Wayward Memphian

Nope. They went to Louisville and Tulsa and OKC as well. TPA, SAT and MSY are big Southwest airports as well. They have plenty of birds coming. These first routes at 2hrs and under are gambling flown on E-190s and E-195s from Azul and Air Canada. He has 80 A223s on order with the first due in Oct. The leases rates for the Embraers are insanely low. There's more cities on the way.

LIT nor MEM made the first batch of Breeze flights. But... XNA did. Thur/Fri/Sun/Mon flights to New Orleans, Tampa and San Antonio. Some insanely cheap fares to be had right now. Cranky Flyer has a good break down on their cost structure but the Nicer package is an insanely good value.

It is hard to get to the point to where you have the right mix for all to prosper these days. Clearly some stores gone could have benefitted from the new stores and vice versa. As a former Memphian and someone with family there.. I have seen upscale centers change over the years like I have seen with Saddle Creek. Saddle reek keeps reinventing itself and stays nearly full. Now it has gain a Trader Joe's as the areas only one as a nearby neighbor along with A Container Store. Gone now is Lucky Jean's storefront. It would be best suited for the outlet mall in Southhaven.

The Peabody in Memohisnis finding it extremely difficult to get staffed back up. Most found new employment elsewhere and like it better. On that note starting FedEx package handlers are now at $20 bucks an hr with a $2 premium on top of that for the overnight.

Looking at photos on the MEM website, it appears the new seating has wireless charge pads built into the armrests

I wouldn't read anything from that. The closures of county fairs and such has those outfits searching for venues. It's easy revenue for the property owner. Most parking lots are way overbuilt. They set up in the NWA mall lot in early spring and late fall at times in the mall's heyday.

I still think they should have done all of B to lock in pricing. I look for Breeze Airways to service the airport soon after it's start up.

I have learned at some point in 2019 Memphis and Spirit was very close to a deal that would have seen them at over 20 flights a day. I would assume that they would have stationed planes there and have some limited connections. Something delayed it and then Covid happened. Memphis should open their new B concourse and have all airlines consolidated to it by May.

That sounds like a classic case of Southwest. Likely $200 or lower R/T fare for a direct with zero connecting with kids and no luggage fees for carry on or check in which is usually a lot on a Disney trip especially families of 4 or more. Could have been Spirit or Frontier as well. I guarantee the price was bottom dollar MCI has three aisles into MCO and Allegiant into Sanford. MCO is big.

Breeze is the name of a new airline by David Neeleman, founder of Jet Blue and Azul( Brazil) and recently involves with TAP( Portugal). He has private backing and has claimed in no hurry to go public. He has 60 A220-300s( former Bombardier C-Series) on order. They are fantastic planes with a 2x3 configuration. Delta also flys them(just not to Arkansas yet). They blow 737s, A319 and A320s away from a passenger and performance perspective. He does get his first till Oct and 1 a month there after. But to get going, he is leasing former Azul and Air Canada E-190s and E-195s that seat 100 to 115 passengers. The Air Canada birds were replaced with the A220s. The lease rates are reportedly insanely cheap. He and a former Allegiant route guru that's part of the team claim they have 500 routes that they can literally create demand for that have current PDEWs from 5 to 10. He claims there's giant viods directly connecting mid sized airports due to the consolidation in the industry. This will start out a 2x and 3x weekly frequencies much like other LCCs. He is claiming most everything will be done via app. He has a history success and is highly regarded in the industry and the employees of Jet Blue loved him and miss him. Sez he needs 50 passengers to cover operational costs. Like I said, they'll hold at least 100 and the A220s will hold 130 to 140. Here's an article. https://thepointsguy.com/news/breeze-david-neeleman-airline-dot-approval-start/ Here's review of what might be the closest layout out there for his A220s https://onemileatatime.com/jetblue-a220/

It comes down to where they are truly flying to out of Tulsa to. Admittedly connecting via Southwest wasn't that cheap pre covid outside of the carry and check bags being free perks but directs to Vegas, Denver and Phoenix can be had on the cheap without baggage nickle and diming. Frontier connection timings are blanking horrible, that is basically a Den only flight for most. The leakage has shrunk but it is still there in spite of a two hr drive plus fuel cost, tolls and parking. For a single person, that doesn't warrant it but for a family of 4... well now. The fine print of the XNA service has it being announced in June/July, starting as early as Sept and no later than Dec with post launch marketing Dec onward. Odd timing for for a Florida route unless it was to MCO and The Mouse. Fall Break and Winter break vacations. There are rumors that Breeze is looking at Lakeland but that isn't on the XNA list and neither is Orlando. Tampa and St Pete are.

XNA has submitted a grant proposal for 250K to help with low cost service via the Small Community Air Service Development Program. The one airline that submitted a letter in support was Breeze. That is the new start up by Jet Blue founder David Neeleman. The proposal is 33 pages long and lists many carriers and destinations that is a who's who of Allegiant stations. Again, it seems to be Breeze is the primary target. An example though is Sun Country and Minneapolis are both listed. That is easy to connect. I post this as it's got lots of data on fares of serveral regional airports including LIT. XNA leakage is still near 20% with 10% to Tulsa which is surely mostly Southwest flyers. There around 2% leakage to DFW almost all international travel. Based on 2019 numbers thats nearly 200K in total with 90K to 100K leaking to Tulsa. They got nearly 1 Million from this program in 2012 and wasn't able to use any of it somehow. 4th proposal down at this link. 33 page pdf https://www.regulations.gov/document/DOT-OST-2020-0231-0009

Southwest just added Bellingham WA, Eugene OR and Myrtle Beach to their destination list. Still no Madison, Knoxville or XNA. Mind boggling.

I just wanted to add these numbers as part of discussion in the two months before Covid slammed on the breaks on air travel in 2020 here are XNA's revenue enplanement numbers(non rev excluded) compared the previous year and it was eye-popping. They were continuing at the same rate of growth as before, if not more so, cause these are slower months. Jan 2019= 54,315 / Jan 2020= 65,193 20% growth year over year Feb 2019= 56,137 / Feb 2020=64,940 15.6% growth year over year. Little Rock was up 3.11% in Jan and 3.44% in Feb LIT only reports total enplanements. That includes non revenue passengers as well so I looked up XNA's total with non revenue to compare. So... Jan 2020 LIT 79,225 XNA 67306 Feb 2020 LIT 75,625 XNA 67, 144 I feel if 2020 had stayed normal, XNA would have been under 100k enplanements of LIT at the end of the year. At the end of 2020 the difference was 147,333 between the two. XNA still gained on LIT in 2020 .

For what it is worth, I meant the populatuon will nearly double, which puts it near Central Arkansas size. But let's look at the results of the last full year pre covid while Central Ark holds a good sized population advantage still. LIT was 95th at 1,086,740 enplanements in 2019. 5.38% growth over 2018 XNA entered the top 100 at 99th with 891,237 enplanements. 17.40% growth over 2019 making it the second largest gain in the country. That puts the difference between the two at 195,503. So, XNA with it's lack of the Southwest effect punches well above it's weight. We know that has a lot to do with the Big 3 and the University but that provides a base. All things being considered looking at the previous years prior to 2019, XNA looked to overtake LIT in two years time pre covid. That would have meant most likely after 2021 numbers came in. That's all theory now with Covid. Maybe it is because that NWA is just a bit outside of the drive to major vacation spots window. I point to frequencies of Allegiant's Destin flights as one. 4x weekly in peak summer season at XNA. LIT is still driving range for many. So thinking is: If XNA was already at 80% of LIT traffic and growing at 3 times the pace enplanement wise, why wouldn't a near doubling of population nearly double the amount of enplanements. Plus you have other small factors that play into it. A completed I-49 may mean more traffic from SW Missouri(Joplin) in play especially if Southwest enters the market. Same goes for Ft. Smith with an access road to the airport. Saves an 1hr than traveling to Tulsa plus, as is the case with Southwest Missouri, tolls as well. And... let's be honest, the demographics of the growth and the per capital income will play a role. Back to the 3 that haven't got Southwest service yet, Madison, NWA and Knoxville. Madison Wi and NWA are similar in that they have always been kinda considered out of a catchment of another airport. Madison with Milwaukee and NWA with Tulsa but both are more and more their own market and growing much quicker and with added value of above average per capital income with that growth. Knoxville has the Smoky Mountains and the Pigeon Forge area plus slower but steady growth of the city that is also anchored by a major state university. All three should be added post haste to Southwest's network.

I really wish NLR would actually change their name back to Argenta.

These rankings are bases on 2019 Pre Covid numbers. XNA was 99th and had the second largest percentage of growth in the nation getting beat out by only Sarasota which saw big growth in new markets and airlines The first set is places added during 2020 to the best of my recollection. New markets: 85- Palm Springs 97- Sarasota 98-Fresno 105- Colorado Springs (with DEN just up the road) 107- Destin/Fort Walton 109- Bozeman 127- Jackson MS. (A return after ending service years ago) 132- Santa Barbara 133-Key West(same deal as Jackson MS) There are very few exceptions between 81(Tulsa) and 102(Wichita) and 103(Manchester NH) without Southwest service now including 99-XNA 86-Mrytle Beach 89-Syracuse 90- Knoxville 91-Madison 92-St Pete(allegiant stronghold alternative to Tampa) 96-Greensboro 101-Weschester NY( will drop big after Norwegian TATL has now stopped forever) See the ones listed further up that were ranked lower with service now. Madison, Knoxville and XNA considering their growth and especially the long term growth potential of XNA nearly doubling in 20 years should be seeing Southwest but haven't yet. Now is the perfect time to strike against the Big 3 for leasure traveling.

New markets for Southwest. As for Little Rock... Destin connections via DAL and Bozeman connections via DEN. You are seeing Allegiant eat into Southwest customer base. Allegiant is about to have their own 6 gate concourse at VPS. Has to be hurting Pensacola and Panama City numbers. Same reason they started Sarasota. More leasure travel and less business travel during and immediately post Covid. Shocked they haven't announced TYS/Knoxville yet. Airports all around XNA size are getting Southwest service. Fresno is another one Southwest has started. There's Palm Springs and Santa Barbara as well for new Covid markets.

That's not anything really new but Southwest adding service to Destin(VPS) and Bozeman(BZN) are. The BZN flights were dirt cheap last week, under 6k in points one way out of Tul

Moving everything to B once the renovation is done is going to remedy the ghost town feel. Before that started, you had Delta way down B. Southwest all by their lonesome over on A and United and American over in C. Everything was spread out. That 6 to 7 in morning period will see it hopping when all those hub connectors take off after overnighting.

It isn't as dire as you make it out to be. Memphis is still in it's formative state as an origination/destination airport. These 2019 prepandemic numbers show a continued steady growth without the help of any Cook traffic whatsoever. There are only a handful of logical daily hub flights out there to land. Memphis got SLC an is still slated to get BOS post pandemic with Delta. All that is potential left on the on the table is Seattle outside of JFK hub wise. I can see Seattle as Delta gets more A220s in the fleet. All that you could hope for with United is SFO and IAD but American has good fares straight into DCA. Southwest has it's BWI service as well. The only game hanger here is when IAD is fully connected to DC via the metro. I think that is still about a year away. Speaking of American about all that was left hub wise is LAX and JFK. But they were shifting many TATL to PHL making JFK all that less important. I suspect LAX is still forming once traffic rebounds. Allegiant is planning on flying it 6 days a week this summer like they had for summer 2020 . If they pull that off ithbgood loads I expect American has to see that and commit to it. Southwest has added PHX to DAL, HOU, MDW, ATL, TPA and MCO. All that is realistically out there in the short term is LAS and possibly FLL. I suppose OAK, SAN and LAX are in the realm of possibility especially if Allegiant is successful with that ambitious LAX schedule that includes zero connecting. That brings me to reason LAS is the next Southwest nonstop. Allegiant had planned 6 days a week service to Vegas last summer. Two of those days actually saw the frequencies. This summer is slated for 6 days a week service. If those flight are full, I suspect Southwest will relent and start it up. They have had PHX and LAS service feom LIT and TUL for years, MEM should be no different. Outside of those possibilities for the 4 majors, Memphis will have to rely on LCCs for nonstop service.and those will not be everyday until a market has grown to that point. That includes new darts thrown by Frontier, More Allegiant routes and new entries to the market by Spirit, Breeze and another one called Avelo headed up by United and Allegiant alums. RDU and IND simply isn't going to happen with the disappearance of 50 seaters, there is simply not enough business base to justify them daily until a new, likely electric powered with stupid cheap operating cost 500 to 700 nm range plane comes around.

Looks like AA will be adding MIA to LIT.

That was a wildcard. Looks like Southwest is ramping up for getting somewhat back to normal in April, going into May. I hope Delta will still start BOS sometime in 2021. I have noticed that Allegian is going to fly LAX 6x weekly in June and July along with LAS. Only days off will be Tue. They have FLL back up to 5x in the summer. Allegaint was slated to have that 6x weekly for last summer before the Pandemic, in fact they had Thur and Sun at 2 twice daily. I am shocked Southwest hasn't started LAS yet with the level of flights Allegiant have planned on doing. To give an example of what might happen if Southwest did add it. Eight now Allegiant hasn't added any service to AZA after April. I think that has everything to do with Southwest now on PHX. Seems Allegiant has proved FLL and LAS for Southwest. Considering the Caribbean connections Southwest should do well with MEM/FLL Will Memphis see a Breeze this year?

American did MEM/LAX for the Christmas period last year. I've seen some odd stuff during this..DL tried to sell nonstop MEM/IND. It got scrapped before it started. Southwest is adding Sarasota FL. If they think they can lose less money flying a route than it just sitting they'll try it. I'm shocked they haven't dipped their toes into XNA and TYS.

It would have to take some major backing from the corporations around here and some of the major families to boot. I would propose incorporating some zoo like features into the proposed Game and Fish Center. They have that big chunk of land and it is along I-49 and very near the new US 412 bypass interchange. Start with species indigenous to Arkansas (black bear, alligator) and expand from there. That would eventually just be the Arkansas section in partnership with the Game and Fish. Add a small selection of rides to compliment the park without making it a full fledged amusment park (see Tampa Zoo) and it becomes a regional draw.