blopp1234

Saw that to, which is great news. It does appear this flight is no longer seasonal and will operate 1x per day year round as a substitute to one of the Atlanta flights.

The transforming rail in Va plan will be fully implemented by 2030, as construction of the second span of the long bridge between Alexandria and DC will need to be completed. In regard to if this has happened before where Amtrak partners with an airline, it’s not a very unrealistic concept at all. United used to partner with Amtrak for flights between Philadelphia and Newark, however I believe this stopped during covid. It is also happens all the time in Europe where airlines codeshare with state railways to eliminate short hop flights. The Southwest flights to BWI are scheduled to take around 30 minutes, which from a quick glance is quicker than the 3ish hours it takes on Amtrak. However, the flight costs over 2x what a ticket on Amtrak costs and you also have to factor in atleast 45 minutes to board, 30 minutes to get to the airport, park and walk to the terminal, then atleast 30 minutes to get bags from the baggage claim. After all factors are taken into effect, there is less than a 30 minute difference to go from downtown to downtown with the train being significantly cheaper. While I agree it would likely never happen, I personally would prefer more rail service to Baltimore than having Southwest operate 4-5 flights per day. However, they serve different markets. There may be 1-2 passengers per day that only fly from Richmond to Baltimore and don’t connect onwards so while 2-3 flights per day is good, I’d rather Southwest only fly this route for connections to the northeast and Ohio/Michigan/Indiana as all other connections could be better served through other Southwest focus cities that have far more demand.

Agreed, in a perfect world Southwest would partner with Amtrak to have passengers go from Richmond to BWI via Amtrak, but there are definitely logistical challenges that come from that.

Now if the metro area can keep building fast enough, maybe RVA can slow the drastic increase in housing costs that have been occurring in the past few years.

Not necessarily. Southwest uses BWI as a connecting point for places in the northeast, such as Buffalo, Syracuse, Portland, etc.). This change will make it easier for RIC passengers to access the northeast without having to fly all the way out to Midway and fly back, saving RIC passengers money and time. Southwest could still very easily beef up service to the west or South as BWI isn’t a great connecting point for RIC passengers trying to get to Florida, Texas or the Caribbean. It seems like Southwest is downsizing Atlanta because Greenville/Spartanburg is also going to 1x per day from Atlanta. This is likely due to an over saturated market in the Atlanta area as Delta has their largest hub and Spirit and Frontier have focus cities in addition to Southwest. My guess is Southwest is gonna look to keep moving away from Atlanta and my guess is that Nashville, Orlando and Tampa will pick up the slack.

Well it’s official. Southwest is launching RIC-BWI with 2x daily flights. I think this is primarily to connect RIC flyers to the northeast as it isn’t an advantageous location for flights to the west coast or south as opposed to Southwest’s more central focus cities of Chicago Midway, Atlanta, Nashville, St Louis or Denver. Speaking of Nashville, RIC-BNA on Southwest is bookable in June as well with daily flights which is big because it shows Southwest taking a stab at daily service for a few weeks to get a feel for the market. My guess is next summer, Southwest will expand to daily service year round to BNA. The only downside is that Southwest is reducing RIC-ATL to 1x per day. Below is a breakdown of Southwests schedule from RIC: RIC-BWI: 2x per day RIC-BNA: 1x per week seasonal (7x per week in June 2024) RIC-MDW: 2x per day RIC-DEN: 1x per day RIC-ATL: 1x per day

Delta has been flying 3x daily flights to Detroit out of RIC for years I believe, since they merged with Northwest airlines back in 2008. My hope is that as Delta’s hubs at ATL, LGA, JFK and BOS become more and more crowded and adding flights becomes harder and harder into those airports, Delta will upguage aircraft into those cities and add more flights to places like Detroit or Minneapolis for connections. As far as the total upguages for this summer out of RIC, it’s tough to say without going and looking at every airlines scheduled. I’ve listed the summer schedules for the major airlines (American, Delta, JetBlue, Spirit, United, Southwest) out of RIC for their flights that operate atleast daily. The ones I remember are below: American (21 daily flights): RIC-CLT (7x A321) RIC-DFW (3x 737) RIC- LGA (3x E175) RIC- ORD (3x E145) RIC- PHL (4x E145) RIC-MIA (1x 737) Delta (25 daily flights): RIC-DTW (1x A319, 2x CRJ900) RIC-ATL (9x 757) RIC- MSP (2x CRJ900) RIC-BOS (3x E175) RIC-JFK (3x CRJ900) RIC- LGA (5x CRJ900) United (15 daily flights): RIC-IAH (1x 737) RIC-DEN (2x 737) RIC- ORD (1x 737, 3x CRJ550) RIC-IAD (4x CRJ550) RIC-EWR (1x E175, 3x CRJ550) JetBlue (6 daily flights): RIC-BOS (3x E190) RIC-FLL (1x A320) RIC-MCO (2x A320) Spirit (4x daily flights): RIC-LAS (1x A320) RIC-FLL (2x A320) RIC-MCO (1x A320) Southwest (6x daily flights): RIC-ATL (3x 737) RIC-MDW (2x 737) RIC-DEN (1x 737)

Delta has been flying their 717s into RIC for quite some time, usually once or twice a day during the winter, along with 1-2 CRJ flights (3 flights per day total). The A319 (130+ seats) shows a shift in capacity away from the 717 (110 seats), atleast at Detroit. Hopefully we see the A319 start replacing the CRJs on this route and others as well as Delta continues restoring capacity out of Detroit post pandemic. I’d also love to see larger aircraft used on Deltas route to Boston, as the current 3x daily E175 (76 seats) are averaging over 90% full. The A220-100 or 717 come to mind as possible larger aircraft to use.

https://thepointsguy.com/news/southwest-airlines-cuts-lax-maui/ Some interesting new Southwest news. If you look at the bottom of the article, there is a very important RIC detail. Elsewhere, the airline will add limited-time service from Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) to Richmond International Airport (RIC) and from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) to Des Moines International Airport (DSM). Looks like RIC-BWI , which will primarily serve as a feeder route to Southwests BWI network, will be coming online seasonally. No details provided as to what days this route will fly and when it will begin, but it’s is shown on Southwests route map as a direct route from Richmond. I’ll keep my eye out to see if I can find more information out.

The entire section of I-64 between Richmond and Hampton Roads is exploding with New Warehouses. With this, the Autozone warehouse coming online and the massive Lovett Commerce Center that will have over 2 million square feet in James City County, there will be lots of increased truck traffic on I-64.

You are correct about this trend. Almost every minor league baseball stadium built in the last 20 years is pretty much single tiered, with a layer of suites above the single level. Ballparks now attempt to wrap around the field with the intention that fans can view the game from any angle. As far as the proposed stadium, I think it looks really good. Lots of things to like, such as the beer garden, behind home plate suites (which is very major league ish), and seating completely around the stadium. I do wish there was some sort of roof that extended over some of the lower deck seats in order to provide more shade, but that should hopefully be an easy add. Overall, it looks a lot more unique than most minor league ballparks and definitely fits the Richmond theme (it doesn’t look like a cut and paste cookie cutter stadium imo).

First look at the new stadium thanks to Richmond BizSense. https://richmondbizsense.com/2024/03/26/city-gets-first-look-at-new-diamond-district-ballpark-design/

Only time will tell. If it is they haven’t updated their schedule as RIC-BOS goes from 3 to 2 daily flights this summer when JetBlue switches out the 100 seat E190 with the almost 150 seat A220-300. Id love to see them add a flight to San Juan but JetBlue doesn’t seem to eager to try new routes at this point in time.

https://richmondbizsense.com/2024/03/19/mixed-use-project-the-lake-to-deliver-first-commercial-buildings-this-fall/ Some more information on the first phase of “The Lake” development near the intersection of 288 and Genito. Glad to see the first phase of the project is filling up as this project hadn’t had an updated on leasing for a while. I’ll see if I can snap some pics next time I pass it.

I wholeheartedly agree that RIC offers a great passenger experience with the exception of having terrible food options. Would it kill them to add some brand name stuff like a Starbucks or Chick-fil-A?