Update.......Little Rock National Airport.

[Architect]

6 hours ago, Gentileking said:

Thanks for the update, I'll have to check out the article!

My parents are flying to Europe next week, through Atlanta, and as I was helping them pick their seats I noticed their aircraft to ATL is shown as a 737 so it's nice to have that upgrade.

Agreed!  We went to Europe earlier this summer through ATL, and it was on the MDx equipment.  In fact, I flew back through Atlanta about a month ago, and it TOO was still the MDx.  Glad to see the equipment upgrade to newer aircraft.  I'm fairly certain they're all outfitted with screens in the seat with new infotainment.

CLARIFICATION:  I just checked Delta...there are seven (7) direct flights per day, all mainline.  Two (2) of the seven are actually Airbus A320's, not Boeing 737's.  Clearly equipment from the NWA merger.

[TRB]

On 7/21/2016 at 8:11 AM, Architect said:

Correct...I was just giving a general overview.  It will be a noticeable improvement.

Coincidentally, there's an article in today's DemGaz about the airports improved profits and boardings through the first six months.  Strangely, the article focuses almost exclusively on the financial improvements and says almost nothing about increased enplanements...probably because the profit increase is more impressive.  Interesting that the accompanying photo shows a mainline Delta jet that is clearly a 737 (800 I would presume).  That's a rare bird at LIT to date, as we're mostly served by MD-90's/B717's...that's a good sign, as the 737 is newer (and I think larger) equipment.  Delta is phasing out the older MD series and replacing them with B737's, so this will be a continuing trend.

Delta recently placed an order for Bombardier's new CS100, this will grow the low end of Delta's mainline service as used 717s are increasing in scarcity.

 

The CS100s for passengers will be great. 3x2 searing with 19 in in th3 middle of the 3. Room for a carryon for every seat and so on.

[Architect]

1 hour ago, TRB said:

Delta recently placed an order for Bombardier's new CS100, this will grow the low end of Delta's mainline service as used 717s are increasing in scarcity.

 

The CS100s for passengers will be great. 3x2 searing with 19 in in th3 middle of the 3. Room for a carryon for every seat and so on.

Are you sure Delta will categorize any plane from Bombardier or Embraer as mainline?  American does not.  (They fly the ERJ 175 - into LIT in fact - but they kept it as American Eagle, even though it's a larger aircraft).

[TRB]

21 minutes ago, Architect said:

Are you sure Delta will categorize any plane from Bombardier or Embraer as mainline?  American does not.  (They fly the ERJ 175 - into LIT in fact - but they kept it as American Eagle, even though it's a larger aircraft).

They have to. The Bombardier C Series is not a regional jet. It will seat anywhere between 110 to 120 depending on Delta's configuration. This is the same size of plane as the 717s but better on fuel and ergonomics. Google Swiss Air CS100, as it has entered service about two weeks ago.

[Architect]

6 minutes ago, TRB said:

They have to. The Bombardier C Series is not a regional jet. It will seat anywhere between 110 to 120 depending on Delta's configuration. This is the same size of plane as the 717s but better on fuel and ergonomics. Google Swiss Air CS100, as it has entered service about two weeks ago.

Very attractive aircraft...I think that is quite a bit bigger than the ER-175, even though they share the same form-factor (engine below wings).

[jnholmes]

I was just on a Delta flight to ATL last Monday on an A321. I can assure that not all of the Airbus A320/1s are from the NWA merger. The one I was on last week was brand new. It was a beautiful bird!

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/airports-and-aircraft/Aircraft/airbus-a320-32k.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-04/airbus-wins-delta-order-for-5-6-billion-of-jets

[TRB]

21 hours ago, jnholmes said:

I was just on a Delta flight to ATL last Monday on an A321. I can assure that not all of the Airbus A320/1s are from the NWA merger. The one I was on last week was brand new. It was a beautiful bird!

http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/airports-and-aircraft/Aircraft/airbus-a320-32k.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-04/airbus-wins-delta-order-for-5-6-billion-of-jets

Delta and Boeing have been at odds for some time. Look at Delta's opposition to the Import/Export Bank. That's not good for Boeing, Delta is looking to dump a 787 order it inherited from Northwest.

[Architect]

On July 26, 2016 at 4:57 PM, Architect said:

Are you sure Delta will categorize any plane from Bombardier or Embraer as mainline?  American does not.  (They fly the ERJ 175 - into LIT in fact - but they kept it as American Eagle, even though it's a larger aircraft).

I flew out of LIT a few weeks ago on American Eagle ERJ 175...quite a nice, wider-fuselage regional jet.  I say "regional" because the fuselage is still narrower than the MD-80/B717 (2-3) or B737 (3-3) seating configurations.  The ERJ 175 and 190 are still just a 2-2 seating arrangement.  

Having said all of that, I noticed in the American in-flight magazine that strangely, they categorize the E-175 as American Eagle, but the E-190 is mainline American.  The plane was full and if boarding trends continue to climb, I can see mainline service being returned to LIT by American.

[Architect]

Clinton National Airport has announced that a new maintenance/servicing center for American Airlines' Embraer E-175 aircraft will locate at the airport, making use of the previous Raytheon facility.  The work involves about $2.0M in facility upgrades and about 60 jobs.  The agreement involves a five-year lease, with options for extensions.

p.s.  The articles also mentioned that XNA has had a service center for smaller regional jets since 2004 (which I did not know).  I know TUL has serviced as a major service center for American's larger jets for quite some time.

[LR_Nomad]

There was an article in Arkansas Business today about the concourse renovations which appear to have started this week.  All I can say is it's about time, the concourse has long been outdated.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/113616/clinton-national-airport-announces-206m-concourse-renovation?page=1

 

[Architect]

1 hour ago, Gentileking said:

There was an article in Arkansas Business today about the concourse renovations which appear to have started this week.  All I can say is it's about time, the concourse has long been outdated.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/113616/clinton-national-airport-announces-206m-concourse-renovation?page=1

 

I agree that the renovation will be an improvement, but I've been in FAR worse concourses than the current LIT, which was updated in 2005...not really too long ago.

p.s.  The firm info in the AB article is incorrect. The design architect, Alliiance is based in Minneapolis, not Texas, and the local architectural firm executing the work is Polk Stanley Wilcox, along with Garver Engineers.

[Smith]

GLO is stopping its seasonal route to Destin until 2017 and Allegiant is dropping their flight to LA per DemGaz.

[LR_Nomad]

1 hour ago, Architect said:

I agree that the renovation will be an improvement, but I've been in FAR worse concourses than the current LIT, which was updated in 2005...not really too long ago.

Hm, didn't realize the current concourse was updated in 2005, I guess it feels older, at least to me, not sure what it is that gives me that feeling.  Either way I'm glad they are updating the gate areas to include charging ports and additional seating; removing those giant posts will also help make it feel more open.

[Architect]

1 hour ago, Gentileking said:

Hm, didn't realize the current concourse was updated in 2005, I guess it feels older, at least to me, not sure what it is that gives me that feeling.  Either way I'm glad they are updating the gate areas to include charging ports and additional seating; removing those giant posts will also help make it feel more open.

I could be off by a year or two plus/minus, but it was in the early to mid-2000's.

1 hour ago, Smith said:

GLO is stopping its seasonal route to Destin until 2017 and Allegiant is dropping their flight to LA per DemGaz.

So since it's seasonal, is the GLO route change part of their planned itinerary?  As far as Allegiant, I just don't get their business model.  One flight a week...how would anyone plan around that?  It would have to be ONLY casual travel (no business), and since the options are so limited, it could only be a small slice of that demographic.  Is LA their only route from LIT?

[Arkanzin]

Allegiant flies to Sanford, Florida, from Little Rock.  Sanford is the alternate airport for Orlando.  It's about 30 miles north of Orlando International.  I think they fly from LIT 2 times a week.  I'm not sure how LAX was considered "seasonal".  Is there a season to go to LA?  

GLO still flies from LIT to MSY.  Just dropping the seasonal Destin/Ft. Walton flight.  That makes sense.  

[jnholmes]

Flew GLO to NOLA the other day. It was great! I was surprised to see that the plane was over halfway full on the way down. On the way back, there were only 10 of us on a 30-seat plane. The flight attendant was very hospitable. We were served an entire can of soda (Wow!) and Zapp's potato chips or Famous Amos cookies. The convenience of affordable, nonstop service to NOLA would make me book the flight again. FYI: Mike Huckabee was on our flight back to LIT! I also talked to a guy on the plane that uses it every week. From the suits and briefcases, it seemed that business people are utilizing this option too.

[LRretail]

On 10/19/2016 at 4:18 PM, Architect said:

I could be off by a year or two plus/minus, but it was in the early to mid-2000's.

So since it's seasonal, is the GLO route change part of their planned itinerary?  As far as Allegiant, I just don't get their business model.  One flight a week...how would anyone plan around that?  It would have to be ONLY casual travel (no business), and since the options are so limited, it could only be a small slice of that demographic.  Is LA their only route from LIT?

Allegiant's business model is pretty simple.  Get families to Disney...that's it.  Their fares are about half, sometimes 1/4, the price of the other airlines including Southwest.  Their flight schedules are based on a family going to Disney through the week or the weekend.  So there's flights that go down there on Sunday and often times come back Thursday or Friday.  Our family takes frequent trips to play in Orlando and we plan our trips around Allegiant's flight schedule or use airline miles to get a one way leg back to LIT.  As for the LA flight, again get the families to Disneyland instead of WDW.  If you book rental cars or hotels along with your flight those also come at a steep discount.  Customer service once the sale is done online is pretty much non-existent.  If you want to make a change to your flight, good luck.  They also charge for everything.  They give you half a soda, nothing more nothing less.  Cheap no frills flight to see the mouse.  

[TRB]

On 10/25/2016 at 0:06 AM, LRretail said:

Allegiant's business model is pretty simple.  Get families to Disney...that's it.  Their fares are about half, sometimes 1/4, the price of the other airlines including Southwest.  Their flight schedules are based on a family going to Disney through the week or the weekend.  So there's flights that go down there on Sunday and often times come back Thursday or Friday.  Our family takes frequent trips to play in Orlando and we plan our trips around Allegiant's flight schedule or use airline miles to get a one way leg back to LIT.  As for the LA flight, again get the families to Disneyland instead of WDW.  If you book rental cars or hotels along with your flight those also come at a steep discount.  Customer service once the sale is done online is pretty much non-existent.  If you want to make a change to your flight, good luck.  They also charge for everything.  They give you half a soda, nothing more nothing less.  Cheap no frills flight to see the mouse.  

Allegiant is looking for more and more non Disney or Las Vegas oriented flights. they are still leasure focused routes but just look at their ramp up in New Orleans as proof. 

GLO could see benefit from the announced  British Airways New Orleans to Heathrow flight and the Condor New Orleans to Frankfurt flight as a de facto connection provider.

If British finds it's way to StL and Nashville, I'd look for Memphis to quite possibly get TATL via an expanding Norweigian. if you draw a 4 and a half hr drive time circle around Memphis, you get 10 million folks for a catchment area area. Norweigian would offer fares for TATL for 700bucks and lower for R/Ts.  Great incentive to make a little drive to save what would be thousands for a family of 4. 

[Architect]

5 hours ago, TRB said:

Allegiant is looking for more and more non Disney or Las Vegas oriented flights. they are still leasure focused routes but just look at their ramp up in New Orleans as proof. 

GLO could see benefit from the announced  British Airways New Orleans to Heathrow flight and the Condor New Orleans to Frankfurt flight as a de facto connection provider.

If British finds it's way to StL and Nashville, I'd look for Memphis to quite possibly get TATL via an expanding Norweigian. if you draw a 4 and a half hr drive time circle around Memphis, you get 10 million folks for a catchment area area. Norweigian would offer fares for TATL for 700bucks and lower for R/Ts.  Great incentive to make a little drive to save what would be thousands for a family of 4. 

These non-stop International flights to mid-sized markets (Austin, New Orleans, possibly Nashville, etc.) by British Airways is brought to you compliments of Boeing and its mid-sized, highly fuel-efficient 787.  They predicted this "point-to-point" market trend years ago, and 1,200 orders later, are proving Airbus wrong (with their ill-fated A380, and playing catchup with the 350).

[TRB]

2 hours ago, Architect said:

These non-stop International flights to mid-sized markets (Austin, New Orleans, possibly Nashville, etc.) by British Airways is brought to you compliments of Boeing and its mid-sized, highly fuel-efficient 787.  They predicted this "point-to-point" market trend years ago, and 1,200 orders later, are proving Airbus wrong (with their ill-fated A380, and playing catchup with the 350).

But wait, there's more. Airbus isn't totally caught off guard, they are about to start rolling out  the single A321NEOs. THEY bill it as a 757-200 replacement. It'll seat 125ish for a carrier like Norweigian, operate at 10 to 15 percent per seat lower costs than even the 787 and have a beginning max range of about 4000 nautical miles with projected PIP enhancementz to about 4300nm within two to three years after launch.  Oh, guess who has 30 of them ordered, Norweigian and they have said they are going to use them TATL. Let's take Memphis, that plane has the ability to do London, Paris and Madrid nonstop from MEM. The question is can an airport like MEM fill a 125 seater at $350 dollars a seat each way once or twice a week during the summer? With a cruise line like Viking entering the Mississippi River cruise market, I think they can. MEM got there Global Entry up and running a couple of months ago.  

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/norwegian-boeing-757-airbus-321-neo-lr-2016-9

 Memphis is still experiencing double digit O&D growth. Southwest has 3 daily nonstops scheduled on the weekend to Orlando from early March to the end of their booking window and that's with the Allegiant flights to Sanford as well. I can book American nonstops into DCA in June for under$300 bucks round trip for our summer vacation. I'm waiting to see Southwest's fares to Baltimore before I pull the trigger.

 

 Norweigian gets 10 more 787s next year as well. 

 

[Architect]

1 hour ago, TRB said:

But wait, there's more. Airbus isn't totally caught off guard, they are about to start rolling out  the single A321NEOs. THEY bill it as a 757-200 replacement. It'll seat 125ish for a carrier like Norweigian, operate at 10 to 15 percent per seat lower costs than even the 787 and have a beginning max range of about 4000 nautical miles with projected PIP enhancementz to about 4300nm within two to three years after launch.  Oh, guess who has 30 of them ordered, Norweigian and they have said they are going to use them TATL. Let's take Memphis, that plane has the ability to do London, Paris and Madrid nonstop from MEM. The question is can an airport like MEM fill a 125 seater at $350 dollars a seat each way once or twice a week during the summer? With a cruise line like Viking entering the Mississippi River cruise market, I think they can. MEM got there Global Entry up and running a couple of months ago.  

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/norwegian-boeing-757-airbus-321-neo-lr-2016-9

 Memphis is still experiencing double digit O&D growth. Southwest has 3 daily nonstops scheduled on the weekend to Orlando from early March to the end of their booking window and that's with the Allegiant flights to Sanford as well. I can book American nonstops into DCA in June for under$300 bucks round trip for our summer vacation. I'm waiting to see Southwest's fares to Baltimore before I pull the trigger.

 

 Norweigian gets 10 more 787s next year as well. 

 

Airlines and pilots have LONG lamented Boeing's decision to not (directly) replace the 757 with a more fuel-efficient model.  Either way, I'd be highly surprised with any successful international flights out of MEM.  It's not that big of a market, particularly absent its hub status.

[TRB]

51 minutes ago, Architect said:

Airlines and pilots have LONG lamented Boeing's decision to not (directly) replace the 757 with a more fuel-efficient model.  Either way, I'd be highly surprised with any successful international flights out of MEM.  It's not that big of a market, particularly absent its hub status.

I would even bring it up if the Norweigian CEO didn't mention it. 

Have you ever thought about what is within a 4 and a half hour drive of Memphis? It's right at 10 million people. I  bring that up because New Orleans used that amount of time for its catchment area for it's sales pitch to BA.

The Norweigian CEO believes that due to extremely high fares travel to Europe has be extremely depressed considering the relative ease of during so. All you need is a Passport, no visa. He believes if he offers a fare that much lower than we have ever seen, folks will start doing it. By looking at his average fares from Oakland and NYC, Memphis would fall somewhere in the middle and that would be about 2,500 for a family of 4 to fly round trip to London from the the middle of America. If he ran fare sales, it could be cheaper. This is a man the flys NYC to Bergen once a week on a 787 during the Summer. He could basically book that plane up just on school groups in June. The lower fares would entice the millenia to travel over on the cheap. If BA finds it's way to Nashville and St. Louis as well, Memphis makes the perfect place to land between them all without going directly head to head. I read recently that MEM nearly completely filled up its new parking deck over labor day weekend. They are introducing a frequent parking program that will lead to a frequent flyer program as well, where the airport rewards travel from there with free parking days, ect, ect, ect.

[Architect]

LIT vs MEM vs BNA (Nashville) Comparison - Total Enplaned & Deplaned for September 2016

LIT  165,000  (up 1.7% over Sept 2015)

MEM  340,000 (up 7.4% over Sept 2015)

BNA  990,000 (up 8.3% over Sept 2015)

Memphis is about double Little Rock's size, so this seems commensurate.  Nashville is on a whole other level.

[LR_Nomad]

10 hours ago, Architect said:

LIT vs MEM vs BNA (Nashville) Comparison - Total Enplaned & Deplaned for September 2016

LIT  165,000  (up 1.7% over Sept 2015)

MEM  340,000 (up 7.4% over Sept 2015)

BNA  990,000 (up 8.3% over Sept 2015)

Memphis is about double Little Rock's size, so this seems commensurate.  Nashville is on a whole other level.

Nice to see a climb in passenger activity even if it's barely 1% up YTD just to stem the year after year decrease; seems that would put them on pace to beat 2015 activity which was down 4% from 2014.

[Architect]

1 hour ago, Gentileking said:

Nice to see a climb in passenger activity even if it's barely 1% up YTD just to stem the year after year decrease; seems that would put them on pace to beat 2015 activity which was down 4% from 2014.

LIT seems to have settled about 20% below it's highs of mid-1990's to late 2000's, where it averaged - generally - about 200,000 enplanements/deplanements per month.  Some of this was driven by SWA and the Wright Amendment, and some other due to market/demographic shifts that have changed over time (MEM losing its hub and becoming a competitor O&D airport), etc.