Norfolk International Airport

[BFG]

From ORF’s Facebook this morning. International flights perhaps?

[VBIllini13]

2 hours ago, BFG said:

From ORF’s Facebook this morning. International flights perhaps?

Unfortunately, it look like the A220s will be primarily based out of Tampa for the time being: https://onemileatatime.com/news/breeze-a220-routes-first-class-pricing/

[Arctic_Tern]

Looks like some new routes will be announced in the coming weeks. Maybe Tampa has more because their 220 flights will be running primarily on already established routes?

[BeagleAccountant]

It would be great if Breeze offered flights more days of the week. I was hoping to use them for an upcoming trip to New Orleans but they only fly that route on Friday and Monday and that doesn't match my schedule.

[Merrittk92]

6 hours ago, Arctic_Tern said:

Looks like some new routes will be announced in the coming weeks. Maybe Tampa has more because their 220 flights will be running primarily on already established routes?

Summer is a big season for South Florida. Don’t sweat it! Breeze’s business model is to have all A220-300’s in 6yrs. ORF is going to get its share, believe me. ;-)

As Breeze builds their fleet flight frequency should increase. 

[BFG]

7 hours ago, BeagleAccountant said:

It would be great if Breeze offered flights more days of the week. I was hoping to use them for an upcoming trip to New Orleans but they only fly that route on Friday and Monday and that doesn't match my schedule.

Hopefully this changes. I was planning to visit New Orleans for my birthday this fall. 

[Merrittk92]

Here is a good article as where Breeze wants to be in the short term future,  and with ORF being one of their focus cities you can begin to imagine the wonderful things that could be heading our way.

 

Breeze 70 planes & 70 cities. 

Edited January 29, 2022 by Merrittk92

[metalman]

I flew back home today into ORF and notice this typo on a huge poster sign at the departure terminal to ped bridge. The same typo is also on their website.  They should fix this. 

Federal mandate requires wearing a mask at all times in the airport. Failure to comply may result in removal and denial of re-entry. Refusing to wear a mask in or on the airport is a violation of Federal mandate and individuals may be subject to Federal penalties.

 

[varider]

https://www.wavy.com/news/business/frontier-airlines-buying-spirit-in-3b-budget-carrier-deal/
 

I wonder what impact this will have here locally 

[zeppelin14]

I don't think a Frontier/Spirit merger will have much of an impact on ORF unless the airline (looks like it'll retain the Frontier name) makes Norfolk a hub and we get a new terminal out of it. I really believe we need a hub before we get a new terminal. The major airlines won't make Norfolk a hub so these smaller airlines are our hope.

[BFG]

It might bring more Spirit routes into our area, but I don’t see anything major. We’re technically a Breeze hub so hopefully that’ll bring new terminal discussions back to the table. 

[walmartjamesbond]

I work for Breeze as a FA. I can provide some updates from meetings. Firstly Norfolk airport has a major catering issue with Breeze. Currently all of our A/C get catered on a turn in Pittsburg. The catering company breeze partners with is not in norfolk. This is a large issue when breeze is trying to expand. 

Secondly, Breeze has had low passenger counts on its flights. I see this first hand nearly everyday. The best preforming routes would be Tampa and Providence. The other routes had to be cut back, and even one was suspended. 

So this lead breeze to make the call to move their base from ORF to BDL. This hasn’t been announced yet, it will most likely be postponed due to the problems their having with the A220. But that’s another story. 

In short the Norfolk base will stay open to Charter operations. This means the base will simply house flight attendants and pilots and a few breeze E jets. Their charter operations are very strong and pulling in over 100k per. 

Norfolk will still receive Breeze flights it will just no longer be a focus city. More on this will follow in the future. But internally, they’ve already stopped sending new people to this base. 

[varider]

I was never too excited about Breeze to begin with. It was destined to fail here when they only offered flights on certain dates, and I’m not surprised there’s not a ton of demand between here and many of the destination cities. The focus should be more on flights to cities like New Orleans, Tampa, Charleston, Nashville, Austin, Orlando. Providence or Columbus? I just would expect ORF to focus more on leisure travel. The business commuter flights up north would be great, but from my experience, flights out of here are mostly people on vacation or military etc unless it’s a morning flight to NYC on the weekday where you’ll see a few people traveling for work.

[VBIllini13]

On 2/12/2022 at 10:30 PM, walmartjamesbond said:

I work for Breeze as a FA. I can provide some updates from meetings. Firstly Norfolk airport has a major catering issue with Breeze. Currently all of our A/C get catered on a turn in Pittsburg. The catering company breeze partners with is not in norfolk. This is a large issue when breeze is trying to expand. 

Secondly, Breeze has had low passenger counts on its flights. I see this first hand nearly everyday. The best preforming routes would be Tampa and Providence. The other routes had to be cut back, and even one was suspended. 

So this lead breeze to make the call to move their base from ORF to BDL. This hasn’t been announced yet, it will most likely be postponed due to the problems their having with the A220. But that’s another story. 

In short the Norfolk base will stay open to Charter operations. This means the base will simply house flight attendants and pilots and a few breeze E jets. Their charter operations are very strong and pulling in over 100k per. 

Norfolk will still receive Breeze flights it will just no longer be a focus city. More on this will follow in the future. But internally, they’ve already stopped sending new people to this base. 

Well this is sad news, but it's nice to have some insider info. *sigh*

[BFG]

We lost Norfolk Southern because ORF doesn't offer enough direct flights.

ORF becomes a small hub, and that falls through.

WTF does this area have to do to be taken seriously? I can't see another airline wanting to expand or offer a hub after this. Furthermore, I wonder if Breeze will consider an international flight out of ORF, if/when the time comes. The airport admin and city council needs to do everything possible to correct this situation. I'm so sick and tired of this area being treated as a bridesmaid or ugly stepchild.

[urbanvb]

It seems a bit sudden imo for everything to be going sour. This press release from the airport is dated January 19th which is not even a month old announcing new and longer routes. 

[mintscraft56]

13 hours ago, BFG said:

We lost Norfolk Southern because ORF doesn't offer enough direct flights.

ORF becomes a small hub, and that falls through.

WTF does this area have to do to be taken seriously? I can't see another airline wanting to expand or offer a hub after this. Furthermore, I wonder if Breeze will consider an international flight out of ORF, if/when the time comes. The airport admin and city council needs to do everything possible to correct this situation. I'm so sick and tired of this area being treated as a bridesmaid or ugly stepchild.

Maybe its not the location, because the Hampton Roads is a pretty  prime location, ports, tourisim, ect. It could be the actual airport its self.  I bet that if we built another runway and terminal that more airlines would flock over. Notice how big other "prime" airports are? We need to follow in their steps and build big to get big,

Edited February 15, 2022 by mintscraft56

[mintscraft56]

LIke more seriously just look at our airport compared to Charlotte for example: 

Charlotte: 

It might not be the fairest comparison but not only is their airport beautiful but it is also big and a prime location. 

[walmartjamesbond]

I know it’s really unfortunate. I’m a local to here to, so I jumped at the opportunity to work for this company.

Everything still isn’t set in stone, things change so fast in this company. We have another meeting today, i’ll update if we hear anything new. 

The main reason it’s so hard for Breeze at Norfolk is because of their business model. They only want to work routes with zero competition. They won’t touch a route with majors(I.e any other airline). We’re launching Islip and West Palm Beach this week. Hopefully they go well. I’m almost positive West Palm will be another Tampa.

If they could sort out their catering issue and have a couple more gates it’d definitely make it harder for them to want to leave.

I would doubt they’d jump ship until they get everything situated with the A220, which now isn’t going to fly passengers until July. Along with a situated base in BDL. At least a year I would imagine. A lot can happen in that time frame. 

But, you can look on their job website and see their already hiring for BDL. 

[zeppelin14]

7 hours ago, mintscraft56 said:

LIke more seriously just look at our airport compared to Charlotte for example.

Charlotte to Norfolk is the best example actually. History lesson time. In the 1980s Charlotte was smaller than Norfolk and Piedmont Airlines was looking to expand and add a hub. They initially wanted to add that hub to Norfolk. But Norfolk being Norfolk turned down Piedmont. Piedmont built the hub in Charlotte instead. Because of that, Charlotte blew up in population, Piedmont rebranded as US Airways, and the rest is history.

[Norf Native]

I remember that.  I couldn't understand why Norfolk turned down an opportunity to become a hub then.

[metalman]

As a kid I was excited to get those inflight Piedmont peanuts from my grandma when she flew down from New York.  

[BFG]

As a kid I flew Piedmont from Norfolk to Dallas all the time. At one point I had the airline pin and a styrofoam model. I can't believe Norfolk could be so short-sighted* on such a deal...imagine where we'd be as a metro 35 years later.

*That's a lie. I totally believe this.

[mintscraft56]

5 hours ago, zeppelin14 said:

Charlotte to Norfolk is the best example actually. History lesson time. In the 1980s Charlotte was smaller than Norfolk and Piedmont Airlines was looking to expand and add a hub. They initially wanted to add that hub to Norfolk. But Norfolk being Norfolk turned down Piedmont. Piedmont built the hub in Charlotte instead. Because of that, Charlotte blew up in population, Piedmont rebranded as US Airways, and the rest is history.

Although I was not alive to see that I still just now feel more disappointment. At this level I would say the city essentially set itself up for this small town treatment it gets.

[mintscraft56]

55 minutes ago, NFKjeff said:

I can't find anything about Norfolk turning down a Piedmont hub. In 1987 Norfolk Southern considered making a bid to purchase Piedmont, but it was eventually sold to US Airways.

Hmm. Saying it was years ago it does not surprise me. But it seems people in this chat are recounting the memories on it. It might have been small mews explaining the lack of articles at the time.