MicoMiles

Why in the world would you want RIC to become a hub for an airline? Airline hubs do nothing but drive out competition (other airlines) and airfares are notoriously higher at hubs than non-hub airlines. RIC does not have the facilities currently to be a hub. The only airport available right now that could be immediately setup as a hub is Pittsburgh. Both facilities and infrastructure are available for immediate use. Sorry to be a kill-joy about RIC but that is the reality of the aviation business right now. Airlines are cutting routes, costs and jobs to survive. RIC has been lucky so far.

ric75, My sister-in-law lives in Raleigh. Raleigh gets attention because of RTP, Research Triange Park. RTP encompassed the colleges of UNC, NC State and Duke along with the other colleges in the area. The Raleigh-Durham area has many Information Technology companies as well as Pharmaceutical companies. Most importantly, the medical professions are state of the art! Lots of highly specialized physicians live in the Raleigh-Durham area. Many college graduates end up residing in the RDU area because of the many high-end job opportunities available in the area. Raleigh-Durham is definitely having a hugh "growth spurt". RDU Airport caters to the business travelers with many direct flights to cities in the US. American Airlines has a daily non-stop flight to the U.K. Raleigh is a "focus city" for AA since it was a hub for them back in the early to mid 90's.

ric75, My sister-in-law lives in Raleigh. Raleigh gets attention because of RTP, Research Triange Park. RTP encompassed the colleges of UNC, NC State and Duke along with the other colleges in the area. The Raleigh-Durham area has many Information Technology companies as well as Pharmaceutical companies. Most importantly, the medical professions are state of the art! Lots of highly specialized physicians live in the Raleigh-Durham area. Many college graduates end up residing in the RDU area because of the many high-end job opportunities available in the area. Raleigh-Durham is definitely having a hugh "growth spurt". RDU Airport caters to the business travelers with many direct flights to cities in the US. American Airlines has a daily non-stop flight to the U.K. Raleigh is a "focus city" for AA since it was a hub for them back in the early to mid 90's.

You are correct.... I should have stated BUR-IAD. Change made.

Burt, Airlines will cut services to cities where revenue is not being made and transition the planes to more profitable routes or apply them to new routes where demand exists. I think the BUR-IAD route will be profitable for JB. As far as JetBlue passenger loads for RIC, I have heard that the loads were OK. If loads were spectacular at RIC, JB would have already made an equipment change to the A320 on some of their RIC E190 routes. Sold out flights do not always equate to revenue for an airline when seats are sold for dirt cheap! Remember Skybus?

From a buddy of mine who also flies the r/s of a JB A320. He said that JB was working on cutting back and discontinuing various cities on their network. He heard around 5-7 cities were slated to be axed. I asked about RIC and he said he thought he heard Richmond as well. He definitely heard Jacksonville and Pittsburgh. Just today, JB announced today that they will be discontinuing their Salt Lake City - Burbank and San Francisco effective July 7.

Heard yesterday that JetBlue may cut 5 cities from their schedules. RIC was mentioned on the list. Loads in and out of RIC are not doing very well. RIC is not the only city having problems filling the JB aircrafts. I will let you all know what I find out. All the airlines are tightening up their belts once again because of high fuel prices!! I would not be surprised if the airline I fly for and others will follow AA's baggage charge.

You saw correctly. It was a Southwest Military Charter from Gulfport/Biloxi. Southwest 7000 flight numbers are reserved for military charters. It flew back to Dallas Love empty (5 Crew). ================================ SWA7341 Southwest Airlines Co. "Southwest" (Dallas, TX) Aircraft Boeing 737-700 (twin-jet) (B737/L) Departure: Wed 02:15PM CDT Arrival: Wed 04:55PM EDT Origin Gulfport-Biloxi Intl (KGPT) Destination Richmond Intl (KRIC) Route SJI J37 MGM LGC ATL SPA J14 Date Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Duration 1 hour 40 minutes Status Arrived over 6 hours ago ================================ SWA8681 Southwest Airlines Co. "Southwest" (Dallas, TX) Aircraft Boeing 737-700 (twin-jet) (B737/L) Departure: Wed 06:02PM EDT Arrival: Wed 07:59PM CDT Origin Richmond Intl (KRIC) Destination Dallas Love Field (KDAL) Route YEAST1 LYH PSK J22 VUZ JAN AEX IDU CWK JEN8 Date Wednesday, May 07, 2008 Duration 2 hours 57 minutes ================================ Currently in Norfolk for the night. Late morning flight back to CLT.

I just heard on my stop over in PHL that Skybus just called it quits!!!

From the RTD article: "Skybus will be offering limited $10, one-way tickets for flights on Aug. 1 to Sept. 2 starting at 6 a.m. today. Citing the high price of fuel, the airline will discontinue service from Columbus to Niagara Falls, N.Y., and a second daily flight to Milwaukee, as of April 1. Skybus also will end service from Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point to Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., on April 15, while the number of flights from Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point to Gary, Ind., Wilmington, Del., Punta Gorda, Fla., and Newburgh, N.Y., will be reduced from two daily nonstops to one. Service between Columbus and Chattanooga, Tenn., will stop, and service between Columbus and Newburgh and Columbus and Chicopee, Mass., will be reduced from two flights to one on April 15." I can hardly say this is exciting news for RIC....... What I find troublesome is that Skybus discontinues or reduces service to other cities due to high fuel prices yet they continue to offer $10.00 one-way fares. I don't expect them to be in business for another year.......I'll be surprised if they do!

Good news for RIC! Tough ride though for passengers TO and FROM RIC/Toronto....... 2 hrs in a 37 seat Dash-8 Turbo-prop with moderate mid-level winds............That will be fun!!!!

I too remember reading that a while back. I also seem to recall that that the "future runway extension" would be for runway 2-20 (6600ft). There is really no need to extend 16-34 (9000ft)......... That runway can already accomodate the heavies.

Truly sad loosing the Braves! Since it will be the Brave's last season playing in Richmond, I tend to wonder how ticket sales will be for the games? Also, I do not think it will be a problem for the Atlanta Metro area to support 2 baseball teams. The population for Atlanta and the surrounding counties is significantly larger than Richmond and surrounding counties. http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/b...eswhy_0116.html IMO, I do not believe any minor league team will move to Richmond until a new stadium is built......... And I do not believe a new stadium will be built until a team has committed to moving to Richmond. Simple Economics!!! Forgot to mention, Richmond badly needs a "Progressive Mayor and City Council"!

N/S flights to Vegas started in Norfolk when Southwest initially started service down there. I hear that the flight is always full since Vegas is a connection hub for SW for those traveling to west coast cities. Southwest is currently the top airline at Norfolk right now and there are plans to expand. A 3rd Orlando flight is on their Spring08 schedule and rumors of an additional west coast city out of Norfolk are in the works once equipment transitions are complete. My bet is it will be either (1)San Diego (2)LA (3)Phoenix (4)Another Vegas flight. Newport News/Williamsburg is definitely catering to AirTran with the marketing incentives. I have always wondered how much more passenger traffic Norfolk or Richmond would have if NN/Williamsburg did not exist. Considering that the Newport News airport is part of the "Hampton Roads" metro area.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/ articles/apwire/7dbcf402fd80c710619f6a709afb13fa.htm For some reason, urls are being truncated.

Airline news of the day : JetBlue drops Columbus (CMH) and Nashville (BNA) http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articl...a709afb13fa.htm Like I said earlier, the airline business is tough.

RIC authorities are smart enough not to put "all their beans in one basket". If they offered all kinds of incentives for Skybus to open a hub in RIC, I am quite sure all the other airlines serving RIC, who happen to be larger the Skybus, will want some kind of modification to their incentive packages as well....... if one is in place. The one thing RIC officials will not do is tarnish their existing relationships with the current airlines, especially AirTran and JetBlue, by offering outrageous incentive packages to another airline!

The airline business is a tough..... Plain and simple..... The managment staff at RIC are smart enough to know NOT to spend millions of dollars on new or required infrastructure just to lure a relatively new startup LCC! A lot of people in the aviation community have their doubts about Skybus. IMO, I think the managment of Skybus should be looking at expanding their existing routes rather than opening a new focus city. But thats hard to do with only 5 planes.

From the North Carolina "aviation grapevine" it looks like Greensboro (GSO) may be the next Skybus hub or focus city. GSO is providing incentives to Skybus in the same manner they did to FedEx. GSO has the infrastructure and enough unused gates to accomodate all 5 Skybus aircrafts. Skybus is also adding an additional flight to GSO as listed on their spring schedule. GSO is often overshadowed by both RDU and CLT. From what I have heard, an official announcment will probably be made in Jan/Feb08. As I said sometime over the summer, Skybus did perform a couple of "proving runs" to both RIC and GSO.

Here are the May 2007 / June 2007 passenger figures for Virginia Airports: RIC : (June07) 336,000 Passengers / http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-...08-01-0136.html Dulles : (May07) 2,181,301 Passengers / http://www.metwashairports.com/_/File/_/dpsp507ye.pdf Washington Reagan : (May07) 1,726,118 Passengers / http://www.metwashairports.com/_/File/_/npsp507ye.pdf Norfolk : (June07) 362,443 Passenger / http://www.wtkr.com/Global/story.asp?S=6839778 Newport News/Williamsburg : Unavailable

Thanks Burt! I hoping it will be sooner but in this business, anything can happen. I'm happy with my 3 stripes over the "furlough line" ! ORF can support daily SW flights to Vegas because of the large population base in the Hampton Roads area (7 cities and surrounding counties). But keep in mind, Vegas is a SW hub so its probably a safe bet that many on the Vegas flight out of ORF will be making a connection to other SW cities. And the same applies on the return trip back to Norfolk. I think the same will happen if RIC has direct flights to LGB or OAK via JetBlue. I have also heard rumors that either Delta or SW is considering Norfolk-San Diego flights, which I can see happening due to the naval bases and shipyard industries in both cities. Skybus is still working out all of their "kinks" in their schedules. Until they take possession of their new planes, they will need to be more creative on their flight schedules. IMO, Point-to-Point is their best option for now with only 5 planes.

Burt, I am not, as you say, "sadistically" putting our little airport down! I even congratulated the Mgmt. of RIC of the on-going successes that are happening at RIC. I like whats going on at RIC. I just look at the airline industry in a realistic manner from the right seat of the cockpit........hopefully left in a few years I too would like to see west coast service of of RIC but the passenger loads have to warrant the need. Its called Origin/Destination Traffic. Just because RIC is seeing a surge in passenger loads doesn't necessarily mean that airlines officials will take a closer look at RIC just to see if we have the O/D traffic to the west coast. Their are a lot of other mid-sized airports just like RIC who are seeing an increase in passenger loads. As far as direct service to Vegas, I think Long Beach or Oakland, CA (JetBlue Hubs) would fare much better than Vegas. Both cities are connecting points to other west coast cities. The RIC-GSO-CMH was a "proving run". Thats all it was. A test to see if this point-to-point scheduling may work out for Skybus. I never once said that it was going to happen anytime soon. It may happen since Skybus only has 5 aircrafts flying on their daily schedule with 2 as reserve. Thats what it may take to get a second flight in and out of RIC.

From what I understand, Skybus currently has a total of 7 (5 working / 2 reserves) aircrafts in their operating fleet with more on order. I have heard that they are doing well so far. West coast flights.........RIC needs to have consistant O/D numbers to support flights to the west coast. As stated : "with many air travelers coming from Washington DC, Norfolk and other parts of the central east coast to fly in and out of RIC to catch flights from airlines like Skybus. " Unfortunately, I find it difficult to believe that "many air travelers" are coming from NOVA/DC or Norfolk. NOVA/DC airports offer more non-stop flights at reasonable prices on legacy carriers. I just cannot see a person from the NOVA/DC area driving to RIC just to save $100-$150.00. The time driving down to RIC along with gas and then the tiring drive back up on the return would not be practical. Don't forget to throw in the NOVA/DC traffic and still be at the airport 1.5 hours before your flight. Thats a minimum of 3.5 hours of travel (w/o traffic) BEFORE setting foot on the plane. I could see some passengers from Norfolk doing the drive though I would not say "many" since there are 2 airports that service SE Virginia. But the same applies to the driving aspect of the trip. RIC passenger counts are up only because Richmond Citizens are utilizing the Legacy and LCC's that fly out of RIC and the airfares are reasonable! For that, we can congratulate the Managment @ RIC for the hardwork they have done!

Glad to hear your friend made it home! Air Wisconsin flies as a USAirways Express carrier. Crew and Maintanance Bases are located in Milwaukee, Philly and Norfolk. My guess is the tire was driven up to RIC from Norfolk. "Air Whiskey" is actually one of the better "express carriers" for USAirways.

Burt, I have not heard anything lately on Skybus. Proving runs are just that........proving runs. Time will tell what Skybus will do. As for the $200.00+ flights for Skybus, it probably means that the "introductory fares" of $10.00 are either sold out or the Skybus fares are "normalizing". That is to be expected. No airline can survive on $10.00 fares!! Airlines will not make changes right away. Most airlines display schedule changes when they release their new flight schedules. Southwest recently released their new flight schedules and a lot of flights have either slightly increased or decreased based on certain flight segments. Some transcon flights have been cancelled out right such as BWI to LAX and BWI to OAK. Other than SFO, Southwest will not add any new cities for the remainder of 2007. Also, I know that we all take pride in our hometown airport RIC, but why is it so important that RIC achieve the #2 status (passenger wise when comparing specifically to Norfolk) outside the NOVA airports? When I arrive back in RIC, I like coming home to a smaller airport than the ones I fly to. Its easy for me to get to my car.