blopp1234

I wouldn’t be too worried about this getting done, it is one of the most important passenger rail infrastructure projects in the country as all new rail service to Washington DC from the south must use this bridge. Because of this, Virginia also has political support from NC, as well as other northeastern states that want increased rail service to the south. I do agree that we need to figure out a way as a country to reduce our costs to build new infrastructure as us infrastructure projects have a tendency balloon in costs, however, this project doesn’t seem to be one that would be on the chopping block as it has bipartisan support.

We are still an over a month out so it wouldn’t shock me to see that the flight isn’t half full yet. Usually flights tend to fill up later on as people get last minute deals on flights or hotels (not everyone likes to plan half a year in advance or more like I do!). I think it will be interesting to see how this route does for spirit but I’m surprised they aren’t really advertising it, especially since they are directly competing with Breeze. I wouldn’t be too worried about us not having a hotel directly attached to the airport yet. RDU, Charlotte, Reagan, LaGuardia, Kansas City, Austin, and many others don’t have a hotel attached directly to their airport terminal yet. All have nearby facilities, as does RIC with the Sheraton located directly across airport road from the terminal entrance, but I agree it would be nice to have one directly attached to the airport. I will say though that that shouldn’t be high on the priorities list as I’d rather the airport be pursuing new destinations domestically (Seattle, Austin, Salt Lake, etc.) and internationally (Cancun, Montego Bay, Nassau, Toronto, etc.). Not saying both can’t be done but there is a limited amount of money the airport has to work with (sadly) and I would be willing to bet that adding new destinations would increase travelers at the airport more than an airport hotel.

From what I’ve heard the problems are largely coming from the A220. The e-190 and e-195s have been running well and reliably for Breeze, however because the A220 is a relatively new plane, it is still working out the kinks. I know Delta and JetBlue among other carriers have had problems with the a220. They do need to get this figured out though as it is seriously hurting their reputation.

Unpopular opinion but I think the silos are better looking than the Monroe building by a country mile. Only thing Monroe building has going for it is that it’s tall and this is coming from someone who appreciates brutalist architecture. I do think the silos should have lost to the federal reserve though. The fed is by far my favorite skyscraper along the riverfront and that won’t change even when the Costar building is built.

A good site to use is the bureau of transportation statistics, which I’ll link here: https://data.transportation.gov/Aviation/Consumer-Airfare-Report-Table-6-Contiguous-State-C/yj5y-b2ir This database shows how many passengers each day traveled between any city pair in the lower 48 states with atleast 10 passengers per day on commercial airlines. PDEW can be found by dividing the number by 2. PDEW partially plays a role in what routes airlines fly, however there are other factors that come into play such as distance of the route and whether the route is coming from one of the airlines hubs. All these factors play a part in determining what routes airlines fly and can give the average person an insight into some of the statistics that airline route planners use.

Virginia’s rail ridership continues to grow! https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/henrico-county/virginia-sees-record-train-ridership-as-passenger-rail-expands/amp/ Ridership for January 2023 was 158% above January 2022 and was even 27% above pre pandemic levels from January 2020. This is proof that with a solid rail system, people will take the train. Took Amtrak up to Alexandria last weekend and the train was about 75% full even on a Saturday and Monday morning. Lots of people getting on and off at Richmond Staples Mill and I don’t see that decreasing if the station is replaced. Can’t wait to see the passenger numbers in 2030 when transforming rail in VA is completed.

Personally I haven’t interacted with anyone who has gone from RIC to RDU or ORF for flights. Atleast not within the past few years, but others may have different experiences. I would doubt that we are bleeding much for any domestic destinations now as Dulles and Reagan are pains to fly out of due to long security lines and crowded gate areas. Plus NOVA traffic is some of the worst in the country. I agree with @123fakestreetthat driving 2 hours to fly out of a different airport for pretty much the same price is absolutely mind boggling. I can see why people go elsewhere for international routes. Dulles seems to be the main place we bleed passengers to as they have a pleathers of destinations worldwide. I even know people from North Carolina (in the RDU area) that drive to Dulles for international flights as they tend to be similarly priced and direct. I’ve been looking to fly to Dublin this fall and I’ve been looking at direct flights out of Dulles or connecting out of RIC and flights from Dulles are atleast $250 cheaper. That what will be challenging to overcome as unless we get direct flights, that price will remain around the same. I’d also agree that the airports marketing is terrible. They don’t spread awareness on social media and no signs outside of the airport that would let you know there are flights to certain destinations.

Speaking of increasing frequencies on flights, I remember seeing that American will be adding a second daily flight to Miami on mainline aircraft which is a great sign. That plus checking in on RIC’s west coast flights (which all seem to be atleast 80-85% full) I wouldn’t be surprised to see more frequency increases, especially from Breeze.

There’s a very clear reason as to why areas like Short Pump, West End and Moseley don’t have affordable housing. Nimby’s don’t like apartments or poor people living near them. Every apartment complex that has been proposed in Moseley has dealt with Nimbys claiming that it is Section 8 housing and that it will lower their property values, even though most of the apartments built in those areas have monthly rents higher than most peoples mortgages. It’s all just people being scared of change and spreading misinformation in order to rile people up to stop change.

Seems like this is an issue with the developer, not an issue with the project itself or the city.

February is usually one of the lowest travel months for all airports as it’s cold and people are not vacationing at that point. I’m sure the airport hits 12,000 a day during the summer months and around November and December.

They need it based on their airport layout. Part of what makes RIC convenient is that the walk from the curb to gates isn’t far, and the walk from gates to baggage claim is pretty quick. Therefore, unless a new terminal is built further away from the existing terminal (which even if we have a lot of growth on par with Austin, would be decades before it would even be considered), or a midfield satellite concourse is built (which isn’t in the RIC master plan for growth), a people mover won’t ever be needed. There are massive airports, such as Portland, Austin, Charlotte, BWI and even Boston currently don’t have people movers, so they aren’t necessary when satellite concourse are built or there are long distances between gates and the entrance/exit of the airport. Also, the people mover proposed at ORF (please correct me if I’m wrong) will just be a moving pedestrian walkway, as I’m almost positive that less than $6 million wouldn’t get a system similar to LAX, O’Hare or DFW. Also, not trying to get all kumbaya, but there’s no need to have any bashing of ORF and Hampton Roads, and likewise with that forum towards RIC and RVA. I get some of us are competitive (I am guilty of this), but there really is no reason to talk negatively or eye role whenever something good happens to the other metro area.So what if ORF get a moving walkway from their main terminal to the baggage claim, we don’t have to tear them down for it. We have things going for us that should be focused on (ie. Increased west coast service, new international customs area) that we should be celebrating over tearing them down, while they have good things going too (moving walkway to baggage area, terminal and concourse modernization and concourse a expansion). No need to tear down fellow Virginians when we can each celebrate what each city and airport are doing. Sorry for the rant

Austin does have a lounge however there are multiple similar sized or smaller airports to Richmond that have lounges. Memphis, Jacksonville, Ontario CA and Colorado Springs are all similarly sized and have lounges. With the security consolidation I believe it was talked about that a lounge would be added. The proposed consolidation would look like the picture below.

Glad to see something replacing caribou. I couldn’t stand caribou as their coffee always tasted way too sweet. Never had ironclad but anything has got to be better than caribou. Sorry for the rant. Hopefully we see more retail spaces added with a possible consolidation of security for both concourses, which should free up a lot of space in the main retail node between the concourses. Should also be a positive for allowing airlines like Breeze or Allegiant (if their codeshare agreement with Viva Aerobus goes through) to offer international routes.

Gotta say this is poor journalism by WRIC. Not only did they misreport this story at first, but they seem to be confusing this project with the project on Midlothian turnpike near Alverser drive. That project will have additional retail and apartments while the hull street project will just be the grocery store. I am excited to hear that this might be a Whole Foods as I grew up in this area on Hull street and I know my family who still lives there will love to have a Whole Foods. This area doesn’t seem to stop growing. Rumors are swirling that Kroger may build a new store closer to Magnolia Green however I haven’t been able to find anything that validates these rumors. Then the next Phase of Cosby Village is already in the site work phase. Lots of work and construction trucks out there.

I don’t see PHF staying around as a commercially viable airport for much longer after this. My guess is American pulls their last remaining route within the next few years and reallocates the aircraft to another route.

I think part of it historically has to do with Richmond not putting on alot of population until the last 15 or so years. But as of recently, I think Covid didn’t help, but it might also be established airlines not wanting to take chances on routes that hadn’t been flown before. Examples include Phoenix, San Francisco and Las Vegas. All of which had solid PAX numbers but not enough to where a legacy carrier would feel comfortable going in and taking a chance on the route, as longer routes that don’t have hundreds of passengers each way each day can be risky as it takes up more time that a plane could be used flying other routes. For example, a round trip from Richmond to Los Angeles would take around 5-6 hours each way. Add in an hour on the ground between the arriving and returning flight and you’ve used an aircraft’s entire day of flying on one route. Most airlines would rather us that plane twice on a shorter route, say between Richmond and Dallas, which would be able to transport twice the amount of passengers. I think this could change as American in particular has alot of excess aircraft at the moment and is looking to add more point to point routes. That plus an Airline such as United, which has a San Francisco hub, might see how well Breeze is doing and think they could fill a daily 737 by offering connections to other west coast cities from SFO that currently would take 2 layovers to access. Again, the future looks very bright for RIC, and while I would love to see RIC become a focus city, but I’ve learned not to get my hopes up (thanks to the Washington commanders/football team/redskins for teaching me not too!) as it’s very easy to have them let down. With that being said, RIC has been blowing me away with its growth recently and I don’t think it will be long before we far surpass airports like Louisville, Memphis, Milwaukee and Buffalo and start putting up passenger numbers similar to a Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Sacramento or Jacksonville. I absolutely would agree Breeze has taken the first step at RIC on new routes that other airlines were interested in but were scared to try as they hadn’t been tested before. Props to Breeze and I hope they have continued success at RIC and I look forward to flying to Cincinnati with them in May!

The biggest advantage to MSS is also its biggest problem. That is the lack of area around the station for track expansion. With the slavery museum set to ab ur the property to the west and development closing in on the east, it makes it difficult to expand past 4 station tracks in the future if frequent regional rail plus further expanded Amtrak is added. I have passed by MSS a few times recently and it looks like Amtrak has added signage to the west side of the station, which currently doesn’t see any trains. Seems like with the expansion of rail service to MSS they want to get ahead and add signage in preparation. Also, Amtrak, Henrico and VPRA are looking at replacing the building for Staples Mill and building 2 new island platforms on the other side of the tracks from the current station. That hopefully should be done by 2035-2040 at the latest as studies are underway now.

More proof RIC has been a huge money maker for Breeze. All of our routes have over 70% load factor, which would be considered profitable even for a full service airline like American , Delta, United or Southwest. I don’t see Breeze rolling over and letting spirit beat them on this route. This route has done well for them so I would assume they lower prices or increase frequency to match Spirit on this route (which is very good for RIC). Should be interesting to see how that route pans out for both but hopefully, there are enough passengers to where both airlines are able to do well and stay on the route. Many cities have multiple airlines serving Las Vegas so I’d assume both will have success, but Breeze will need to get their On time performance fixed as they’ll be in trouble otherwise.

Confirming that Spirit will be operating RIC-LAS on an A320 daily starting in May 2023.

Speaking of kicking service into higher gear, it seems that Spirit now is offering bookable flights from Richmond to Las Vegas, nonstop and daily service. Seems to start in June however no announcement has been made yet. They would be competing with Breeze on this route which would have 12 round trip flights per week this summer between Richmond and Las Vegas. I’ll keep searching for a news report on this but seems like this is more good news for RIC. And regarding the RIC becoming a hub, it’s not necessarily just related to RIC. Legacy Carriers which consists of American, Delta and United primarily use the hub and spoke model with very few exceptions. This doesn’t mean there won’t be new routes form these carriers added to RIC, it just means they wont open a hub here. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t get major expansion from a JetBlue per se or Breeze, Allegiant or even Southwest or Avelo. To be honest, RIC is adding routes at a rate faster than it has at any other point in its history and shows no sign of slowing down, especially with this spirit airlines announcement.

I could see Denver, Orlando and Fort Myers as the most realistic or maybe if we’re lucky Las Vegas or Dallas (since they are adding a crew base there). Cleveland isn’t a big enough focus city I don’t think for service so unless Cleveland grows, I don’t see a chance, Hopefully Breeze has success with Cincinnati but I don’t know if that route is big enough for 2 airlines. Austin has almost no frontier routes anyways (they only have Denver and Las Vegas) so I doubt we would get service there over one of their existing hubs (Southwest or American would be more likely to add Austin). I just don’t see Frontier committing to Richmond just like JetBlue hasn’t committed to ORF. I think of all the airlines at RIC, Breeze, JetBlue and Southwest have the most potential for expansion and outside of maybe a few routes (Austin, Salt Lake, LA, Seattle) I don’t see the legacy carriers adding routes. Maybe Allegiant could add a few (Destin/Fort Walton, Savannah, West Palm, Indianapolis) as well.

I hate to pop any bubbles here but I don’t see frontier ever setting up a focus city or hub in RIC. While not officially, RDU has basically become a focus city without the title. They have flights across frontiers network ranging from Vegas to DFW to Buffalo, Trenton and multiple more. I don’t think we will see more than a few routes to hubs or Florida from Frontier. As far as Avelo goes, it’s not a bad airline. They have very high load factors across a good chunk of their system. They have developed a strong hub in New Haven with average load factors above 80%. Newport News has proven in recent years to be a bad place to fly out of as ORF and RIC have trended towards lower fares and more destinations and frequencies. RIC and ORF tend to split the peninsula for passenger traffic so almost any airline that tries to establish at PHF hasn’t had success since AirTran.

I don’t know if Avelo will move to RIC but I don’t see them staying at PHF for very much longer regardless. It currently is their worst performing station by load factor of any of their cities served outside of Lexington Kentucky, which they will be pulling out of in the coming months. If load factors don’t improve, I’d assume it’s only a matter of time before they fully pull out of Newport News.

Great pics! That whole corridor is screaming for 3-6 story apartment buildings and BRT. Hopefully we start to see this realized in a few years.