Omaha Eppley Airfield - DISCUSSION

RedcoMusic · Post by **RedcoMusic** » Fri Mar 10, 2023 10:20 am

Coyote wrote: Mon Mar 06, 2023 10:09 am
Calls grow to expand alternative transportation options around Eppley Airfield
Neighbors of the airport say they want input in the $600 million renovation coming 2023

Joe Higgins is the president of the Levi Carter Sherman Neighborhood Association, which represents the homes on the Nebraska side of Carter Lake and closest to Eppley Airfield. "I want what's best for Omaha. I love this city," Higgins said. He's calling on Eppley Airfield to include bike and pedestrian upgrades in its $600 million construction plan. The terminal modernization project is set to begin this year. As the deadline for final plans draws closer, Higgins and residents in his neighborhood want input. For years, he worked at the airport, but he says it's just not safe to walk there. "There's no sidewalks... There's no crosswalk infrastructure. Zero," Higgins said. "There's no parking structure for bikes. No bike racks." Higgins says he doesn't have anything against cars.

"I love cars. But I think we need to plan for more than just cars if we want to advance," he said. There is a metro bus route that goes to Eppley with stops downtown and in North Omaha. But with a $600 million remodel set to begin on Eppley's main terminal this year, Higgins says some of it needs to expand public transportation. "I think we need connectivity," he said. "And I think we need better citizen input on our planning." He suggests streamlining the public transportation system to better connect Eppley, the Henry Doorly Zoo and the Old Market.

I once asked Eppley via Twitter if there were any existing bike racks, never got a response. I guess this answers that! Although... I've been scouting the facilities for any possible place to lock a bike. All I could find was that pedestrian walkway that leads from the North/South garage connector out onto Abbott, where you can possibly lock a bike under that signage thing on the sidewalk.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:12 pm

February up 15.1%, up 19.5% YTD.

Delta continues to be slightly down. United was the 2nd largest carrier for the month after Southwest, something I don't think has happened at Eppley for awhile off of the top of my head.

https://www.flyoma.com/wp-content/uploa ... istics.pdf

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:05 pm

United, Southwest and American are each doing great.

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:19 pm

Mr.Nuke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:12 pm February up 15.1%, up 19.5% YTD.

Delta continues to be slightly down. United was the 2nd largest carrier for the month after Southwest, something I don't think has happened at Eppley for awhile off of the top of my head.

https://www.flyoma.com/wp-content/uploa ... istics.pdf

New service? New frequencies? New airlines? Anything?
Other relatively similar airports are adding service/frequencies/airlines yet OMA is like the poor sister sitting out the night of the prom, waiting.

Any news Nuke?

TransitOriented · Post by **TransitOriented** » Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:05 am

It seems like we lost nonstop service to Los Angeles on Southwest.

joleo · Post by **joleo** » Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:17 pm

Bob from Omaha wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:19 pm
Mr.Nuke wrote: Tue Mar 21, 2023 2:12 pm February up 15.1%, up 19.5% YTD.

Delta continues to be slightly down. United was the 2nd largest carrier for the month after Southwest, something I don't think has happened at Eppley for awhile off of the top of my head.

https://www.flyoma.com/wp-content/uploa ... istics.pdf
New service? New frequencies? New airlines? Anything?
Other relatively similar airports are adding service/frequencies/airlines yet OMA is like the poor sister sitting out the night of the prom, waiting.

Any news Nuke?

United added back OMA-SFO on mainline and then also switched many of their other flights to mainline instead of regional jets was the big jump there.

Southwest will start seeing bigger jumps later this year as they will have more seats than they have ever had, up to 26 flights a day this coming fall! Instead of 5x daily DEN 3x daily PHX and 3x daily LAS and connecting all those passengers, it would nice to reduce LAS and PHX back to 2x daily as they are now and add back OMA-SAN and OMA-LAX.

On the southwest wish list would be OMA-BNA (Nashville) going to daily and adding OMA-BWI.

The biggest hole on all the airlines I still believe is OMA-Newark on United. I hope Eppley can work their magic to really focus on getting this one back! Even if only 1x daily to connect to their European mega-hub would be great!!

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:27 pm

TransitOriented wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:05 am It seems like we lost nonstop service to Los Angeles on Southwest.

Omaha lost Southwest LAX service in 2019 (well before Covid) when Southwest had to pull back on their schedule due to the 737 Max grounding.

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Wed Mar 22, 2023 6:44 pm

Boston
JFk
Newark
Dulles
BWI
Fort Lauderdale
New Orleans
Philadelphia
San Diego
Portland
Toronto

Airlines
Spirit
Jetblue
Breeze
Avelo(?)

TransitOriented · Post by **TransitOriented** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:14 am

Mr.Nuke wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:27 pm
TransitOriented wrote: Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:05 am It seems like we lost nonstop service to Los Angeles on Southwest.
Omaha lost Southwest LAX service in 2019 (well before Covid) when Southwest had to pull back on their schedule due to the 737 Max grounding.

Thanks. I was just looking at wikipedia, and it was just removed from the wiki on Feb 19 2023.
I'm so thankful the United to SFO is back (although the international terminal at LAX is kinda neat).

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:04 pm

Thought it might be interesting to look out seats out of Eppley today compared to the 3rd Thursday in March in 2019 (per-pandemic)...

Alaskan Airlines
2019
SEA 1X 738
SAN 1X E75L 76 seats

2023
SEA 1X 738

Alaskan Net -76 seats

Allegiant Airlines
2019
PGD 1 X A320
SFB 1 X A319 156 seats

2023
SFB 1 X A320 177 seats
PGD 1 X A320
LAS 1 X A319 156 seats
LAX 1X A319 156 seats
Allegiant Net +333 seats

American Airlines
2019
CLT 2 X 175 160 seats
DFW 4X MD83 560 seats
LAX 2X E175 160 seats
MIA 1 X E175 80 seats
ORD 3X CRJ7, 2X E175 370 seats
PHL 2 X E175 160 seats
PHX 1X 319, 1X A320 278 seats

2023
CLT 2X 738 344 seats
DFW 3X 738 516 seats
LAX 1X E175 80 seats
LGA 1X E175 80 seats
ORD 1x CRJ2, 1X E170, 1 X 738 302 seats
PHX 1X E175, 1X 738 252 seats
American Net -194 seats

Delta Airlines
2019
ATL 1X MD80, 4X MD88 745 seats
DCA 1X E170
DTW 3 X CRJ7 207 seats
LGA 2X E175 152 seats
MSP 4X CRJ7, 1X CRJ9, 1X A320 544 seats
SLC 1X CRJ7, 1X E175 138 seats

2023
ATL 3X B712, 2X A319 636 seats
DCA 1X E170
DTW 3X CRJ9 228 seats
LGA 1X E175 76 seats
MSP 1X E170, 3X E175 297 seats
SLC 1X E170, 1X E175 145 seats
Delta Net -404 seats

Frontier Airlines
2019
DEN 1X A319 150 seats
LAS 1X A319 150 seats
MCO 1x A320 167 seats

2023
No flights today
Frontier net -467 seats

Southwest Airlines
2019
DAL 1 X 737
DCA 1 X 737
DEN 2X 737, 1X 738 461 seats
HOU 1 X 737 143 seats
LAS 3 X 737 429 seats
LAX 1 X 738 175 seats
STL 3 X 737 429 seats
MDW 4 X 737 572 seats
PHX 3 X 737 429 seats

2023
ATL 1X 737 143 seats
DCA 1 X 737

DEN 4X 737, 1 X 738 747 seats
DAL 1 X 737
HOU 1 X 738 175 seats
LAS 2 X 738 350 seats
MCO 1 X 737 143 seats
MDW 4 X 738, 1 X 737 843 seats
PHX 1 X 737, 1 X 738 318 seats
STL 1 X 737, 1 X 738 318 seats
Southwest Net +399 seats

United Airlines
2019
DEN 1X CRJ2, 1X E145, 1X E175, 1X 738, 1X 739 521 seats
EWR 1x E170, 1 X E175 146 seats
IAH 1x A319. 1X E145, 1X E170, 1X E175 322 seats
ORD 1x CRJ7, 1X E170, 1X E175, 1X A319, 1 X A320 492 seats
SFO 2 X E175 152 seats

2023
DEN 2X 738, 2 X 739 690 seats
IAH 1X A319, 1X 739 305 seats
ORD 1x E170, 1X E175, 1X A319, 1X 739 451 seats
SFO 1 X 739 179 seats

United Net -8 Seats

Total Net- 417 seats

A couple of notes I take the Frontier and Allegiant numbers with a bit of skepticism as Frontier isn't flying here on Thursdays right now and 4 flights for Allegiant is likely high for them on average. With that said, Frontier is down for the year thus far and Allegiant is up. Due to the irregular nature of their flying the above data obviously doesn't show all of Eppley's destinations currently being flown, only those that were flown on the two dates in question.

I did this largely manually by looking at an old schedule database and then Flightaware today and adding seats based off of changes in plane type or routes operated/not operated between the two days. It is quite possible I made some errors. I'll be interested to look at actual seats for this year compared to 2019 and even pre-pandemic 2020 when we start getting DOT data in the 2nd half of the year.

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:17 pm

In the end Allegiant and definitely not Frontier are not going to drive numbers for OMA. DSM has seen good growth largely as a result of Allegiant but it's not blowing the doors off. It's low hanging fruit.
Southwest and the legacy carriers are going to take OMA to the next level.

SkyWarrior55 · Post by **SkyWarrior55** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:25 pm

Numbers will continue to grow throughout the year. We do have Minneapolis with Sun County, Austin with Allegiant and an additional LaGuardia flight on AA starting this year. Plus other carriers will no doubt add capacity and frequencies in the summer.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:32 pm

Now going forward comparing today's schedule to the 3rd Thursday in June 6/22.

Alaska Airlines
3/23
SEA 1X 738

6/22
SEA 1X 739

Alaska Net +35 seats

Allegiant Airlines
3/23
SFB 1 X A320
PGD 1 X A320
LAS 1 X A319
LAX 1X A319 156 seats

6/22
AUS 1X A320
LAS 1 X A319
SFB 1 X A320

Allegiant Net -156 seats

American Airlines
3/23
CLT 2X 738
DFW 3X 738 516 seats
LAX 1X E175
LGA 1X E175 80 seats
ORD 1x CRJ2, 1X E170, 1 X 738 302 seats
PHX 1X E175, 1X 738 252 seats

6/22
CLT 2 X 738
DFW 4 X 738 688 seats
LAX 1X E175
LGA 2X E175 160 seats
ORD 2X CRJ2, 1X 738 272 seats
PHX 1X 738 172 seats

American Net +142 seats

Delta Airlines
3/23
ATL 3X B712, 2X A319 636 seats
DCA 1X E170
DTW 3X CRJ9
LGA 1X E175 76 seats
MSP 1X E170, 3X E175 297 seats
SLC 1X E170, 1X E175 145 seats

6/22
ATL 2X A319, 3X A320 744 seats
DCA 1X E170
DTW 3X CRJ9
LGA 1X E175, 1X CRJ9 152 seats
MSP 3X E175, 1X A320 388 seats
SLC 2X E175 153 seats

Delta Net +283 seats

Frontier Airlines
3/23
No flights today
6/22
No Flights

Frontier net 0 seats

Southwest Airlines
3/23
ATL 1X 737
DCA 1 X 737
DEN 4X 737, 1 X 738
DAL 1 X 737 143 seats
HOU 1 X 738 175 seats
LAS 2 X 738 350 seats
MCO 1 X 737 143 seats
MDW 4 X 738, 1 X 737 843 seats
PHX 1 X 737, 1 X 738 318 seats
STL 1 X 737, 1 X 738 318 seats

6/22
ATL 1X 737
DAL 1 X 738 175 seats
DEN 4X 737, 1 X 738
DCA 1 X 737
HOU 1X 737 143 seats
LAS 1X 737, 1X 738 318 seats
MCO 1X 738 175 seats
MDW 2X 737, 3X 738 811 seats
PHX 2X 737 286 seats
STL 2X 737 286 seats

Southwest Net -96 seats

United Airlines
3/23
DEN 2X 738, 2 X 739 690 seats
IAH 1X A319, 1X 739 305 seats
ORD 1x E170, 1X E175, 1X A319, 1X 739 451 seats
SFO 1 X 739 179 seats

6/22
DEN 2X B738, 1 X B739, 1X A319 639 seats
IAH 1X E175, 1 X B739 255 seats
ORD 1X E170, 3 X B738 568 seats
SFO 1X A320 150 seats

United Net -13 seats

Total Net +193 seats

Notes: Same deal for Allegiant/Frontier looking at a single day skews the results for them as they both fly irregularly. Southwest's flying the same frequencies the only difference is they're operating slightly more 737s vs 738s on the schedule right now. United adds a mainline to O'Hare but loses on at IAH. DL is upgauging ATL and MSP fairly significantly. Both DL and AA are adding 2nd LGA flights versus today's schedule. AA adds a 4th mainline flight to DFW versus today's schedule.

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:11 am

That's why you look at weekly seats, not just an arbitrary day. Also, and I didn't check all but for example Allegiant didn't fly to Austin in 2022. They do now.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:22 am

Bob from Omaha wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:11 am That's why you look at weekly seats, not just an arbitrary day.

If you want to pull Allegiant and Frontier's daily schedule for each day in March of 2019, each day of March of 2023 and each day of June of 2022 have at it (and presumably everyone else at Eppley for all 3 periods). Those two airlines combined represented less than 6% of Eppley's overall passengers last year. The "arbitrary date" is going to give a pretty good overall picture of equipment type and frequency at the airport for the various periods with at least an hour (probably more) of less work to put it together without access to professional software

The First post is the exact same 3rd Thursday of March 4 years apart and then the second post should give a fairly representative idea of what the summer schedule looks like on a given day of the week versus the Spring schedule. No it isn't going to capture Frontier and Allegiant's random flights that they operate on random days (and that was disclosed), nor was it intended to... If I go back in 3 or 4 months when I have March seats for the entire month and compare it to March of 2019 I think my "random day" is would be fairly representative of the overall month to month, and assuming the summer schedules are flown as filed for June I expect the same there as well.

skinzfan23 · Post by **skinzfan23** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:50 am

Not Eppley specific, but if you book a flight on Southwest and the rates have now gone down....can you cancel the flight and get a refund and just rebook the flight at the cheaper price?

Anyone know?

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:53 am

skinzfan23 wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:50 am Not Eppley specific, but if you book a flight on Southwest and the rates have now gone down....can you cancel the flight and get a refund and just rebook the flight at the cheaper price?

Anyone know?

Yeah you should be able to this article outlines the details.
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/reprice- ... -decrease/

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:00 am

My real point is that with Allegiant & Frontier they account for a very small portion of OMA's annual total. Frontier especially as they are the flakiest airline. With regard to Allegiant, they now fly to LA, Vegas, PHX, AUS, and four Florida cities. That's a total of eight though some are seasonal and vary as to days per week.

Anyway, with regard to OMA achieving and surpassing 5 million it's going to take some serious heavy lifting on the part of Southwest, American, Delta and United unless Allegiant significantly adds to their growth at OMA.

The addition of, say, Jetblue, at best would add Boston and JFK, maybe once a day each.

Spirit does fly to KC but has been adding and subtracting destinations since they started there. Breeze added OKC & TUL for example. They added a couple of cities and took away others, then I believe dropped OKC altogether. Avelo is even wierder.
Also, it remains to be seen what comes of the proposed merger between Spirit and Jetblue.

Thus, OMA's growth to the next level, >5 million, depends on a number of factors, including the state of the economy and the industry. It also depends on how agressive OMA's management is with the airlines about adding frequencies, destinations and lowering fares. As I've said in the past, publicly it doesn't appear that OMA reaches when it comes to attracting the attention of the airlines. DSM seems to be much better at punching above it's weight.

skinzfan23 · Post by **skinzfan23** » Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:48 am

Mr.Nuke wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:53 am
skinzfan23 wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:50 am Not Eppley specific, but if you book a flight on Southwest and the rates have now gone down....can you cancel the flight and get a refund and just rebook the flight at the cheaper price?

Anyone know?
Yeah you should be able to this article outlines the details.
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/reprice- ... -decrease/

Thank you, it worked easily...not a ton of savings but almost $100 between the 2 of us.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Sun Mar 26, 2023 6:58 pm

Mr.Nuke wrote: Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:04 pm Thought it might be interesting to look out seats out of Eppley today compared to the 3rd Thursday in March in 2019 (per-pandemic)...

And I forgot to include the still operating Air Canada flight in 2019 to that post. Like I said I'm sure there were other mistakes

ricko · Post by **ricko** » Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:41 pm

Don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but it looks like Frontier is adding a non-stop to San Antonio starting August 12th, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

joleo · Post by **joleo** » Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:22 pm

ricko wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:41 pm Don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but it looks like Frontier is adding a non-stop to San Antonio starting August 12th, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Where are you seeing this?

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:36 pm

joleo wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:22 pm
ricko wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 8:41 pm Don’t know if it’s been mentioned, but it looks like Frontier is adding a non-stop to San Antonio starting August 12th, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Where are you seeing this?

I too am curious as I don't see it on their website.

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:00 am

I don’t mean to always be talking of comparisons between Eppley and my other hometown airport, but they see roughly the same number of passengers per year, and both are undergoing makeovers. I came across this web page today giving more details and illustrations of the new terminal now under construction in Puerto Vallarta (PVR). It’s an investment of $4B pesos (about $225 million USD at today’s exchange rate). 15 additional gates in addition to the 20 existing ones.
“ The terminal will have a cutting-edge design and state-of-the-art technology, but it will also be designed to minimize its ecological impact, to be certified as the first NetZero air terminal in Latin America, reducing its water consumption by up to 58% and more than 40% that of electricity.”

I can’t for the life of me understand how the Omaha Airport Authority can justify such an enormous expenditure of money with no meaningful addition of gates.

https://vallartaenlinea.net/ahora-sigue ... 3OMgkNwatA

riceweb · Post by **riceweb** » Wed Mar 29, 2023 11:16 am

It seems like it'll be trivially easy to add gates in the future if needed. But in defense of their plans, they probably need some artificial scarcity in order to sell access to our airport at a premium. Possibly none of the math behind the bonds would work out if there are gates aplenty.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Wed Mar 29, 2023 3:32 pm

nativeomahan wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:00 am I don’t mean to always be talking of comparisons between Eppley and my other hometown airport, but they see roughly the same number of passengers per year,

I show PVR having roughly 6.2 million passengers for 2022 and 4.5 million or PVR had roughly 37% more passengers. Those aren't all that close to me.

nativeomahan wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:00 am I can’t for the life of me understand how the Omaha Airport Authority can justify such an enormous expenditure of money with no meaningful addition of gates.

I have a feeling that they might know what they're doing... They can justify it because their master plan identified terminal needs at certain passenger targets that need to be addressed. A new terminal addresses said needs. Gate capacity isn't one of those needs until passenger levels get significantly higher.

Iowafan8 · Post by **Iowafan8** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 8:01 am

https://journalstar.com/business/local/ ... 0cc1c.html

This seems like some competition for Omaha, I wonder how it will affect OMA's numbers if it takes off. That's a decent list of direct flights. Still not the best frequency from what I can tell though.

ita · Post by **ita** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 9:01 am

Iowafan8 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 8:01 am https://journalstar.com/business/local/ ... 0cc1c.html

This seems like some competition for Omaha, I wonder how it will affect OMA's numbers if it takes off. That's a decent list of direct flights. Still not the best frequency from what I can tell though.

Just some relevant info from the article:

But under Department of Transportation rules, charter airlines also can offer scheduled service and sell tickets by the seat to individuals at commercial airports.

That's what Global Crossing, operating as Red Way, will be doing in Lincoln.
...
The service is scheduled to start June 8 with flights to Las Vegas and Orlando. The other five markets — Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Minneapolis and Nashville — will follow in the next two weeks.

Flights will be twice a week to each destination, and most of the service will be seasonal, although it's possible Las Vegas and even Orlando could be year-round, depending on demand. It appears most flights will have one weekend departure day and one midweek departure day.

One-way fares on some of the routes will start as low as $59. That's a bare-bones fare, with additional charges for premium seating, checked backs, snacks and other upgrades. Schedules and tickets are available at www.goflyred.com.
...
He believes there is enough passenger demand in Lincoln to fill the planes, noting that the airport served more than 300,000 passengers in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic cut numbers in half. Last year, it served fewer than 200,000.

Bearcat06 · Post by **Bearcat06** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:14 am

Bob from Omaha wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 10:00 am My real point is that with Allegiant & Frontier they account for a very small portion of OMA's annual total. Frontier especially as they are the flakiest airline. With regard to Allegiant, they now fly to LA, Vegas, PHX, AUS, and four Florida cities. That's a total of eight though some are seasonal and vary as to days per week.

Anyway, with regard to OMA achieving and surpassing 5 million it's going to take some serious heavy lifting on the part of Southwest, American, Delta and United unless Allegiant significantly adds to their growth at OMA.

The addition of, say, Jetblue, at best would add Boston and JFK, maybe once a day each.

Spirit does fly to KC but has been adding and subtracting destinations since they started there. Breeze added OKC & TUL for example. They added a couple of cities and took away others, then I believe dropped OKC altogether. Avelo is even wierder.
Also, it remains to be seen what comes of the proposed merger between Spirit and Jetblue.

Thus, OMA's growth to the next level, >5 million, depends on a number of factors, including the state of the economy and the industry. It also depends on how agressive OMA's management is with the airlines about adding frequencies, destinations and lowering fares. As I've said in the past, publicly it doesn't appear that OMA reaches when it comes to attracting the attention of the airlines. DSM seems to be much better at punching above it's weight.

When OMA crossed the 5 million mark in 2019, AA carried 954k pax, DL carried 1.078 million, SW carried 1.636 million and UN carried 908k. Those will probably be numbers we'd need to look for to cross the threshold again.

Though we don't know exactly what goes on with the airport authority, it would appear they don't market as hard as their peers, rather take the approach they carriers can come to them. Maybe with the terminal upgrade they'd have something more to push with marketing/outreach and they are waiting on that?

Bearcat06 · Post by **Bearcat06** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:16 am

Mr.Nuke wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 3:32 pm
nativeomahan wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:00 am I don’t mean to always be talking of comparisons between Eppley and my other hometown airport, but they see roughly the same number of passengers per year,
I show PVR having roughly 6.2 million passengers for 2022 and 4.5 million or PVR had roughly 37% more passengers. Those aren't all that close to me.
nativeomahan wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:00 am I can’t for the life of me understand how the Omaha Airport Authority can justify such an enormous expenditure of money with no meaningful addition of gates.
I have a feeling that they might know what they're doing... They can justify it because their master plan identified terminal needs at certain passenger targets that need to be addressed. A new terminal addresses said needs. Gate capacity isn't one of those needs until passenger levels get significantly higher.

I think they were more similar in pax load prior to the pandemic, but PVR does certainly have better food options past security.

Bearcat06 · Post by **Bearcat06** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 1:34 pm

One of the big boys landed at Eppley today, Qatar cargo A7-BFF, which is listed as a B777-200LR.

almighty_tuna · Post by **almighty_tuna** » Fri Mar 31, 2023 1:44 pm

MadJack · Post by **MadJack** » Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:15 am

Iowafan8 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 8:01 am https://journalstar.com/business/local/ ... 0cc1c.html

This seems like some competition for Omaha, I wonder how it will affect OMA's numbers if it takes off. That's a decent list of direct flights. Still not the best frequency from what I can tell though.

I think it will have a very small impact on Omaha traffic. I have strong doubts that Lincoln can sustain all those routes long term even just twice a week. Perhaps they can maintain the two or three most popular among those proposed routes. After all, this is an airport with very low passenger numbers that couldn't even keep Delta flights to Minneapolis.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Sun Apr 02, 2023 4:00 pm

Bearcat06 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:16 am I think they were more similar in pax load prior to the pandemic, but PVR does certainly have better food options past security.

Puerto Vallarta is also basically the equivalent population of the Lincoln metro. I'm not surprised an airport at a Mexican resort destination catering to tourists that are arriving at the airport 2+ hours before a flight has more restaurant options than a ~40 year old airport in a pre-9/11 configuration that is primarily O/D domestic traffic. The whole PVR OMA comparison has always been bonkers to me for that reason and it is even crazier right now that the passenger numbers aren't even in the same vicinity anymore.

Bearcat06 wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 11:14 am Maybe with the terminal upgrade they'd have something more to push with marketing/outreach and they are waiting on that?

Not when you have ample gate space right now. Despite the pie in the sky ideas thrown around occasionally in this thread, Eppley isn't missing much that it had pre-pandemic and it isn't really missing much on the demand side from the latest data either.

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Sun Apr 02, 2023 5:54 pm

I have a question about demand.

Des Moines has these Allegiant flights to places like Palm Springs, Austin, Portland, Orange County, etc. Talk to me about demand from DSM to those destinations. More than OMA? I know they are 2-3 x a week but still. Demand?

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Sun Apr 02, 2023 6:04 pm

Mr.Nuke wrote: Sun Apr 02, 2023 4:00 pm
Not when you have ample gate space right now. Despite the pie in the sky ideas thrown around occasionally in this thread, Eppley isn't missing much that it had pre-pandemic and it isn't really missing much on the demand side from the latest data either.

Yes, ample. Also not missing much. Not really missing much on the demand side. Those three things are not static. OMA went from 3.5M to 5M in part because of supply. And creation of demand by adding destinations, frequencies, airlines. Business, and yes, an airport in many ways behaves like a business, is more about creating excitement and a positive image.
I disagree with the thought that what's been thrown around in this thread as pie in the sky. Why not have Air Canada back? Why not have flights to Mexico? Seriously, with the terminal expansion there could be customs. I'm not kidding. Why not? And I don't buy the concept that Omaha isn't <insert adjective here> enough to deserve nice things. OMA did go from 3.5 to 5M and absent Covid in all likelihood it would have kept growing.
As for gate space, why wait til you don't have ample gate space? What, you tell the airline that wants to expand to wait a month or two while Kiewit slaps on a few more? I'm not suggesting that OMA grow to 35 gates right now but the idea that "Well, things are ok and not much is negative so let's just sit on our a s s and watch as other airports grow and innovate"

As for missing from pre Covid, how about San DIego, Portland, Philly, Newark, etc.

nativeomahan · Post by **nativeomahan** » Wed Apr 05, 2023 9:03 pm

Here’s a story I saw tonight, reporting on the state of air travel in 2022. It included a listing of the world’s top 10 busiest airports, 5 of which were in the US.
I was very surprised to see that Denver was not only the nation’s 3rd busiest airport last year - it was 3rd busiest in the world!
World's top 10 busiest airports for passenger traffic in 2022
1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, Georgia (ATL): 93.7 million passengers; up 23.8% from 2021
2. Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas (DFW): 73.4 million passengers; up 17.5% from 2021
3. Denver, Colorado (DEN): 69.3 million passengers; up 17.8% from 2021
4. Chicago O'Hare, Illinois (ORD): 68.3 million passengers; up 26.5% from 2021
5. Dubai, United Arab Emirates (DXB): 66.1 million passengers; up 127% from 2021
6. Los Angeles, California (LAX): 65.9 million passengers; up 37.3% from 2021
7. Istanbul, Turkey (IST): 64.3 million passengers; up 73.8% from 2021
8. London Heathrow, United Kingdom (LHR): 61.6 million passengers; up 217.7% from 2021
9. Delhi, India (DEL): 59.5 million passengers; up 60.2% from 2021
10. Paris Charles de Gaulle, France (CDG): 57.5 million passengers; up 119.4% from 2021

https://apple.news/A0O2_huddSZeC2mkHY904uQ

Cermak · Post by **Cermak** » Sat Apr 08, 2023 6:27 am

I wonder how soon it will be before China cities start appearing on this list. My guess very soon, just by the shear amount of people that live in the country.

ita · Post by **ita** » Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:52 am

Cermak wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2023 6:27 am I wonder how soon it will be before China cities start appearing on this list. My guess very soon, just by the shear amount of people that live in the country.

China has significant national passenger rail, so trips we would take by plane, they take by train.

For reference, Shanghai has two major airports, each handling about 30 million passengers.

Mr.Nuke · Post by **Mr.Nuke** » Sat Apr 08, 2023 10:19 am

nativeomahan wrote: Wed Apr 05, 2023 9:03 pm I was very surprised to see that Denver was not only the nation’s 3rd busiest airport last year - it was 3rd busiest in the world!

Yeah Denver has recovered very well in terms of pre-covid passenger levels and wasn't impacted to the extent that a lot of other airports have been re: international travel or the lack thereof.

Cermak wrote: Sat Apr 08, 2023 6:27 am I wonder how soon it will be before China cities start appearing on this list. My guess very soon, just by the shear amount of people that live in the country.

China not appearing on the list is more a function of post Covid lockdowns and lack of international travel than anything. in 2019, Bejing was the 2nd busiest airport in terms of passenger travel, Shanghai was 8th and Guangzhou was 11th.