crashvt03

Southwest just released their schedule changes for March/April 2013 and Richmond was not announced as being converted at that time. Branson, Missouri was the only city converting from AirTran to Southwest in that schedule. Looks like we will have to wait until at least next Summer before anything changes for RIC. Not that it will make anybody feel any better, but we are not alone with waiting to be converted to Southwest. The following cities are still only AirTran: Rochester, Flint, Portland (ME), Charlotte, Memphis, Pensacola, San Juan, Wichita, and Grand Rapids

Yes Burt, it is near where Capital One is. But, I have a friend who works for Capital One who said that this isn't where the building were going to be going. He could always be wrong, but that's why I checking to see if anybody knew of something different.

I was driving south on 288 and noticed they have cleared a huge amount of land on the right before you hit the Tuckahoe Creek Parkway exit. You can now clearly see the CarMax parking garage from 288 which you couldn't before. Anybody have any idea what is being planned for there?

I'm a big airplane geek and purposely book flights so I can try out new routes and aircraft. But you have to admit that the plane to Toronto is awfully small and can be uncomfortable for that long of a flight. It's a similar deal with the non-stop to Houston. That's almost a 3 hour flight on a 50-seater. While I don't hold out much hope that Toronto will get upgraded to a bigger plane, I think that Houston will at least get upgraded to a larger regional jet (CRJ-700) at some point especially if Southwest starts a flight from Richmond to Houston.

Yes, I'm still paying tolls by taking the Powhite and Downtown Expressway. Honestly, I don't pay much attention to tolls in Richmond. I use my SmartTag and just go on through. It's just part of getting around town. I don't go out of my way to avoid them.

Burt, you're right, I do live in Midlothian and travel 2-3 times a month. I live in Salisbury which is off of Robious Rd (halfway between Huguenot and Rt. 288). While techically on the "Southside" I am on the northern part of Chesterfield County. I typically take Robious to Huguenot to Chippenham to the Powhite/Downtown Expressway to 64 East. When I am on the very early flights this route only takes about 30 minutes. Later in the day when I know I'll have to deal with traffic I give myself 45 minutes to make the trip on the same route. Unfortunately, there really isn't a very good way to get from that part of town to the airport. There are some alternate routes from where I live. There is Midlo Tnpk to the Powhite but that can be trouble with all of the stoplights. You can also do 288 to 64, but that is really out of the way. I would only do that if I knew there was an accident or construction on my normal route or if I was going to have to pick up somebody in the West End on my way to the airport. I'm not sure whether a lot of people take the bridge and pay the toll or not. If it's the most direct route for where I lived, I suppose I would suck it up and pay the toll. No point in going way out of my way to avoid the toll, especially if I am travelling on business and will get reimbursed anyway. But if I'm travelling for a personal trip, and I know I'm going to get hit with $100+ of airline fees, I might rethink taking the bridge so I can save a little bit of money. Then again, what's another $6 in tolls when you're paying over $1000+ for a vacation?

I live 5 minutes away from the Martin's at Sycamore Square. It is very small and as a result does not carry the same selection of items that you can get at the much larger store at CTC or at the large Kroger just down the street on Midlo Tnpk. I have always thought that they needed to replace the one at Sycamore Square with a larger store nearby, but I also thought that this store would have gone into Westchester Commons. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

Yes, it is very small plane that goes to Toronto. I guess having the service with such a small plane is better than not having the service at all. I've actually been on something similar or possibly smaller on Cape Air up in Maine. You get weighed as you get on the plane so they know exactly how much the "cargo" weighs and if you're lucky you can actually sit in the co-pilot seat!

I was at the airport this past week flying in/out of the B concourse and I noticed that United has consolidated their operations so that they now use gates B1-B4 instead of having things split from there and further down the concourse near Delta. Continental was using a couple of gates in the B1-B4 area so it made sense to move the United gates up there as well as there was no room to move the Continental gates down to United. With this move, I can easily envision a good area for Southwest/AirTran to move into if they decide to grow the number of flights out of RIC. I could see JetBlue taking AirTran's gates in the A concourse and Southwest/AirTran taking all of the empty gates in the B concourse. I think that would give them 6 gates which would be enough for a decent sized schedule. Guess we'll just have to wait and see if anything materializes.

Like Burt said above, everything is pure speculation. Here's my guess: ATL BWI (short flight, but if they want to capture connections to the northeast and Ohio valley area, they'll want to fly there) Chicago Houston Orlando Nashville I also wouldn't be surprised to a see a couple of flights to a city like Denver, Phoenix or even Las Vegas. We would probably only see 1 of those though.

The rumors that I've been hearing is that it will be Spirit Airlines which will start service to Newport News. Guess we'll just have to wait and see...

US Airways and Delta finalized their slot-swap agreement for Washington Reagan (DCA) and LaGuardia (LGA). US Air is giving a bunch of LGA slots to Delta and Delta is giving US Air a bunch of DCA slots. The first changes to the schedules are starting to appear online. Delta is restarting RIC-LGA service beginning Sun. 3/25/2012. Looks like 5 flights a day on 50-seat regional jets (4x ERJ and 1x CRJ). Because of these additions, Delta is reducing its RIC-JFK flights from 5 to 3 times a day (all 50-seat CRJs) starting on 3/25/2012. US Air hasn't updated their schedules yet, but I would expect to see them drop RIC-LGA completely. They will have such a small number of slots that they will likely use them to only their biggest markets (PHL, BOS, DCA, CLT, etc).

You're right that Allegiant doesn't serve RIC, but they do serve Newport News. It was probably a diversion due to the weather.

Just thought I would report back on how my flights were this past weekend to Orlando. I took JetBlue nonstop on Friday afternoon. The flight was completely full and was uneventful. 30+ channels of DirecTV was nice to have. I only paid $99 for this flight, so while the flight was full I don't know whether it was a "profitable" flight for JetBlue. Yesterday evening I took the nonstop AirTran flight back. This flight was also 100% full and they were looking for 5 volunteers to fly back today. I only paid $109 initially for this flight but did pay $49 to upgrade to Business Class at check-in. This also allowed me to check my golf clubs for free (normally $20) so the upgrade was really good deal. The free booze, more comfortable seat, and the ability to get on the plane first and not fight for overhead bin space was also a real plus. Since my ticket was so cheap, I don't know whether AirTran made any money on the flight, but it was promising to see that both flights were completely full. Hopefully both airlines will stick around for a long time and eventually add some new destinations!

I'll be doing my part to support the low-cost carriers in Richmond at the end of October. Booked RIC-Orlando on JetBlue and Orlando-RIC on AirTran. I almost always fly Delta, but the opportunity to fly nonstop (and at the same price as Delta would have charged me to make a connection) more than makes up for no free first class upgrades and the chance of getting delayed in Atlanta!

It certainly would be nice to see that happen. I think the more likely result will be larger aircraft coming into RIC during that period from the major hubs that have the international arrivals (ie. ATL, JFK, ORD, EWR, etc) to funnel the folks into town. I guess you might see a few charter flights from overseas, but you still face the challenges of not having a regularly staffed customs area. Not sure how all of that would work...

I still can't figure out why AA only offers flights to Chicago on their tiny EMB-145s. Even United has a mix of A320s and regional jets so you don't always have to fly in a sardine can. If they don't want to give us a MD-80 or 737, at least give us a CRJ-700 every now and then. I realize it isn't too much bigger than a EMB-145, but every little bit helps when you are dealing with planes of that size.

This isn't exactly about RIC, but Southwest announced that AirTran is going to stop flying to Newport News (PHF) next year. http://insidebiz.com/news/southwest-terminating-airtran-service-out-newport-news One would think that this is good news for RIC. With AirTran at both RIC and PHF, and Southwest at Norfolk (ORF), it would have been surprising to see all 3 stations survive. With PHF gone, you would think Southwest would keep RIC and hopefully offer service to more places than just Atlanta and Orlando.

Vision Airlines will reconnect Grand Bahama Island with direct air service to RIC beginning in November, the Grand Bahama Tourist Office announced yesterday. http://www.thebahamasweekly.com/publish/ministry_of_tourism_updates/Low-Cost_Carrier_Fills_Laker_Airways_Void16420.shtml Flights will be on a 136 seat Boeing 737-300 aircraft. No word on the number of flights per week or any other details. I know absolutely nothing about this airline, so not much else to add...

It's IBM. Doubt they'd have much influence. Only way I can purchase tickets through an airline's website is if the ticket is less than $75. And that also will likely never happen. I'll just keep adding to my 400k+ Delta miles.

I would gladly fly AirTran or JetBlue if my company would allow me to. They have an agreement with Delta and American as preferred airlines. On our corporate travel site most other airlines don't even show up as available to book, and I can't book my flights any other way. Oh well.

I wouldn't be surprised if Southwest continues to fly to Orlando (AirTran already flies RIC-MCO). I also think Denver could be a possibility. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Any changes probably wouldn't happen until late next year, early 2012.

I flew on JetBlue for the first time this past weekend. It was easily the most comfortable I've ever been in coach seats. I wasn't cramped, I had lots of legroom, I had a TV and XM radio, and the flight attendants were very nice and polite. And the price for the one-way ticket to JFK was $49 before taxes ($62 after). Definitely glad I finally tried out them out.

The DOJ approved the combination of United and Continental Airlines today. http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/27/news/companies/United_Continental/index.htm?hpt=T1 The merger still needs to be approved by the shareholders, but I think it's a given that the approval will happen. I wonder what effect, if any, this will have on Richmond? My guesses are: - Less flights to Cleveland (currently have 3). The proximity of Chicago will probably result in Cleveland losing flights, and possibly go the way of Pittsburgh (US Air) and St. Louis (American) after they went through mergers. Hopefully we don't completely lose service, but nothing would surprise me. - Bigger plane to Houston (currently on 50 seat ERJ-145). United has bigger, more comfortable regional jets that could be used (Continental does too, but they are props, and I don't know whether they even have the range for RIC-IAH). Or, depending on what the demand has been like, maybe throw an A319 or a Continental 737 on one of the peak demand flights similar to what United does to Chicago. United has a mix of 50 and 70 seat regional jets and 1 flight on an A319 to Chicago. - I would also guess that United would move from their current location in the B concourse to where Continental is. There are a few free gates at the beginning of the B concourse that United could easily move to. There just isn't any free space near United right now, with Delta and JetBlue completely surrounding them.

Burt, the Delta Connection flights to JFK are non-stop. Delta Connection is just the name for the group of regional airlines flying the regional jets for Delta.