service (larger jets) is only a small percentage. Most travelers, especially business people, vastly prefer mainline jets as opposed to the puddle jumpers and RJs.

This stat does not bode well for passenger service at MEM.

[jmduke]

Today, Flintco was named the general contractor for the airport parking garage expansion. I think this project is far better than having an off-airport transportation center for buses, shuttles, and car rental agencies. This puts the car rentals much closer to the arriving passengers and leaves space for a potential 4th parallel runway on the west side of the airport should the extra capacity ever be needed.

MBJ: http://memphis.bizjo...14/daily19.html

Daily News from earlier but with extra background: http://www.memphisda...e.aspx?id=46735

[James Owen]

Today, Flintco was named the general contractor for the airport parking garage expansion. I think this project is far better than having an off-airport transportation center for buses, shuttles, and car rental agencies. This puts the car rentals much closer to the arriving passengers and leaves space for a potential 4th parallel runway on the west side of the airport should the extra capacity ever be needed.

MBJ: http://memphis.bizjo...14/daily19.html

Daily News from earlier but with extra background: http://www.memphisda...e.aspx?id=46735

A fourth north-south runway would not be feasibly possible to build on the west side. The only place I could see an additional runway be added would be on the airport's south side (McKellar Park) running east to west, but that's not likely to happen either unless they decide to build a new terminal building adjacent to it that would supplement the existing terminal.

[jmduke]

A 4th parallel on the west side has already been discussed. It would involve a lot of dirt moving and the relocation of Airways, but there's room. They also have an extension of Twy. M northward across Plough Blvd. in the works as well. They have a lot of future plans in their back pocket should the need to greatly expand ever arise.

[James Owen]

A 4th parallel on the west side has already been discussed. It would involve a lot of dirt moving and the relocation of Airways, but there's room. They also have an extension of Twy. M northward across Plough Blvd. in the works as well. They have a lot of future plans in their back pocket should the need to greatly expand ever arise.

The only thing I'm concerned about with that is the amount of properties that would have to be bought, moved or torn down should they need more room to the west. They did a lot of that during the 90s (I remember because my family lived right next to the airport during that time) and I would expect a lot of criticism from people who live in those neighborhoods should that time come (and people can argue about eminent domain until they're blue in the face). There was similar criticism when the airport wanted to build a consolidated rental car facility along the west side of Airways near Winchester, IIRC (their basic argument was that it would be too close to a neighborhood school).

[jmduke]

A 4th parallel would be in the approximate location of the current Airways Blvd. which would be a tremendous dirt-fill job for the base of the concrete. The airport already bought the houses between Boeingshire and Airways north of the FedEx training center. They also bought the houses between Hancock Dr. and Airways south of the training center. There are a couple of apartment complexes south of Raines which would be very close to a relocated Airways and less than 1500' from the new runway...certainly an issue. The Mapco at Airways/Raines and the gas stations at Airways/Shelby would have to be relocated. The other tricky part is would be shoehorning the new Airways between the FedEx training center and the new airport western boundary. There is not much room, and two landscaped ponds at the FedEx center would have to be filled in. The new runway would also be very close to Winchester Elementary on the north side. Not sure what the ramifications would be, whether relocation or noise-proofing.

[jmduke]

Air Canada will begin operating two non-stops to Toronto in the spring to fill the void left by Delta's elimination of the route. Twice-daily service on a larger CRJ900 actually expands the number of seats available compared with the previous service.

http://www.commercia...-daily-toronto/

[jmduke]

Mayor of Atlanta is a bit envious of Memphis' position as a top cargo hub and wants in on the action. http://www.ajc.com/s...cargo03281.html

[shekelman]

Mayor of Atlanta is a bit envious of Memphis' position as a top cargo hub and wants in on the action. http://www.ajc.com/s...cargo03281.html

Envious ?? that's rich...Atlanta attracts PEOPLE, thus commerce which has a multiplier effect throughout the MSA.....CARGO is CARGO, packages and freight don't compete in economic development ...specifically JOBS and the flow of money

screw being a 'cargo hub'.........so is West Memphis AR, and that place is still a piece of crap

[Johnny Ryall]

screw being a 'cargo hub'.........so is West Memphis AR, and that place is still a piece of crap

Memphis Int'l Airport's economic impact dwarfs Alanta-Hartsfield, nearly $30,000,000,000.00 annually. So, screw your opinion. Oh, and West Memphis? Yeah, it still has some rough inner-city neighborhoods because it's... inner city and Marion is experiencing double digit growth now. Thanks for checking in, douche.

[James Owen]

This hasn't been mentioned here, but construction of the new South Intermodal Terminal, which will house both MATA and Greyhound bus operations, is already underway as much of the structural framing for the new building is already up, with hopes of completing the project by next year.

MDN makes a mention of this in tomorrow's edition:

http://www.memphisda...?id=50760#50760

[Memphis4ever]

The Greyhound and Mata bus station is absolutely beautiful and so are the other areas around the terminal with the landscaping and new signage. It would be nice to see those improvements along brooks road. Also tearing down that empty hotel accross the street from the new bus terminal would be nice.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0PDoS6fduxPs1sAZjGJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dgreyhound%2Bmemphis%26n%3D30%26ei%3Dutf-8%26y%3DSearch%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701-s%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D12&w=480&h=320&imgurl=www.metro-magazine.com%2Fimages%2Fnews%2FM-bdgreyhound049.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metro-magazine.com%2FNews%2FStory%2F2011%2F11%2FNew-Memphis-transit-center-opens.aspx&size=53.8+KB&name=...+for+both+the+Memphis+Areas+Transit+Authority+%28MATA%29+and+Greyhound&p=greyhound+memphis&oid=8d4ec658bee2fec3e8fe257dc4b3c4f4&fr2=&fr=yfp-t-701-s&tt=...%2Bfor%2Bboth%2Bthe%2BMemphis%2BAreas%2BTransit%2BAuthority%2B%2528MATA%2529%2Band%2BGreyhound&b=0&ni=21&no=12&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=12m8m77nv&sigb=13o0s2ubq&sigi=11n9oqf8c&.crumb=VugQ5jaE6YO

The ground transportation center is coming along well too.

[BrandonTO416]

I found an interesting statistic about Memphis Intl Airport in a recent Wall Street Journal article.

Memphis has the highest percentage of regional jet service of any major airport in the US. 75.4% of all passenger service to/from MEM is on a regional jet. Mainline service (larger jets) is only a small percentage. Most travelers, especially business people, vastly prefer mainline jets as opposed to the puddle jumpers and RJs.

This stat does not bode well for passenger service at MEM.

 

This thread doesn't seem to have much action lately given the changes at MEM, but honestly most hub airports operate on collecting flights via smaller commuter jets then shooting people off in either another RJ or mainline jet depending on how large the location is they're headed to. It isn't uncommon at all to have those percents; however, if your airport is primarily a Southwest airport they only fly 737's so its majority mainline jets.

 

In regards to the de-hubbing of Memphis, I think Delta knew all along what their goals were: cutting down competition so they can charge what they want and consolidate services in the south mostly in Atlanta. Its pretty rich considering that during the Congressional hearings before the FAA was to approve the Delta/Northwest merger, the Delta execs specifically said they were looking to add flights to Memphis when they were asked on the issue.

 

Given the fact that Delta has basically cut everything and transferred the Amsterdam non-stop service to Atlanta, its pretty clear they had the game plan long ago to turn MEM into just another airport while they transferred everything to Atlanta. I know Atlanta's airport is impressive, has a lot of traffic, but at this point I'm questioning why its necessary. You can only be so big before big turns into a nightmare. It would have been nice if Delta would have maintained the MEM hub to offset how busy ATL gets. It isn't like an airport that only had 11 million passengers a year is really drawing that much away from ATL if they maintained the hub presence.

 

I also don't believe Delta's claim that it was a cost cutting measure, MEM is and has been a dirt cheap place to operate out of. Wages in Memphis aren't really that high for ground operations, fuel costs are generally good and its a lower tax area in regards to jet fuel from what I've read. Delta just wanted to consolidate in Atlanta because they wanted to, and they have used every excuse in the book to justify the cuts after committing to expansion to get the approval through Congress. In addition to all this, Memphis has a relatively older terminal that is well paid for, there are no huge outstanding capital costs Delta had to factor into ticket costs. There's absolutely no truth to the "it wasn't profitable" nonsense Delta has been giving, it was a decision made purely because management wanted to add the flights to Atlanta and its pretty obvious. I wish nothing but the best for Atlanta's operations, but the reality is that the airline industry is at the point where its reduced service levels so much and every flight is so packed that customer service is miserable these days. It is planned, and its degraded the US airline system. Our incompetent government has allowed so many consolidations that we don't even have half the hub airports in use anymore. I could name several hub airports (and with them lots of service level capacity) that have evaporated in the past 20 years: Pittsburgh (US Air), Kansas City (TWA), St Louis (American), CVG (Delta), Nashville (American), Raleigh (American), and now Memphis (Delta). Some of these hubs are mega-hubs (like Pittsburgh), others were moderate sized hubs (like the former American operation in Nashville). But collectively, the US has tons of empty concourses and terminals in numerous cities just vacant, for absolutely no good reason other than the FAA is incompetent and the government approves any merger without serious questions.

 

I just hope MEM doesn't become as much of a disaster as CVG, because CVG was built to be a Delta hub and since they've got Detroit in their portfolio now, they've decimated what was a very nice airport up in Northern Kentucky and Cincy. After Delta closed that hub, they barely had 5 million passengers one year for a terminal meant to service tens of millions per year.

 

Delta's management of the merger is awful, the FAA and other parties that allowed the merger to happen just ended up destroying needed and healthy competition. It has been bad for more than Memphis, its bad for passengers and decimated the CVG hub.

 

This issue is larger than Delta, the US now effectively has an airline oligopoly without much regulation. There are only a few carriers with large national and international networks left, and they now have the power to just fix prices without competition, and without any government regulation like in the old days the service is terrible and prices have nowhere to go but up. It now costs more to fly in North America than Europe despite their higher costs of doing business. At least in the old days of regulation the airlines had to compete on customer service... That is unheard of today. Most Americans today don't even realize that during the days of regulation you could change a ticket anytime, for any reason with no fee. LOL

 

My how the industry has fallen. Europeans have a far superior choice of flights and high speed rail options that we'll only dream of these days. The US used to be a leader in airline service, now we're bottom of the rung. ...because industry consolidation keeps shuttering airports like Memphis and giving us crap service levels.

[BrandonTO416]

Was thinking about the hub status again recently and forgot to mention another hub lost this year: Cleveland. Add all these airports up and you've got lots of capacity lost in the airways.

 

There's one good thing that is a side effect of losing lots of non-stop flights with a hub: prices will eventually drop as more low cost competition comes in after a hub loss. Hubs are always more expensive since the dominant carrier usually keeps prices high.