shardoon

Denver is a true legacy hub for United and the main focus city for Frontier who has been rapidly expanding as of late.

Despite record breaking passenger numbers for MCO, we dropped in the world wide rankings because everyone saw a large increase. Another factor was that China came back online. Still in the top 20 coming in at #19. Some how some way we beat out Las Vegas, so I am wondering if the general aviation traffic was removed from their official numbers. We are top 10 in the US coming in at #7 behind Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, and New York JFK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic

They announced a record for March 16th. They recorded over 200,000 on that day.

I didn't even know there was a direct from Orlando to SLC. Delta has that covered already. I knew they were pulling out of the West Coast. Fort Lauderdale scale down was known as well since they are relying heavily on making Orlando a Caribbean hub.

Wanted to circle back around to a discussion we had in the past about narrow body aircraft, mainly the A321XLR. Jetblue seems to be scaling down West Coast operations. If they plan on expanding to Europe, Orlando is primed for an international Jet Blue hub with minimal competition. They purchased orders for A321XLR aircraft. When we're were discussing its range, we had it pegged at 4700 miles, but what we didn't realize was that these are nautical miles. Converting it to regular miles, it is actually 5400 miles. This puts all of Europe from Rome as the furthest distance within range of Orlando. Lots of options to work with. With that being said, they have not had strong success with their current Europe routes, but I feel that's a product of major Northeast hub competition.

Yep. It's already 3 hours 25 min to Miami. If they keep chipping on more, a car starts to become faster even with traffic.

I am doubtful locals would take the train to the port. It is too close and a waste of time to park at the airport, wait for the train, get off 20 minutes later and get into a bus for the last 8 miles to the port. The out of towners that land in the airport for their cruise will be the primary utilizers. Honestly, this Cocoa station is in a location that is of no real use for people other than cruise traffic. It is not like it is near a nice downtown city area and it is nowhere near the beaches.

If the ridership for the cruises is huge, they will almost certainly have to have a separate line dedicated for cruises otherwise that small leg would clog the trains with people only taking that short leg and would take from their Orlando South Florida long haul service.

Surprised nobody posted about this. Brightline just announced the Cocoa Beach station at 528/US1. I would assume the cruise lines will contract with them and provide last leg bus service or maybe even Uber allowances for the cruises.

thanks for the update. I was wondering about this hotel since we have not heard much after the original announcement.

Definetely note. Those are great fares, especially since you have to factor that bags are still free on Southwest. I just have not had any luck with getting the cheapest fares on Southwest. They are always sold out of those fares.

I agree. Southwest is no longer low fare in my book. They are rarely the cheapest and many times higher than legacy carriers. They may have 5 seats designated on each flight that are really cheap, but its been years since I was ever able to find one available. Maybe it's because I don't book out greater than 6 months out.

That true and it's entirely not right. There should be one set of rules to play by for everyone, but clearly there is not...... and you are correct when you say it changes from administration to administration. It's the DOJ who files the lawsuit which in turn makes it controlled by politics and lobbiests. Obviously, Jetblue need to hire better lobbies to pad the pockets of those in charge.

Exactly. It just feels like they were singled out. It sure does sound fishy. I certainly do think the legacy carriers and their lobbies succeeded behind the scenes.

Sure, but this merger was small potatoes compared to the legacy mergers, but yet they were allowed through. Their reasoning was also sketchy..... specifically calling out that they like Spirit's low fares and do not want to see them go away...... like hello..... there is a reason they are teetering on bankruptcy.

So Jetblue and Spirit formally ended heir merger. Essentially the government said Spirit cannot merge with anyone in order to preserve their low fares. So the other option is bankruptcy, which kind of defeats the purpose. Another option is if a legacy carrier decides to buy them, suddenly the Fed will be ok with this. The legacy carriers have better lobbies.

That is interesting. Then they would need new locomotives........unless they do not intend to use the same trains that go to Miami and a switch of trains would have to happen in Orlando for those Miami to Tampa passengers. As crazy as it sounds, especially if there are further expansions to Jacksonville...... the train station may need to be expanded with more platforms.

Maybe down the road they can get one that can do both? Do they exist? The Orlando to Tampa portion within I4 will be a closed circuit with no at grade crossings. Maybe can push the speed envelope if the train can transition to electricity.

Yea, Brightline west will get it. I believe the issue was no electrified tracks here, otherwise there is no excuse for the Cocoa to OIA leg not reaching those speeds since it's a closed circuit.

After riding brightline, the stops are negligible. Literally like 90 seconds

I have not seen any documentation of 220mph speeds anywhere. Can you provide a link? Also, I posted the average speeds for the different links. Let's just say it did reach 220mph at some point, to factor that into the average speeds of the segment means that such a majority of the ride would have to be at amtrak speeds to drop it so much. So really marketing and smoke and mirrors. Nothing like Asia or Europe. Based on the published averages, really no different than brightline, even though people like to say the 2010 proposal was a full fledge HSR line compared to brightline where people on the opposite end of the political spectrum like to say is less than HSR. It's just semantics for people to try to score political points, but ignores the big picture. Now, a true HSR could have taken off with a phase two down to Miami withing the turnpike ROW........but I'm really doubtful it would have ever gotten built for reasons discussed on other posts.

I was disappointed when it didn't get built. However, like others have mentioned, I do not believe the Disney to Tampa leg would have been successful and this would have been an excuse that anti rail people would have used against a Miami leg or even Sunrail. With that being said, what was planned was not true HSR either. Although the trains set was "planned" to be capable of reaching 168mph, the 84 mile trip from Tampa to OIA would have taken 1 hour 4 minutes. Convention Center to Airport average speed 60 mph Disney to OIA average speed just under 54 mph Tampa to OIA average speed just over 79 mph Lakeland to Tampa average speed 85 mph So, maybe there is a second or two during the journey that would qualify as high speed, the marketing of it by the Fed was taking Floridians on the same type of ride that you feel Brightline is doing.

I agree. I think there was more potential for Ft. Pierce.

Stuart won. They are getting the next station. They are also getting a higher bridge that has a 16 foot clearance double tracked...... up from single track 6 foot clearance.

I never understood the issue with the TDT. It literally would be mainly serving tourists.