A

[aowwt]

That land there is not much help for them but it is still land. The land that is still vacant the last time I drove through there was on the north east side of the airport. They have I think one cargo facility built out there and thats it. It was like driving through a huge grass field. I do wonder if they could extend the NS runway a little bit further but I doubt they will spend the money. Here is a page on the airport site that shows the property they are offering. http://www.flygrandrapids.org/Property.php btw there is still more property out there that is still owned by Kent County just south of the 36th interchange.

[NorthEnder]

By the way, some official from Lansing wrote an OPED in The Press pretty much lambasting the idea of a more centralized airport in West Michigan.

[NorthCoast]

I could see where this is going considering Amtrak's Pere Marquette may reroute. This might actually bolster the proposal. With talk at rerouting it away from the shore to K'zoo people on the southern edge of the metropolitan area could catch a train or two to Ford. I know of a lot of folks that ride PM do this already. They take PM into CUS then transfer to a Blue line train and fly away.

[Rizzo]

Link?

[tommygrand20]

Just found a tidbit about GRR in the Business Courier of Cincinnati...looks like Grand Rapids is the fifth most expensive Airport in the nation.

Business Courier

[LA Dave]

The latest statistics for GRR show passenger traffic down about 6.5 percent June 08 compared to June 07, with year to date down about 4.5% compared to 07. I am pleased to see the airport authorities trolling for new airlines -- in this economy, however, don't hold your breath. And given the expense (is that driven by new parking ramps??), why would a cash-strapped airline want to put down stakes at GRR?

[Par75]

The latest statistics for GRR show passenger traffic down about 6.5 percent June 08 compared to June 07, with year to date down about 4.5% compared to 07.

[LA Dave]

I wonder if this is due to fewer flights or just fewer people traveling? I fly several times per month, usually on NWA, and it's a rare day when a departing or arriving GRR flight isn't full.

[jas49503]

I wonder if this is due to fewer flights or just fewer people traveling? I fly several times per month, usually on NWA, and it's a rare day when a departing or arriving GRR flight isn't full.

[GR8scott]

I am replying to the thread in general which is a little misleading. The idea of GRR as a mini hub for comercial airlines will no happen anytime soon. That would mean that an airline would choose GRR to have large flights to other big cities and many small flights to regional cities such as TVC, LAN, MBS ect. There is not enough demand as a destination, and certainly not with the volume of local passengers.

I believe GRR is however somewhat of a mini-hub for Fed EX. Larger planes come in from MEM and small turbo prop planes disperse to northern michigan cities.

To respond to the comments about other local airports shutting down. The airlines are obviously restructuring and reducing flights which cause for more of them to be filled. I fly several ties per year and this has been very evident. GRR has had its share of cutbacks in flights, airlines and destinations as well since I can remember including vegas, tampa, phil, pittsburgh, STL, MDW and more.

In regaurds to comment 56 I disagree in many different ways. I believe Holland is a privatly owned airport and has never had and probably will never have commercial service. GRR is not in a GREAT location, there is no direct hyway access. If the 36th street exit had a tunel under the northern runway to direcly connect the terminal and if there were upgrades to the path between m6 then it woudl have good access. There is room to expand the runway as well as the terminal but is there need at this time? I heard talkes about adding a couple gates which could easily be done to the back side of concouse B.

The only airport I could see possibly closing due to airline cuts is Muskegon. AZO and LAN will always be there. AZO has veryclose access to a major interstate that runs halfwya between DTW and MDW. There is plenty of room to expand a runway further south, plans to build a new and larger terminal. And the fact that there are major corporations and a large university located there as well as a metro area of 500k, its not going anywhere. LAN is self explanitory.

If GRR could luuer Southwest, it would be a goldmine and could drive down prices as well as bring in passengers from further away.

[aowwt]

how can you expand kzoo airport when there is nothing but houses on 3 sides and a highway on the otherside. It doesnt make sense. Dont forget this is the 2000's and not the 1940's when airports could just use emminent domain and nobody would care. Kzoo cant expand unless they build a new airport IMHO. As for GRR if they were to serve west michigan they have the ability to expand thier airport and I was showing it was possible. I think the first step they are doing is the parking garage to have more of an ability to hold cars. Once the parking is done I do see them to start moving the general avaition to the northern section of the airport. That would free up tons of room for commerical airlines terminals, maintence buildings, and other behind the scenes stuff.

[GR8scott]

yea i agree GRR has the most potential but if you look at a satalite image of the area around AZO there is plenty of room to the south, sure the roads would have to be re-routed and much of the unused land is phizor but that is no big deal. There is also a lot of space on the east side of the property that is undeveloped and could be an area for a new terminal if ever needed. This is never going to be an o'hare, which by the way used emminent domain or some other way to remove houndreds of homes and businesses to expand.

On a side note I read the cherry capital airport wikipedia page and there could be plans for runway extensions to accomidate 767's, and supposedly build 2?!?! more terminals after the new one opened a just a couple years ago. There are already flights to many of teh same destinations as GRRand it sounds like there are plans for more flights?

[Grand Rapidian]

The way I see it, the market will work it out on its own. We will get the increased flights and more carriers once we truly can sustain it. Isn't the long term trend up for passengers nation wide? When I worked at the automated people mover consultants company most of our clients were airports I was hearing that the mega airports will be looking to the regional airports in the near future for better distribution to lighten up their stresses to focus on the international and long distance national service. For example airports like LAX and O'hare will be looking to have smaller regional airports akin to GRR to be the hubs for passengers NOT flying to LA or Chicago- why do I need to go through Chicago to get to San Francisco? I don't, and as demand and numbers increase in the next 20-30 years I think we will see the shifts to regional airports for domestic hubs so that the mega airports LAX and O'hare can handle the international and local passengers. Basically saying that once numbers get to a certain point the mega airports will be moving hubs to smaller airports in their region. SFO and OAK work well together as to O'hare and Midway, but there is not really a reason that those airports need to be in the same metro area as nobody gets off at OAK and travels to SFO for a connection unless they have a lot of extra time in their travel plans to save money. The regionals, like GRR, would become overflow hubs.

Just some thoughts I have been having and vibes I have gotten whether they are full thought out or not.

[aowwt]

Well the thing is for Kzoo that airport has residential near I94 and then commerical industry on the southern end. That means it can not expand at all in the future. Its a dead location. Residential that close means you can not run the airport to the max effect. As a result I think they be best off to just use the airport like Tulip or short hops from South Bend, Lansing, Detroit, and GRR.

[MJLO]

When they talk small hub, i think more to the point, they mean using GRR which is in an hours reach of 2million plus people, which could make it the central point for a much bigger market, instead of having the airlines fly into multiple points in a small somewhat redundant area. I don't think anyone is talking hub in terms of the hub and spoke system.