blopp1234

Friday at 08:23 PM

38 minutes ago, eandslee said:

Flew to Syracuse, NY this week for a business trip. Whenever I travel I like to compare airports and I gotta say, for a small town, Syracuse, NY has a NICE airport with all the amenities of a large airport! First, there are 27 gates divided by 2 concourses (A and B) with a central security area so that passengers can wander through both concourses. I was not expecting this, but I’m currently sitting in a priority lounge in the airport! This small airport has a lounge…and it’s NICE! It’s small, but I’ve seen smaller. I took some pics of the lounge (below). RIC, with all its business travelers is LONG over due for a lounge like this one! And this airport only serves about 1.5-2 million passengers a year! Impressive airport to say the least. I think RIC is behind and needs to catch up when I compare the two airports. I know that a lounge is only in the discussion phase for RIC, but that needs to be bumped up in priority! Just my 2 cents. Here’s are some photos of the lounge:

I’d also love for a lounge to be added, the most likely candidate would probably be an escape lounge, which has locations at midsized to smaller airports (such as Hartford, Cincinnati, Columbus, Reno, Syracuse, West Palm Beach, etc.) so RIC, with all its business traffic would be a shoe in if it weren’t for one thing. It’s tough to justify a lounge at RIC currently as lounges are almost always post security and with RIC splitting passengers between concourse A and B, the lounge would only be available to someone flying out of one concourse and not the other. This would cut down on the amount of passengers able to use the lounge. This is not to mention all of the current retail spots post security are in use and no vacancies currently exist. Consolidating the TSA checkpoint would open up thousands of square feet for new retail and lounge space, which is why it’s very high on the airports priority list for future construction projects.

April 13

9 minutes ago, Niccckk said:

Update with the Richmond - Nashville route with Southwest:
It will now start June 4th, alongside BWI starting, and it appears the BNA flight will be a seasonal daily flight for now, a change from it being a Sunday only flight. This is pretty big and great news! Hopefully it can turn into a year-round flight if demand is maintained for the route.

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.

April 11

9 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

Even putting aside a LOT of politicking that would no doubt come into play, even if any of the airlines DID want to partner with Amtrak, given the latter's plans to expand service between Richmond and DC, I'd say the best chance of something like this coming to pass would be once Amtrak establishes hourly service between Main Street Station and Union Station (and vice versa). I don't have the Virginia Rail plan handy at the moment, but aren't we looking at the timeframe for that to be somewhere in the latter half of the decade? Maybe as early as 2026? Maybe later? 2027? I don't remember. Unless and until, it would be a tough nut to crack.

What's more - there's the time factor. How long would a flight on Southwest (or any carrier) between RIC and BWI take - about 45 minutes, give or take? Particularly with no true "high speed" rail setup here yet, you'd still looking at a two-plus hour train ride to D.C, depending on time of day (let's say, at worst, 2h:25m). And if the drop-off point in D.C. is at Union Station, that's not factoring in the time (or expense) of schlepping to/from the airport (likely on the Metro, yes?) from/to downtown Washington, regardless of whether the end point was IAD, DCA or BWI.

Not sure how well it would book - plus how would the price points (rail vs air) stack up against each other? Would there be enough volume to make it worth whatever the airlines would have to pony up to partner with Amtrak (or vice versa)?

PLUS (and this is a BIGGIE for me): do we reallllllllllllllly want to take potential passenger volume AWAY from RIC? Given how much we're kvetching about, praying, hoping and pushing for increasing volume through RIC in order to bring more direct service to more destinations and more frequent flights on established routes, expand the airport, etc., wouldn't it be better if Southwest had four or five flights per day out of RIC to BWI and possibly IAD? Or even just two or three? IF, because of the connections available at BWI, it's an untapped gold mine for potential passenger volume, wouldn't that be the better way to go?

Part of me loves concept - but there are a lot of hurdles and a ton of questions.

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.

April 11

16 minutes ago, Niccckk said:

Urban twitter is definitely getting a kick out of this news haha

While I understand their frustration at face value and I do agree with what they are saying, they need to realize this flight it souly for CONNECTING flights as BWI is a Southwest Hub. I read on Simply-Flying that like 98% of traffic on the RIC-IAD route are connecting, which I believe is similar with RIC-BWI, where almost all traffic is connecting.

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.

April 9

51 minutes ago, asies said:

Richmond appeared in a top 10 list of where Millennials are moving to. We even edged out Raliegh by a percentage point, lol. Millennials Are Moving to These 10 US Cities (msn.com)

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.

April 9

6 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

Ugh... so it's pretty likely then that this kiboshes any hope that Southwest might actually "beef up" direct service to a few more destinations to/from RIC?

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.

38 minutes ago, Niccckk said:

This sucks but it definitely makes sense as Southwest is really just diversifying where people can connect. I hope they eventually bring back MCO & TPA though.

You'd think they'd keep the ATL frequency higher because ATL is pretty much the gateway to Florida & Carabiean destinations with Southwest if your connecting, or else you gotta go to Baltimore or MDW now.

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.

April 9

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

April 2

22 minutes ago, I miss RVA said:

So wait - that means Delta to/from Detroit 3x daily now? What was it previously?

Is anyone keeping a tally of 1.) new routes, 2.) increase frequencies on existing routes and 3.) larger aircraft that's will be coming online in 2024 at/for RIC?

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)

April 2

1 hour ago, eandslee said:

To add to that good news, I just saw where frequency on Delta between RIC-DTW will increase. The big deal is that one of the flights will be an A-319 - a mainline aircraft much larger with more capacity than the CRJs! This is actually the first time I’ve seen anything larger than a CRJ serving this route…at least that I can remember. This is GREAT news! DCI = Delta Connection Incorporated

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.

March 27

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.

March 27

2 hours ago, Child2021 said:

Virginia: Large new warehouse proposed for New Kent (richmond.com)

Warehouse the size of 24 football fields coming to this Richmond-area interchange

An Indiana developer is planning a 1.4 million-square-foot warehouse facility next to the Route 106 interchange on Interstate 64 in New Kent County.

The one-story building – the size of 24 football fields – will be next to the new, $185 million, 800,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution center that Autozone is building by that same interchange.

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.

March 26

21 minutes ago, HRVT said:

This is the trend in minor league baseball stadiums. Instead of building up, they're largely building out with wide and open concourses (see Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for instance who demolished their double deck mini-Vet for a design shaped like this). Durham and Charlotte are two more examples like this. I think it looks solid.

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).

March 26

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/

March 19

18 minutes ago, eandslee said:

Not 100% sure what this means, but I THINK it means that JetBlue is boosting its frequency on the BOS-RIC to 4x daily. Someone please verify what I’m reading is indeed what I think it is:

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.

March 19

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.

March 18

24 minutes ago, eandslee said:

Cool thread about RIC on Reddit:

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?

March 17

A few updates I’ve heard/ seen at the airport.

1. United has been using the 70+ seat E-175 on the morning flight from Dulles to RIC, which represents additional capacity through Dulles.

2. Can’t remember if this has already been mentioned but JetBlue and Spirit have been adding capacity to Florida for this spring and summer. Some days have 4 daily flights to MCO (2 JetBlue, 2 Spirit) and 3 daily flights to FLL (1 JetBlue, 2 Spirit). Hopefully these become permanent, but it’s nice to see multiple airlines seeing increasing demand to Florida.

3. I saw on airliners.net that Delta’s route from RIC-BOS is averaging 92% full on its three daily E-175 flights. Hopefully we see increased frequencies or upguaging of aircraft (would love to see the A220 or A319 added to the route). This is also in the top 10 for load factors out of all of the routes from Boston.

4. American has placed an order for I believe 90 Embraer E-175 aircraft, in order to phase out their smaller 50 seat jets. This will be helpful in increasing seat capacity out of RIC as currently American flies 50 seat jets to Chicago and Philadelphia, which will be upguaged to larger aircraft once they are delivered.

March 1

10 hours ago, Niccckk said:

FINALLY! MCO has been underserved the past few years ever since Southwest departed that route. I believe this matches jetBlues 2x daily MCO flights (A320 for one, and E190 for the other) so I believe we're going to be at 4x daily now for MCO!

Not only has Spirit increase MCO to 2x daily, Fort Lauderdale will also start 2x daily flights on Spirit. This will mean Spirit will be operating 5 daily flights out of RIC this summer (2x RIC-MCO, 2x RIC-FLL, 1x RIC-LAS) all on the 182 seat A320. Fort Lauderdale will have 3 total daily flights from RIC (2x on Spirit, 1x on JetBlue) and Orlando will have 4 total daily flights from RIC (2x on Spirit, 2x on JetBlue).

February 26

Good news out of Henrico this morning. It appears that Reynolds’s Development is in the early phases of planning to redevelop the existing office park at the corner of West Broad and Forest Ave, right across from the old Genworth site.

While no images showing a master plan are linked, the article mentions that buildings could rise as high as 10-12 stories and the redevelopment could add over 1,200 new units. Seems like this development could be a catalyst for Henrico to expand the Pulse Broad Street Line further into the county.

https://richmondbizsense.com/2024/02/26/reynolds-crossing-eyed-for-major-mixed-use-reinvention/

February 25

Some good news today. Breeze has extended its schedule through January 2025 and it appears that the RIC-PHX route will not be scrapped and will return for winter 2024-2025.

Glad to see this route isn’t going away and will be one of three routes Breeze offers out of Phoenix.

February 8

Speaking of new routes, Southwest has updated their schedule for Winter 2024, which has revealed a new route (although the city is already served) from RIC.

Figured it was only a matter of time for Southwest to add this route and I’m guessing that by next summer (summer 2025), it will be bumped to daily service as RIC is perfectly located to feed into Southwest’s focus city in Nashville.

January 26

26 minutes ago, Flood Zone said:

If they choose the empty Dominion tower site, that would be a disaster. We need 7th and 8th down there to be free of impediments, especially when the GA is in session.

I think it depends on their design. I think if they did something similar to a taller version of Raleigh’s under construction RUS Bus tower would be a good addition, but I do agree that a surface transfer station with nothing else would be a real disappointment, especially if they chose the empty dominion tower site.

January 23

4 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

With apologies to our airport gurus: I should have qualified in my previous post that my "questioning" RDU getting YET ANOTHER route was rhetorical and that I'm NOT looking for, NOT interested in and do NOT care one iota about explanations. While I 100% appreciate your tremendous insight, expertise, etc., on all things related to the airport and the industry, respectfully, I would ask, please don't feel the need to explain it - I already know why they are getting what we aren't. What I said echoes (in far fewer words) your explanations - "the rich get richer". My "question" was more of a lament and less of an inquiry. Seriously - for future reference - I don't want or need it explained. If I'm being honest, hearing the "rational" explanations of "why" is akin to rubbing salt in the wound for me. And again, please know this is said with all due respect - not meaning to be confrontational.

And wow - ORF is getting San Juan? Do they even have their international gate set up and running? I thought they were significantly behind RIC in re-establishing that gate/customs/processing, etc. Did ORF somehow leapfrog RIC in getting their facility back up and running?

@blopp1234-- curious why Frontier isn't entering the Richmond market. I'm 100% with you in wishing they'd take the Nestea Plunge and start service here. RIC is a proven commodity - and when final figures come out, SHOULD be the state's busiest airport excluding the two Washington, D.C. facilities.

Jesus - 2024 is NOT getting off to a good start at all for RIC. Other airports are getting significant new service by carriers that - for some reason - are either excluding from expanded service, suspending service from, or bypassing RIC altogether. Regarding - for example - Frontier, exactly WHAT do we need to do, aside from setting RECORD passenger volume numbers despite facing competition truncated by competition that at least SOME of the airports don't have (RDU being the example) and our still ridiculously overly small market size? (And this is not rhetorical - this is a legit inquiry - what do we have to do?)

I know this is my frustration talking here - but it almost feels like some of these carriers see RIC setting off-the-scale record volume numbers, moving past ORF as the state's busiest airport excluding D.C., and yet their response is; "meh".

Oh - and one more point: regarding the Spirit suspension of the RIC-TPA route - how many flights are we talking here? Is this volume that Breeze theoretically could pick up?

ORF doesn’t need an international gate to serve San Juan. San Juan is domestic and therefore doesn’t require customs facilities.

As far as how to attract Frontier, that is solely up to the airport. It could be that the routes Frontier would offer are already saturated by other carriers, but I honestly don’t know. I bet ORF could make the same argument as to why they don’t have JetBlue, it’s just difficult to know while not in that airlines network planning division.

There are are a few things RIC can do to try and attract new carriers. Having lots of passengers using the airport never hurts in luring an airline. Another more important factor is an airlines network strategy. Frontier, for example is heavily focused on the Southwest (Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix) Midwest (Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati) and Florida (Miami, Orlando, Tampa), so many of their new routes will be focused around those areas of the country. Third, the airlines available fleet is a huge factor. This is why Southwest hasn’t been able to grow as fast recently, as they don’t physically have the planes to fly due to airplane delivery delays from Boeing.

As far as I’d Breeze expand their existing route or another carrier will pick up Tampa, I still think Southwest would be a good option since they have a focus city in Tampa, but with two low cost carriers already flying from Richmond to the Tampa area, there is already a lot of capacity.

January 23

10 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

How many flights are we talking here? Who could pick up the slack? And HOW - with all the route suspensions - does effing RDU PICK UP a route? The rich get richer. And RIC gets a route suspended. SMDH...

The Raleigh Durham catchment area is over twice the size of the RIC area since they pull a lot of passengers from Greensboro/Winston Salem and all of eastern NC. The RDU catchment area most likely has a population of close to 3-3.5 million to be honest, not to mention the Raleigh and Durham metro areas are two of the fastest growing in the country. RIC, while growing significantly faster than the vast majority of metro areas in the country, just won’t get the same level of service.

I figured it was a matter of time till either Spirit or Breeze dropped this route. As mentioned by @Niccckk, with neither of these airlines offering connections out of TPA, one was going to end service most likely due to competition. If any airline reads Tampa to compete with Breeze, I would think it would be Southwest, since they have a focus city at Tampa and offer numerous connections out of TPA, allowing them to fill flights not just with passengers going between Richmond and Tampa.

I hate to be a downer, but Frontier announced some 40 new routes today and RIC didn’t make the cut. Amongst the routes, ORF scored San Juan, which is great for them, just wish that Frontier would enter the Richmond market, which I do think will happen eventually, just wish it was happening right now).

January 22

2 hours ago, I miss RVA said:

Commonwealth Catholic Charities is planning a 20-unit, income-based apartment, age-restricted apartment building just east of the corner of 20th Street and Semmes Avenue in Swansboro, according to Jonathan Spiers' reporting in today's RBS. The three-story building would include ground-floor retail space, a community room and a lounge, as well as covered parking spaces. The apartments would be in the upper two floors of the building.

Final design is still pending, and plans were filed with the city last month. No firm time-table for city review, groundbreaking or construction has been published at this time.

NOTE: The rendering are conceptual only and do not represent the final design of the building.

From today's Richmond BizSense:

https://richmondbizsense.com/2024/01/22/senior-apartments-in-the-works-for-surplus-city-property-on-semmes-ave/

Thrilled about this development. It’s taking a small, kind of awkward parcel and making something of it that will help the area feel more active and vibrant.

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Posts posted by blopp1234

Warehouse the size of 24 football fields coming to this Richmond-area interchange

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