As the engine maintenance guy was leaving work one day, he reached into his pocket and said to himself, "I wonder what this cotter pin goes to?"

(Written on 06/01/2017)(Permalink)

Passengers that care about seating density or seat layout are few and far between. It has been proven that the factors driving airline loyalty are reward programs (people who are stuck in one airline after years of flying them) and lowest cost. Seat density and layout affects the choices of almost no one other than people picking a good seat after they have already booked their flight.

(Written on 12/02/2016)(Permalink)

So this is basically the first step towards a world government telling you that you can't buy an airline ticket once they make the CO2 regulations unattainable at reasonable costs. Got it.

(Written on 12/02/2016)(Permalink)

Who on Earth would sell/market/buy an aircraft with a 2-2-2 seating configuration?! They already have that in every aircraft sold as a 3-3 configuration.

(Written on 12/02/2016)(Permalink)

In a perfect world you would have TSA Officers from STL doing screening at BLV. They would take the Metro from STL to Scott AFB and then someone there could give them a short ride over to the terminal to work the 4 flights a week that Allegiant runs. It would be just a crew of people from STL that would cover that just as they cover any other screening checkpoint open in the STL terminal. In the real world you have TSA with this weird idea that their organizational chart can't have hubs cross state lines. Thus you have at least a dozen people working part-time jobs at TSA to cover 4 flights a week, 16,000 passengers a year.

(Written on 05/10/2015)(Permalink)

The continued existence and use of MDW in Chicago is really just an aberration strongly related to the existence of Southwest airlines, who has a different operating model than other airlines. That, and for a while MDW had a few small air carriers who simply could not compete if they were to move to ORD. They were small and needed to just stay at MDW for their operations, at least until they went out of business (ATA, anyone?) and some of their assets were acquired by Southwest. If you look at MDW you will see that Southwest essentially owns that entire airport and there isn't any competition. So yeah, if you wanted to have one exclusive airline that controls 95% or greater of traffic out of an airport such as BLV, they could survive without having to have any operations at STL. But Southwest is already at STL and doing just fine because, as I detailed above, traffic plunged when AA cut operations at STL and they also opened another runway that can help during times of peak operations.

(Written on 05/10/2015)(Permalink)

Tim Cantwell's job is dependent on him wearing rose-tinted glasses and proclaiming that the future of BLV has never been brighter, a turnaround is right around the corner, that they will make lots of money soon, etc.

(Written on 02/10/2015)(Permalink)

I'm sure it is a nice airport, but taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing a money-losing airport just to give people convenient flights when they can drive right over to STL and catch a larger variety of flights there.

(Written on 02/10/2015)(Permalink)

Some context of why this airport was built: In the 1990s STL was facing serious congestion with both the number of flights as well as number of passengers. In 1995 STL passenger traffic was above 25 million and still climbing and that airport was JAM PACKED to serve that many passengers and that many flights. Traffic would constantly back up and then get worse when weather narrowed operations to a single runway. At the same time Scott Air Force Base was on a list of facilities to be closed with another round of BRAC decisions from Congress. Decisions were made that resulted in BLV being built to A) save Scott AFB from being BRACed, and B) to function as a reliever airport for STL. Thus, $300 million was spent to build a second, civilian runway at Scott AFB, a new civilian airline terminal, and a joint control tower for the entire airfield. The construction worked to keep Scott AFB off the BRAC list because the entire ruse was that Congress wouldn't close a base that they just spent $

(Written on 02/10/2015)(Permalink)

Ah, OK. That makes sense. I do believe that there is *SOME* form of VIP transit that accompanies POTUS when he uses AF1 to fly domestic. As I recall Bill Clinton's primary AF1 got stuck in the mud on the side of the taxiway at CMI and the second 707 was quickly brought in to retrieve him. Maybe one of the spare Air Force Gulfstream jets is nearby when a 747 is used to move Obama somewhere in America.

(Written on 09/05/2014)(Permalink)