Brad wrote:Ever hear of a Southwest Airlines Plane flying from Chicago to Seattle stopping in Omaha just to Refuel?
http://www.ketv.com/news/southwest-flig ... d/40066926
Beats the alternative of running out by a long shot!
Moderators: Coyote, nebugeater, Brad, Omaha Cowboy, BRoss
Brad wrote:Ever hear of a Southwest Airlines Plane flying from Chicago to Seattle stopping in Omaha just to Refuel?
http://www.ketv.com/news/southwest-flig ... d/40066926
Thanks!Omaha_corn_burner wrote:WN 3487
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA3487
Maybe we will learn more tomorrow. http://avherald.com/ doesn't have data from today.
True, but I am fairly certain 737's fly from Chicago to the west coast every day without stopping for fuel...nebugeater wrote:Beats the alternative of running out by a long shot!Brad wrote:Ever hear of a Southwest Airlines Plane flying from Chicago to Seattle stopping in Omaha just to Refuel?
http://www.ketv.com/news/southwest-flig ... d/40066926
It happens more often than what you would think. Three Delta flights did it on the evening of June 6th/ following morning.Brad wrote:Ever hear of a Southwest Airlines Plane flying from Chicago to Seattle stopping in Omaha just to Refuel?
Nor will they for fuel stops.Omaha_corn_burner wrote: Maybe we will learn more tomorrow. http://avherald.com/ doesn't have data from today.
Yes and no Chicago Midway has a big limiting factor pending a certain weather condition. Every airline model has a certified maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) which is a tested weight (including fuel, crew, passengers, luggage, and cargo) that the frame is affirmed to be structurally sound at as well as able to climb at a given level to clear common obstructions.Brad wrote: True, but I am fairly certain 737's fly from Chicago to the west coast every day without stopping for fuel...
Several years ago Denver added a 16,000 foot runway which probably single highhandedly allows the DEN-NRT flights to happen. On really hot days, the 787 likely does occasionally face weight restrictions there due to tire speed limits. The 16,000 foot runway is long enough still, however due to the higher density altitude, the speed needed for takeoff exceed the structurally accepted limits of the tire. The end result is reducing weight again somehow be it passengers, cargo, or a fuel stop.Omaha_corn_burner wrote:Mr. Nuke, what about the DEN->NRT flight? Does United ever have issues where that flight has to stop to refuel?
Are you not familiar with the history of the airport? I suggest you read the wiki page for MCI. Very interesting read.Stargazer wrote:Wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm at KCI, haven't been here in years. How depressing !
Read the link. It was built before the time of airport security. It was pretty much obsolete right after it opened. The city didn't grow north either.Stargazer wrote:Interesting, so I suppose it's lightly packing business travelers who appreciate the curb to gate, have no interest in dining options, etc.. who have voted it among too 5 airports. I think it sucks. Everyone crammed into their little gate areas.
Thanks.daveoma wrote:Thank you for the education Omababe!
Omaha is a U.S. Customs and Immigration Landing Rights airport with a dedicated Customs facility on site. Said facility was just rebuilt. Articles on that here and here. This means that with prior permission private/charter flights are permitted to land in Omaha from outside of the U.S. As the 2nd article notes there are about 300-400 flights utilizing Omaha's customs' facilities annually so that is about a flight a day on average.Omababe wrote: which I posted a summary here and was promptly called "BS" in a response, regarding Omaha being able to land international flights. I showed them the response on my smart phone and the original two said "most definitely total {bovine doodoo}" regarding not being able to land international traffic.
Preclearance was mentioned several months ago a couple of pages back here. As you note, hence the name, preclearance eliminates the need for customs at the U.S. airport and the flight is treated like a domestic flight when it arrives. That said, I don't really see a demand for any of the current pre-clearance airports. Toronto would be the most likely, but Air Canada already flies to Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Chicago. I agree with that poster that if Cancun had pre-clearance we'd likely see someone try the flight seasonally here.Omababe wrote: The "word of the day" was "pre-clearance" which is clearing customs at the take-off airport outside the US. This was set up mainly to reduce the customs wait times at the larger airports but also to allow smaller airports without major customs halls to take international traffic.
This is what happens when you try and write a post after a wine a tasting. The temperature/density had a typo in the first sentence that I corrected (thanks for pointing that out), the 3rd sentence in that paragraph was correct. That is what makes hot air balloons work. The elevation section said lower??? The jist there remains that airports such as Denver or Salt Lake City on hot days get hit doubly bad. 1) The higher the altitude, the less dense the air is. 2) The warmer the air is, the less dense it is. Those are the 2 main components of DA. Denver had such a day today where at 4 p.m. it was 100 degrees. Combined with the air pressure today, the density altitude was about 9,400 feet. So basically the airplane feels like it is taking off from 9,400 feet about 75% higher than Denver's actual 5400 foot elevation.Omababe wrote: They also took issue with a few other recently posted points such as higher airports having higher air pressure. (Pressure decreases as elevation increases.) Same with another comment on air density and temperature "They got this one pretty much backwards." I actually remember this one from Boyle's Law in Physics.
Just re-reading my post the other obvious one that I somehow didn't mention is climb performance. 2 engine aircraft are required to be able to reach 400 feet maintaining AGL with at least a 2.4% climb gradient in the 2nd segment of takeoff (right after the landing gear are raised) with a single engine. One a day like today even with the long runways that could've been a weight limiting factor in Denver.Mr.Nuke wrote: MTOW can be limited to maximum permissible takeoff weight be several factors including but not limited to:
My list of fill ins in the route map:joleo wrote:http://www.flyoma.com/images/pdfs/June16TRAFFIC.pdf
As suspected, June traffic way way up: 7.9%!
From what I can tell from the statistics that Eppley has on the website, this was an all-time monthly record for the airport!
Comparing June 2015 to 2016, New or larger planes that contributed to this include: Allegiant to Orlando-SFB, Alaska to Portland-PDX and Seattle-SEA, American to LAX and Southwest to Dallas-DAL and Washington-DCA. Also Frontier went back to daily Denver flights for the summer on a larger plane. Hopefully this will last.
United's new SFO flight begins in September, look for continued passenger increases for the next year of statistics.
Future wishlist service:
Alaska to San Diego
Southwest to Minneapolis, Houston and Nashville.
Southwest - a second daily flight to Dallas. (they are testing a second daily flight on select weekends this winter)
Southwest switching Orlando service to year-round service instead of summer only and weekend only other times of the year.
Frontier going to daily service year-round to Denver and double daily in the summers.
American to Philadelphia would be nice too!
I volunteered to get off my Delta SLC-OMA Sunday night for this reason. 1500 lbs overweight. $800 voucher, and a redeye SLC-ATL and then ATL-OMA. Loved every minute of it!Mr.Nuke wrote:The jist there remains that airports such as Denver or Salt Lake City on hot days get hit doubly bad. 1) The higher the altitude, the less dense the air is.
I'd love AA's OMA-CLT to go to mainline.joleo wrote: Future wishlist service:
Yeah, but in our situation, the bus would be driving across two active runways. I don't think that is the norm at airports with bussing.Coyote wrote:I've been through numerous airports where a bus took you to and from the 'International' terminal.
Is there really enough demand to fill a plane from say, Omaha to Toronto? Those short-lived Tucson and San Diego stopped, from what I understand, due to no demand.NovakOmaha wrote:The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.
Omababe wrote:Is there really enough demand to fill a plane from say, Omaha to Toronto? Those short-lived Tucson and San Diego stopped, from what I understand, due to no demand.NovakOmaha wrote:The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.
I think the non-stop and single-seat situation is MUCH better than it was a few years back. It was not that long ago that there were absolutely no direct flights to either coast. For a long time, Untied only served Denver and ORD from Omaha, period! Now we actually have, although not daily and "coming soon" for now, flights into the Bay Area. We're gettin' there, kinda.
PDEW of 85. This is one of the higher values not currently seeing direct service from Omaha. If not Alaska, I could also see Southwest trying this seasonally at some point. It is borderline still though.joleo wrote: Future wishlist service:
Alaska to San Diego
Minneapolis is only 55 daily. That is a fairly good sign many people taking the delta flights are connecting elsewhere. I don't see Southwest touching that. Same with Nashville and only 45. Houston is at 102 people each way daily, but this is still only half of the next highest city that receives direct flights on multiple airlines. If they want to start connecting people to Mexico and Latin America from Omaha I wouldn't be surprised there.joleo wrote: Southwest to Minneapolis, Houston and Nashville.
DAL alone, not including DFW has a PDEW of 88, obviously higher than many of the metros we've already discussed.joleo wrote: Southwest - a second daily flight to Dallas. (they are testing a second daily flight on select weekends this winter)
Again the numbers I'm using are for Q4 when you'd expect people are going to head to warmer climates, but Orlando's PDEW is 146, the highest of any metro not seeing daily service. This is really the main route that needs to see more attention.joleo wrote: Southwest switching Orlando service to year-round service instead of summer only and weekend only other times of the year.
Frontier is still a mess and with 2 other airlines already serving the route I personally don't expect much. Denver has a PDEW of 265, and again that doesn't count all of the people going through there on their way to somewhere else.joleo wrote: Frontier going to daily service year-round to Denver and double daily in the summers.
Only 51 people daily each way.joleo wrote:American to Philadelphia would be nice too!
Another really borderline one with San Diego with a PDEW of 81. Short of JetBlue coming to Omaha I'm not really sure who would fly it either. Southwest goes to Kansas City, but the Boston<->KC PDEW is 257, over 3 times that of Omaha.NovakOmaha wrote: My list of fill ins in the route map:
Boston
Nope. While the New York metro has a PDEW of 230, JFK is only a measly 12.NovakOmaha wrote:JFK
Nope and nope. BWI is 41 and IAD is only 32. Entire metro is 224 very similar to the NYC situation.NovakOmaha wrote: BWI , Dulles
Already addressed.NovakOmaha wrote: PHL
The entire metro is only 78. Getting service to one is questionable much less both.NovakOmaha wrote:MIA
FLL(yes, Fort Lauderdale in addition to Miami)
Nope only 25.NovakOmaha wrote:Ft. Myers
Already addressedNovakOmaha wrote:Nashville
Only 36NovakOmaha wrote:New Orleans
Already addressed.NovakOmaha wrote:San Diego
8,495 total passengers in 2011. Converting into PDEW that is 11.6. Kansas City is on track for about 15,000 passengers on air Canada one way this year.NovakOmaha wrote: Toronto
59,177 total passengers or 81 PDEW. Given that a lot of these would be clustered seasonally pdew would be even higher during specific time periods. I have no doubt if Cancun had pre-clearance or Omaha had a customs/immigration facility to handle commercial aircraft that someone would be doing this seasonally.NovakOmaha wrote:Cancun
See Toronto. 11,577 or 15.85 passengers daily each way.NovakOmaha wrote: Puerto Vallarta
Same. 10,517 or 14.4NovakOmaha wrote:Cabo San Lucas
There are actual issues there preventing this and again, nothing is preventing scheduled flights from Canada (Toronto) right now other than a lack of demand.NovakOmaha wrote: Let's put the issue to bed. I don't care if they call it Omaha Hooterville Airfield. Bring on the international flights.
What revenue? Especially if say a Cancun flight was operated by an existing carrier say Southwest, you won’t get any additional revenue from things like gate leasing or ticket counter/baggage space. For all practical purposes revenue wise a flight to Cancun is no different than a flight to Chicago for the airport.NovakOmaha wrote: The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.
As the data above illustrates no there isn’t.Omababe wrote: Is there really enough demand to fill a plane from say, Omaha to Toronto?
Not exactly… The airline in question here was ExpressJet aka XJET with their own branded service. A little bit of history on them is necessary to explain what was going on and what ultimately happened to them. ExpressJet had been a wholly owned subsidiary of Continental Airlines that was responsible for all of their regional flying. In Omaha, ExpressJet did most of Continental’s flying at the time operating all of the flights to Newark and most of the flights to Houston.Omababe wrote: Those short-lived Tucson and San Diego stopped, from what I understand, due to no demand.
Oh I think we can pretty much definitively say it cannot. It is 2,400 square feet. There are fairly specific guidelines for an FIS facility. As an example and I’m using this one particular because I think it was what Omaha would probably model itself on if they were to do this at any point prior to reconstructing the terminals, Milwaukee has a 15,000 square foot standalone FIS/Customs facility with a single gate*. Just slightly to the left of center here https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9503899 ... a=!3m1!1e3Ben wrote: Not saying that they couldn't process commercial flights over there
Yeah it is fairly common. Due to space requirements, FIS facilities are typically limited to one or maybe two terminals in most airports and particularly if connecting odds are you are going to need to go to another terminal.Coyote wrote:I've been through numerous airports where a bus took you to and from the 'International' terminal.
Ignoring the facility is too small, hypothetically if it was large enough, you’d bus people around on the outer road not across the runway. Given everyone would likely have their luggage from clearing Customs, if someone was taking a cab or getting picked up they’d be free to walk out the door right at Tac Air. If people needed to pick up a rental car or their own car from parking they’d take the not so convenient 4 miles bus ride around.Omaha_corn_burner wrote: Yeah, but in our situation, the bus would be driving across two active runways. I don't think that is the norm at airports with bussing.
Great news! Much nicer airport and real planes. No big-plane-little-plane roulette!joleo wrote:Omaha to Houston - Hobby on Southwest was announced today. Daily nonstop starting in the middle of March!
Where did you get the pdew data? Could you post a link? Also, how does pdew differ from o/d? ThanksMr.Nuke wrote:All data is for quarter 4 of 2015. There is going to be some seasonal variation particularly with warmer climate destinations in quarters 4 and 1. All numbers are passengers daily each way (PDEW) except where noted with the international destinations.
Lastly, I don’t doubt that some routes would see a pdew boost of someone actually started flying them, but it is a little chicken and egg like in that no one really is likely to start flying them without the perceived demand.
Southwest only flies 737 variants, so I can only assume you're talking about United Express (which doesn't fly to Hobby).Omababe wrote:Great news! Much nicer airport and real planes. No big-plane-little-plane roulette!joleo wrote:Omaha to Houston - Hobby on Southwest was announced today. Daily nonstop starting in the middle of March!
About every few months I have to fly to Houston. The only direct flight is Untied [sic] and with the exception of the last flight back, all I remember are the toy planes, which I really do not care for. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a full-size plane the one time! I actually thought they had the wrong gate listed.Omaha_corn_burner wrote:Southwest only flies 737 variants, so I can only assume you're talking about United Express (which doesn't fly to Hobby).
Wikipedia lists United proper as seasonal service to IAH, and it looks like that season starts soon. You can book non-RJs on their 5:45am flight.
Wow this surprises me. I thought that since United was directing so many people to Houston that their aircraft would be larger. I did a search for a round trip and with the exception of one A 319, they're all Embraer regional jets.Omababe wrote:About every few months I have to fly to Houston. The only direct flight is Untied [sic] and with the exception of the last flight back, all I remember are the toy planes, which I really do not care for. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a full-size plane the one time! I actually thought they had the wrong gate listed.Omaha_corn_burner wrote:Southwest only flies 737 variants, so I can only assume you're talking about United Express (which doesn't fly to Hobby).
Wikipedia lists United proper as seasonal service to IAH, and it looks like that season starts soon. You can book non-RJs on their 5:45am flight.
Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.
Not to get all conspiratorial, but it occurs to me that airlines fly these crappy planes intentionally for both economic reasons and crowd control. If you can carry on only a small item, you check it or don't bring it, even if your second flight is big enough to carry your stuff. If half the people on the big flight have been filtered by the connecting flight, there is more room for those who haven't. They are happy and write nice reviews and we are unhappy and write reviews about the connector.daveoma wrote:Wow this surprises me. I thought that since United was directing so many people to Houston that their aircraft would be larger. I did a search for a round trip and with the exception of one A 319, they're all Embraer regional jets.Omababe wrote:About every few months I have to fly to Houston. The only direct flight is Untied [sic] and with the exception of the last flight back, all I remember are the toy planes, which I really do not care for. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a full-size plane the one time! I actually thought they had the wrong gate listed.Omaha_corn_burner wrote:Southwest only flies 737 variants, so I can only assume you're talking about United Express (which doesn't fly to Hobby).
Wikipedia lists United proper as seasonal service to IAH, and it looks like that season starts soon. You can book non-RJs on their 5:45am flight.
Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.
Last question first. PDEW is the common measure for O/D. PDEW= o/dNovakOmaha wrote: Where did you get the pdew data? Could you post a link? Also, how does pdew differ from o/d? Thanks
I flew OMA-IAH back in 2010 and it was three 737s a day, including the new-plane-smell one I was on.Omababe wrote:About every few months I have to fly to Houston. The only direct flight is Untied [sic] and with the exception of the last flight back, all I remember are the toy planes, which I really do not care for. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a full-size plane the one time! I actually thought they had the wrong gate listed.Omaha_corn_burner wrote:Southwest only flies 737 variants, so I can only assume you're talking about United Express (which doesn't fly to Hobby).
Wikipedia lists United proper as seasonal service to IAH, and it looks like that season starts soon. You can book non-RJs on their 5:45am flight.
Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.