GSP International

[gman430]

Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport said Wednesday it served 189,949 passengers in June, a nearly 9 percent increase compared with 174,465 during the same month in 2016.

https://upstatebusinessjournal.com/news/gsp-airport-sees-passenger-growth-june/

[distortedlogic]

That's a good increase. A lot of that may be due to the 3 new Chicago flights. But July will be the first full month with stats including those flights so I'm interested to see what it looks like. I'm sure they already have July"s stats, not sure why it takes nearly two months for them to release those. How about the cargo stats nearly doubling! I guess due to the international flights? Good growth, let's keep it up!

[gman430]

21 minutes ago, distortedlogic said:

That's a good increase. A lot of that may be due to the 3 new Chicago flights. But July will be the first full month with stats including those flights so I'm interested to see what it looks like. I'm sure they already have July"s stats, not sure why it takes nearly two months for them to release those. How about the cargo stats nearly doubling! I guess due to the international flights? Good growth, let's keep it up!

Those flights didn't start until July. 

[distortedlogic]

Ah, so that growth is without; even better. Might break 200k here one of these months!

[gman430]

17 hours ago, distortedlogic said:

Ah, so that growth is without; even better. Might break 200k here one of these months!

Correct. The new flights started July 5th. 

More economy parking coming: http://www.southcarolinabids.com/bid_opportunities/2017/07/31/7947006-2017-parking-lots-expansion-project.html

[distortedlogic]

Looks like GSP has a whole new website!? I had no idea they were working on one, looks good. I'll have to play around with it a bit. Check it out.

http://www.gspairport.com

[gman430]

Traffic passenger numbers are now out for July. Big 8.5% increase over last year (187,661 vs 172,990) and strong 84.5% load factor overall: http://www.gspairport.com/site/user/files/1/GSP-Commission-Package-20170911.pdf (pages 31-45)

Edited September 8, 2017 by gman430

[NBNY2GRNVL]

Well of course no expert here but that seems like a really big increase. You start to do the same type of percentage increases and it gets bigger and bigger very quickly. We haven't even gotten into all the people that are going to move here with all that new housing opening up downtown. The next 12 to 24 months are going to be very interesting for the city.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[distortedlogic]

For the year we're at + 4 percent increase, but that is skewed by Jan and Feb. Not sure what happened those two months but without those we're + 6.6 percent. Just the past 3 months we are + 7.8. 

Saw where CHS is exactly twice what we were for July. They are expecting to break 4mm this year. Their growth has been tremendous of late. 

On the other hand CAE has been losing this year, and looks to just stay above 1mm. So we're double CAE and CHS is double us.

Edited September 11, 2017 by distortedlogic

[Upstate Guy]

From reading the documents that have been put on the web for today's GSP board meeting, we could possibly see more service by American. It would be nice if we could get direct service to their hub in Miami. Not only would it give direct flights to a vacation destination but would be another great "connections" opportunity.  It would also be the 6th hub of American Air that we would have direct flights to. 

I wish the airport could lure JetBlue in with 2-3 flights a day to either JFK or Boston Logan and hook us into that network. 

[GvilleSC]

I imagine there was probably a big uptick across the state for August thanks to the eclipse.

[gman430]

1 hour ago, Upstate Guy said:

From reading the documents that have been put on the web for today's GSP board meeting, we could possibly see more service by American. It would be nice if we could get direct service to their hub in Miami. Not only would it give direct flights to a vacation destination but would be another great "connections" opportunity.  It would also be the 6th hub of American Air that we would have direct flights to. 

I wish the airport could lure JetBlue in with 2-3 flights a day to either JFK or Boston Logan and hook us into that network. 

Yeah, the new service will be to Miami and possibly New York City if they move forward with it. Southwest might launch new service too. 

Edited September 11, 2017 by gman430

[distortedlogic]

Where did you guys see that? I read through the documents and don't see anything about it. Is this conjecture?

You can go to the JetBlue site and "suggest" a new route to GSP. I've done it a couple times in the past but of course no luck...

Edited September 13, 2017 by distortedlogic

[Upstate Guy]

I can't remember exactly where it is...but it had to do with the CEO meeting with airline reps in Texas since the last commission meeting. 

[gman430]

13 hours ago, distortedlogic said:

Where did you guys see that? I read through the documents and don't see anything about it. Is this conjecture?

You can go to the JetBlue site and "suggest" a new route to GSP. I've done it a couple times in the past but of course no luck...

Took me a while to find it too. It's on page 8 of the PDF file I posted with the traffic numbers underneath the CEO/President report. 

[distortedlogic]

Ah, thanks guys, I missed that. Good to see. As we've said before, with the growth in ridership and load factors, if airlines don't add some service, there's going to be a pretty large opportunity cost at some point, and I personally think there already is.

[distortedlogic]

August numbers are out and 185k came through, or + 8.6 percent increase. After a slow first three months of the year, the passengers have really taken off. The last four months have seen an increase of 8.6, 8.5, 8.9, and 6.0, over the same month last year. We're on pace to pass 2.1 MM. September and October are historically two of our busiest months as well.

[Jet-set]

More development at GSP; specifically a new cargo ramp large enough for as many as 3 747s and a 100,000 square foot warehouse near the current FedEx cargo facility. 

Senator also expanding from 2 to 3 flights per week. 

https://upstatebusinessjournal.com/senator-internationals-transatlantic-service-brings-growth-gsp-first-year/

[gman430]

GSP has been having meetings with JetBlue lately also. See if anything comes of it. 

[distortedlogic]

Don't know what happened in October but passenger traffic soared up 14.1% , about 27k , to a total of 215 thousand. I do believe that is an all-time monthly record. 

[PuppiesandKittens]

Will GSP ever get a public transit link, such as a bus line from downtown Greenville? 

[gman430]

Flew out of GSP today for the first time since the renovations were complete and have to say I am very impressed with the final outcome. Loving the new retail/restaurant options. It's actually starting to look like a real airport now.  Passenger traffic at the airport for November 2017 was 9.10% higher than November 2016. The number of available seats for February 2018 will be 23,645 compared to 21,788 for February 2017. An economy lot-terminal shuttle bus is slated to start early this year. Planning for the new and additional parking garage continues also. 

 

And regarding JetBlue which unfortunately isn't good at least when it comes to Boston: 

"Mr. David Edwards, President/CEO, met with jetBlue corporate executives in mid-October to discuss service out of GSP (Boston, JFK, Ft. Lauderdale, and Orlando). It was a productive meeting; however, GSP appears to be less of a priority for jetBlue compared to last year. In particular with Boston, jetBlue is focused on originating traffic from Boston. We have a 60% origination here at GSP versus a 40% origination out of Boston. Mr. Edwards connected with the Air Service Director at Boston Logan airport and will continue to have ongoing dialogue with him."

Edited January 5, 2018 by gman430

[distortedlogic]

Thanks for the info! So as the end of November, GSP had 1,952,905 passengers, or an increase of +5.13% from last year. If that continues for Dec, it would end up with about 2.12MM for the year.

 That's steady growth. A little disheartening about JetBlue though. Still hopeful we'll see some new service this year based on the emails I got from GSP and Frontier. Frontier now serves 90% of the US population including places like CHS, and even Knoxville, and Greensboro, so I am surprised they don't already fly here. 

I am going to California this summer and looked GSP first but was way expensive and had terrible flight times so I'm having to go to Atl. Would prefer GSP, but needed 4 seats and will be saving about  $1300, plus getting non-stop flight. More evidence we need more options.

Edited January 6, 2018 by distortedlogic

[apaladin]

I have scheduled a trip to Las Vegas and could have saved about $100 dollars total for 2 people to go out of Charlotte, but it just wasn't worth it to me. Would be even less really when you add parking in Charlotte and gas etc. Will we still be able to board an airplane with a regular drivers license in May? There is a lot of info and a lot of different dates when the real ID or passport will be required. It is my understanding that SC has been granted an extension until October of 2018 before the real ID/passport will be required. Anyone know if this is correct? Thanks!

[gman430]

7 hours ago, apaladin said:

I have scheduled a trip to Las Vegas and could have saved about $100 dollars total for 2 people to go out of Charlotte, but it just wasn't worth it to me. Would be even less really when you add parking in Charlotte and gas etc. Will we still be able to board an airplane with a regular drivers license in May? There is a lot of info and a lot of different dates when the real ID or passport will be required. It is my understanding that SC has been granted an extension until October of 2018 before the real ID/passport will be required. Anyone know if this is correct? Thanks!

You have until October 2020: http://www.scdmvonline.com/-/driver-services/drivers-license/real-id You can start getting Real ID though at the DMV in the first quarter of 2018.

There is a large Real ID kiosk at the airport right in the middle of the main passenger terminal with pamphlets for all of the info needed for the changeover. 

Edited January 6, 2018 by gman430