blopp1234

Extending runway 16/34 is already in the airport master plan, but I agree that for regularly scheduled commercial service it is needed. I will say though that not too long ago, a Norse Atlantic 787 was diverted to Richmond so it is technically possible, just not something that should be commonplace I guess. Definitely agree on this tbh. I’d love to have an airport station with Amtrak, as it could make it easier for people from Fredericksburg or the Peninsula to get to RIC for flights.

I‘m interested in what it means with “Europe to follow closely.” Does this mean Perry Miller has already had talks with European airlines about adding service to RIC? And also, what would be a potential timeframe. Would this be a 5 year goal or is this a 15-20 year goal? 5 years would be amazing and definitely surprise me. As far as where I would think could be options…. I would think the following could all be options: British airways: 5x per week to London Heathrow (Boeing 787) Aer Lingus: 4x per week to Dublin (Airbus A321) Icelandair: 3x per week to Keflavik (Boeing 737 Max) I doubt we would get all of those around the same time but I think they are all good 5-10 year, long range goals for the airport to get all three.

It’s not even that it necessarily needs a feeder network. For example, St Louis (129 southwest flights per day) and Nashville (167 southwest flights per day) are major operations bases for Southwest, yet both only have one daily flight to Europe. Because Southwest doesn’t codeshare with any European airlines (to my knowledge), these airports, which handle hundreds of southwest flights each day have very limited service to Europe. It’s just tough to get transatlantic flights as an airport unless there is a hub or focus city for Delta, American or United. Even Phoenix, which is a major hub for American Airlines only has 2 transatlantic destinations.

Drove by the other day and it still seems they are doing site work. My guess is this site will have quite a bit of site work with all the grading they have to do to create the lake itself so I wouldn’t think buildings would be going up until spring 2024. I’ll see if I can get find an update on it though.

Transatlantic flights are some of the most difficult flights for an airport to attract. The reason airports like Charlotte and Raleigh have a pleathers of European flights is primarily due to the feeder network the airlines at those airports have. The main problem that we’d run into is that there isn’t a middle market aircraft that would be right sized for the O&D demand from RIC that could make the over 3,500 mile flight to Europe. This is a problem that plagues most mid sized cities in the US, such as Kansas City, Indianapolis, Columbus, and Milwaukee. Even cities such as Nashville, Cleveland, San Antonio, Pittsburgh, St Louis and New Orleans only have one daily flight at most to Europe. RDU is a focus city for Delta, which uses routes to places such as Cincinnati to feed passengers into flights to Frankfurt, London, Iceland and Paris. Charlotte being the American Airlines hub that it is allows passengers from across the southeast to be funneled into CLT so instead of just capturing demand from the Charlotte metro area, which wouldn’t support all the European flights currently offered from Charlotte, American is able to capture demand from multiple cities, such as Birmingham, New Orleans, Memphis, etc. and funnel those passengers through Charlotte, allowing them to fill their European flights. This could change in the future as Airbus is testing their A321 XLR aircraft which will have a range of well over 4,000 miles while having similar seating capacity to a domestic aircraft, which could make it feasible for an airline to offer transatlantic service to more mid sized markets such as RIC. However, even with the A321 XLR, any transatlantic flight out of RIC would likely require lots of financial incentives provided to the airline by the airport. Therefore, I have a hard time seeing any transatlantic flights happening out of RIC for the foreseeable future. I’d obviously love to be wrong about this, however, there are currently other US markets that are far larger (ie. Indianapolis, Columbus, Kansas City) that have been fighting for transatlantic service for years and still haven’t gotten it. These markets are far more likely than RIC to get transatlantic service IMO. I’d love to be wrong though and I do like the positive thinking, just don’t think it’s super feasible within the next few years.

Seems that Legend Brewing is looking to rezone their property to B-4. This move while preemptive, sets the tone for this parcel to become something taller and more productive than the current 1 story brewery. Should be interesting to see how this plays out and how long Legend plans to continue operating in their current building before redevelopment eventually happens. https://richmondbizsense.com/2023/10/30/legend-brewing-files-to-rezone-its-manchester-property-but-says-a-move-isnt-imminent/

Right now it takes about 2 hours, which is usually quicker than driving it. Any possible drop in time on that trip would come from quicker acceleration out of stops, not from higher track speeds. In order to break the existing 70 mph speed limit between Richmond and DC, track and signal upgrades will need to be done. In order to hit 125 mph (which could really only be done between Fredericksburg and Ashland), the entire corridor would need to be grade deprecated, eliminating any level crossings. While possible, this would be a huge undertaking and isn’t very likely for atleast a decade. Electrification, which should be the final goal, is a long way off as a whole separate set of tracks would need to be built exclusively for passenger service, which is expensive to do as new bridges all along the corridor would cost billions of dollars.

Very excited for these trains to enter service. While I’ve heard the seats used aren’t as comfortable as the OG Amfleet seats, I’ll be glad to have these introduced. Not only will these trains improve the overall rider experience, they will be able to accelerate quicker than the current trains, which may be able to shave a few minutes off the travel time without any infrastructure upgrades. While the old amfleet cars are great, they are clearly showing their age and their deteriorating numbers have hampered amtraks ability to offer more service along key corridor routes. As someone who rides Amtrak multiple times per month between Staples Mill and Alexandria, these new trains will be a breathe of fresh air. Couple that with some station upgrades and hourly service and the Richmond to DC rail corridor will start feeling very European by 2030.

Yes, Q2 goes from April 1st to June 30th. These numbers are the average passengers per day each way between RIC and all the above cities.

The passenger numbers for Q2 of 2023 are out and below is the PDEW (Per day each way) stats for all markets out of Richmond without daily air service (the reason LA, SF and Nashville are included are because they have less than daily service). Los Angeles: 179 (3x per week on Breeze) New Orleans: 118 (4x per week on Breeze) San Francisco: 116 (3x per week on Breeze) Nashville: 98 (4x per week on Allegiant) Phoenix: 98 (2x per week on Breeze) Austin: 73 San Diego: 68 Seattle: 68 Jacksonville: 66 (4x per week on Breeze) Kansas City: 54 Salt Lake City: 53 St Louis: 48 Indianapolis: 35 Portland, OR: 34 Memphis: 33 Cincinnati: 32 (2x per week on Breeze) Charleston: 32 (3x per week on Breeze) Hartford: 31 (2x per week on Breeze) Fort Myers: 27 This should hopefully give an idea of what destinations could support nonstop daily service (just subtract the number of seats in a A319, A220, E190, A320 or 737). Overall though, the numbers are pretty good. LAX should definitely have nonstop direct service for atleast one airline, even the big boys like American and Delta could probably make those passenger numbers work. New Orleans, San Francisco, Phoenix, Nashville, Austin and maybe Seattle seem like the next most obvious adds for daily service, but ultimately I think daily service to LAX and Nashville are the most likely.

Yeah not sure how Breeze plans on making CHS and PVD work. I don’t see the demand being there for PVD and CHS isn’t too bad of a drive on I-95, coupled with bad flight times and very few people will choose to fly that route. I genuinely thought ISP would be lower than it actually is, but I could see a 2x per week seasonal service being a constant from RIC-ISP as 68% full, while not great, is definitely not bad for a newer route. I could definitely see it returning next summer. Sad to see CVG only have a 63% load factor, and I think the route would work if Breeze had smaller planes to fly that route, but I don’t see it getting renewed for next summer. As far as RIC being a base, I think you’d still run into problems with flights to destinations such as Providence being half empty, but it would logistically make it easier to get flights from Richmond to the west coast.

Thanks for the update! I will never understand why United is still choosing to use the A-319 on the Denver route instead of a 737-8 or A320. The route clearly has the demand and is often sold out on both flights, seems like the demand is there for larger planes on this route and maybe even a 3rd flight if they are insistent on using the A319.

Would love to be able to provide more frequent updates but flying is so expensive now a days that I don’t get to do it very often. 1. JetBlue is likely going to switch to the A220-300 (the same plane type that Breeze uses) which will replace all their E190s, which primarily fly up and down the east coast. As they continue to receive deliveries of the A220s, the E190s will become a less likely sight at RIC as JetBlue will likely switch to solely flying A220s to Boston and A320s to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale in the coming years. 2. The main reason Richmond sees a lot of E145 regional jets is due to Piedmont Airlines, a regional subsidiary of American, having a maintenance facility at RIC. Because of this, they cycle some of their E145s back from their hubs at Chicago and Philadelphia to RIC for maintenance. I’m not sure if we will ever see anything bigger than an American Airlines A319 flying from RIC to Ohare or Philadelphia because of this, but who knows. As far as A320s and 737s flying to Ohare, United consistently flies 737s between Ohare and RIC. 3. The Spirit redeye from Las Vegas arrives at around 5 am and departs RIC alittle after 6 am. 4. As far as service to St Louis goes, RIC hasn’t had direct service to St Louis since it was dropped in the mid 2000s by American when they dehubbed St. Louis. With Southwest being the dominant carrier at St Louis now, they would be the most likely if service were to be reinstated between the two cities. However, with an average PDEW of about 40-50 passengers, they would need to stimulate a decent amount of demand and offer lots of connections for it to be worth flying a 150+ seat 737. I would think Nashville and Orlando would be the most likely as both are large crew bases for Southwest and RIC is one of the largest markets not served by Southwest for each of those airports.

I was able to snap an aerial photo of the new Wegmans distribution center in Hanover while my flight was on approach to RIC today. The facility looks to be in operation which is a great sign and the buffering seems pretty good, which makes the NIMBYS complaining about it that much more annoying!

Flew on Southwest to Chicago Midway airport on Friday and back via Atlanta today and figured I’d share some airport insights. First, the airport was really busy Friday evening. Almost every table at all the food places in Concourse B were full and the passenger holding areas were busy. The parking garages next to the terminal were also packed and it was tough even finding a spot to park! The amount of passengers on the flight to Chicago was alittle disappointing as the flight was only about 60% full (around 104 people on a 175 seat Boeing 737-800). With that being said, the plane came in from Denver and there seemed to be almost a full load of passengers disembarking at RIC, which is a good sign for those flights. The flight back from Atlanta was packed today, with 95% (around 167 people on a 175 seat Boeing 737-800) of the plane full. Which is a great sign for a Monday morning flight. Another cool air catch was a FedEx 767 coming in from Memphis. Very cool to see a wide body aircraft landing and taxiing at RIC, even if it’s not transporting passengers. Hopefully one day within the next decade we see some wide body passenger aircraft. Some more updates include: 1. JetBlue seems to have replaced one of their 3 daily flights to Boston with an A320, which adds an additional 50 seats each way between RIC and BOS. 2. American has seemed to upguage atleast one of their multiple daily flights between RIC and both Philadelphia and Chicago O’Hare from a 50 seat E145 to a 76 seat E175. Hopefully this trend continues and RIC can start seeing more 76 seat planes and less 50 seat planes. 3. Spirit has moved the return flight from Las Vegas to RIC from a flight arriving late at night to a red eye, which leaves Las Vegas alittle after 9 pm and arrives at RIC around 5 am. To my knowledge, this is the first true redeye flight that has been offered to RIC. Even with this change in time, the flights still seem to be consistently over 75% full, which is a great sign for a service offered daily. Definitely demonstrates that there is significant west coast demand out of RIC. Overall, seems like the airport is doing very well heading into the fall, especially if airlines are still upguaging aircraft at the airport. Should be very interesting to see what developments happen for next summer (hopefully some more capacity on existing routes and maybe some new routes if we are lucky (I’d love Southwest to Nashville, Orlando and Tampa, and American to Austin.)

1. As of right now I don’t think there is enough demand for year round service. While RIC used to have multiple daily flights to Cincinnati, that was primarily due to CVG being a hub for Delta, which it no longer is, taking away all the people that took those flights to connect through Cincinnati. As RIC keeps growing, maybe we could see year round service within the next 15 years, but I don’t see anything year round in the near future. Now I do think Breeze could renew this service next summer as planes seemed to average over 2/3 full. 2. As far as new routes in 2024, my guesses would be they would come from Breeze, Southwest and Spirit. From Breeze, I could see returning the seasonal routes for next summer, as well as maybe adding Portland, Maine and Columbus, Ohio at 2x per week seasonally for next summer, however it’s tough to tell because Breeze could add cities that aren’t currently on their route map by next summer. For Southwest, I would think a 1x daily flight to Nashville and Orlando could happen if southwest has their pilot shortage figured out. Long shots from southwest would be Dallas Love, Houston Hobby, Las Vegas, St Louis and Tampa. As far as Spirit, I could see them adding Cancun seasonally, however, I think their optimism on adding new routes could be affected by whether their proposed merger with JetBlue goes through. I do think increasing frequencies of routes and upguaging flights is more probable than some of the routes listed above. I would love to see American increase DFW to 4x per day and Miami to 2x per day. Delta I could see adding a second daily MSP flight next summer, however that’s probably all we will get from them. I’d love for United to completely upguage all Denver flights from the A319 to the A320, add a second daily Houston flight, upguage Chicago to fully mainline aircraft and upguage Newark to using E175s instead of smaller regional jets. I don’t see any changes from JetBlue as they try to figure out their merger with Spirit and Allegiant is to unpredictable to know what they could or couldn’t add. As much as I’d love them to come to RIC, I don’t see Alaska entering RIC within the next 2 years unless they get an incentive package tbh. I do think passenger numbers will continue to climb at RIC and if we don’t break 5 million passengers this year, it will definitely happen next year. I wouldn’t be surprised if at this rate we hit 6 million by 2030. These passenger numbers will continue increasing as the RVA metro continues to grow. My best guess (and again this is speculative) is that we will hear news of concourse B being expanded and the security checkpoint consolidation within the next few years. 3. As far as RIC hitting 10 million passengers within the next 10 years, I don’t see it happening unless Richmond becomes the fastest growing metro area in the country. I think hitting 7 million by 2033 is a more attainable goal, especially if the metro area keeps growing like it is.

I know @I miss RVA will love to hear this news. Looks like one of the proposals for the city center redevelopment is proposing a hotel that would rise 40 stories and 450 feet, creating a new tallest building in the city. https://richmondbizsense.com/2023/09/05/30-stories-40-city-center-contenders-push-coliseum-area-to-new-heights/

Wow! Didn’t expect that. Apparently ORF also got both TPA and RSW at the same frequencies as RIC. TPA: 4x per week RSW: 3x per week Seems Spirit is launching a full fledged attack on Breeze at RIC and CHS. Should be interesting to see how Breeze responds as they are priced similarly. Hopefully both routes can sustain both, but who knows.

Great find! Really didn’t see this coming. Should be interesting to see how Breeze responds as this route has been a cash cow for Breeze with aircraft consistently over 80% full while operating daily.

Southwest to Denver will fly 1x per day. This is on top of United’s 2x daily flights to Denver, for a total of 3x daily flights from RIC to Denver. As far as other destinations southwest could add out of Richmond, Houston Hobby airport and St Louis come to mind as semi long shots, as moderate Origin and destination passenger numbers could be supplemented via passengers connecting to both of those airport pleathers of southwest flights. Only time will tell though!

If southwest added flights from Richmond to Dallas, they would fly to Dallas Love field, not DFW as Dallas Love is one of their largest hubs. As far as how they could compete with Breeze, the only route I could see southwest interested in that Breeze flies would be to Tampa, as both have focus cities at that airport. Who knows if that route will even come back as I’d think southwest would add Orlando prior to Tampa, but honestly who knows.

I’m not too worried about RIC having less passengers than ORF the past 2 months. ORF is a popular spot for people coming from the Midwest and northeast to fly into for vacation at the outer banks or VA Beach, so they tend to have much higher traffic during the summer months. As the Richmond metro area continues to grow, RIC will come closer and closer to ORFs passenger numbers during the summer and will move further and further past them during other months of the year. Looking forward to Southwest restarting Denver service next week, which will definitely give a slight bump in passenger numbers at the airport. Here’s hoping Southwest gets their pilot shortage figured out and can finally expand at RIC again (hoping for MCO and TPA to return, plus maybe Nashville to be added).

Some cool flights were diverted from Washington Dulles airport to RIC today due to tornado warnings in Northern VA. RIC received visitors such as Norse Atlantic’s 787 wide body aircraft inbound from London Gatwick airport, an Avianca A320 from San Salvador and a Play airlines A321 from Iceland. A nice change from the usual 737s, a320s, a220s, e jets and CRJs.

Likely not at all. If anything this would hurt Charlottesville, but this airport would likely not draw anyone from RIC. This would really only be there to give people in prince William and Loudon counties a cheaper and closer alternative than Dulles or Reagan.

It’s offered 4x per week but only two of the 4 trips are breeze thrus, the rest are direct from RIC-RSW on Wednesdays and Saturdays.