Omaha Eppley Airfield - DISCUSSION

[Mr.Nuke]

Sun Country appears to be pulling out for good.

[Mr.Nuke]

With the NEA with JetBlue being blocked it had been speculated that AA may want to put more back into PHL. They had already announced the return of XNA so with with DSM and OMA now they're getting fairly close to their pre-pandemic and pre NEA routes out of PHL.

Any rumors of OMA-EWR returning on United ever? Anybody have any insight info from airport administration?

And meant to respond to this a long time ago sorry for being so late. I don't really expect it back any time soon especially with them pulling MCI-EWR seasonally this winter. Especially as someone that flies predominantly on United and Southwest it is in the would be nice to have category, but in terms of actual direct flights to NYC the airport is doing fine with the Delta and American service to LGA right now. Between the two there where 5 E-175's on OMA-LGA today.

[Mr.Nuke]

I know we're all looking for more nonstops to big cities, but how about small feeder cities?

Have an E175 or smaller corporate jet fly from LNK to GRI to OMA, then reverse. Maybe even try that with LBF or BFF.

That won't happen for a couple of reasons. Historically it actually was the case during regulation and immediately following deregulation that OMA did have small airlines flying small planes to cities in Nebraska i.e. in 1985 Eppley had flights to Columbus Nebraska, Norfolk, Lincoln, Grand Island, and Hastings.

The industry has fundimentially shifted though. The small communities like Grand Island, Kearney, and North Platte that still have air service are getting millions in federal subsidies to keep them connected to a hub. So it isn't really economically viable, and even if it was there isn't a compelling argument for why someone in North Platte would want to fly to Eppley and presumably connect to another flight or flights here yet to get to a destination when they could fly from North Platte to Denver and have access to nearly anywhere domestically and many international destinations with that single stop.

[joleo]

With the NEA with JetBlue being blocked it had been speculated that AA may want to put more back into PHL. They had already announced the return of XNA so with with DSM and OMA now they're getting fairly close to their pre-pandemic and pre NEA routes out of PHL.

Any rumors of OMA-EWR returning on United ever? Anybody have any insight info from airport administration?

And meant to respond to this a long time ago sorry for being so late. I don't really expect it back any time soon especially with them pulling MCI-EWR seasonally this winter. Especially as someone that flies predominantly on United and Southwest it is in the would be nice to have category, but in terms of actual direct flights to NYC the airport is doing fine with the Delta and American service to LGA right now. Between the two there where 5 E-175's on OMA-LGA today.

I was surprised they switched off MCI-EWR in the winter vs just switching it to E-175's vs mainline. Just like OMA-SFO was 2x daily E-175 this fall and only 1x daily this coming winter. Take that extra lift from shrinking OMA-SFO over the winter and switch it to EWR-MCI as an example vs just dropping MCI-EWR all together over the winter.

For me personally, I want to be able to connect to United's international network from EWR which is really good! I've been loyal to United for 40 years (as much as possible) but recently bought a Business Class ticket on Delta instead of doing double connects in ORD AND EWR. 2 tickets, loss or revenue to United almost 9k. My friend who was 1K on United bought American tickets last summer for same reason on 2 business class tickets that were last minute, she said her tickets were 12k each, ouch! Adding OMA-IAD would solve this as well, United only gets you to half of the world right now. I really would hope the airport staff is prioritizing getting OMA-EWR or IAD, it would really open up a ton of opportunity for Omaha citizens to half of the world! OMA-PHL helps this for sure on AA but getting UA would be the last piece of the puzzle for Eppley for international travelers!

[Bob from Omaha]

EWR is an option but I avoid it like the plague. More than a few times my plane has had to wait on the tarmac for an hour or more just to take off. They seriously need another runway. Yeah, JFK & LGA can make your plane wait as well but it seems like EWR is the longest.

DTW does have a lot of international non stops, both to Europe and Asia, and I fly Delta a lot just because of that, but occasionally I have to connect. Timing and runway congestion make it a pain.

[Omaha747]

Does anyone happen to have any photo updates on the construction at Eppley?

[Brad]

Does anyone happen to have any photo updates on the construction at Eppley?

Here is one from today. They post updated on their Facebook and Twitter all the time. Occasional videos too.

[Garrett]

EWR is an option but I avoid it like the plague. More than a few times my plane has had to wait on the tarmac for an hour or more just to take off. They seriously need another runway. Yeah, JFK & LGA can make your plane wait as well but it seems like EWR is the longest.

DTW does have a lot of international non stops, both to Europe and Asia, and I fly Delta a lot just because of that, but occasionally I have to connect. Timing and runway congestion make it a pain.

More runways won't really help NYC airspace capacity. I once saw someone claim that closing LaGuardia wouldn't help planes take off from JFK or Newark faster, though I'm not sure on that claim

[joleo]

I've connected in EWR at least a dozen times until OMA-EWR stopped at covid without issue. I've read it is worse now because of the air traffic controller shortage. You are right, I have waited in long lines to depart but never missed a connection there. Important to schedule a 2 hour minimum layover at EWR though. With over 50 European destinations from EWR, nothing really compares unless you want to go out of the way to ATL but that is less destinations with longer flights.

[Bob from Omaha]

Ok, airport nerds. Here's some interesting reading.

Eppley competition plan

OMA Competition Plan

[Mr.Nuke]

I was surprised they switched off MCI-EWR in the winter vs just switching it to E-175's vs mainline. Just like OMA-SFO was 2x daily E-175 this fall and only 1x daily this coming winter. Take that extra lift from shrinking OMA-SFO over the winter and switch it to EWR-MCI as an example vs just dropping MCI-EWR all together over the winter.

The extra lift is likely going to some sun destination somewhere or covering a place like LNK that is seeing an E-175 to ORD that never would've used to see one due to the regional draw downs. I also know for about the past year they've been trying to improve EWR operations i.e. last year they said they'd be cutting 10% of their flights into/out of EWR. Another reason it is going to be hard to get it back... Whatever the ultimate reason is though, they appear to really not want to funnel Midwestern traffic through there right now.

For me personally, I want to be able to connect to United's international network from EWR which is really good!

Like I said above, it is in the would be nice to have, but probably not necessary category. AA and DL are covering the O/D market. We don't have great international data, as the FAA restricts international PDEW access; but the 10+ year old proxy data we have doesn't present an overwhelming case for the "need" to access EWR's flights either.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/glob ... america-2/

In 2011 the Brookings Institute working with DOT data and SABRE, estimated 306,228 international passengers traveled to or from Omaha (420 PDEW). That would be about 7% of Eppley's overall traffic for the that year. Only 5% of that traffic used EWR as the international gateway or about 20 PDEW, not insignificant, but not really enough to warrant United needing to fly it for international connections either.

57% of the 2011 international traffic was to Latin America/Caribbean, they're including Mexico here. 17.6% was to Western Europe where EWR connections would be more likely. 2011 PDEW to London was 14, Frankfurt 7, Paris 6, Rome 5, Dublin 5, Amsterdam 3, Madrid 3., etc Obviously the airport overall is up about 20% traffic wise since 2011 so if we assume the 2011 data was remotely accurate, those numbers are likely slightly higher, but again still not all that significant. The other factor is during peak travel season, United itself still serves all of those destinations one stop from OMA even without EWR service not to mention DL or AA.

Adding OMA-IAD would solve this as well,

I don't know how likely this is at this point either, but I think it is probably more probable than EWR in the near future just from the operational standpoint at EWR.

United only gets you to half of the world right now.

Maybe, but again based on all the available data we have (which admittedly isn't much) they are still more than capable of getting you to where people traveling to and from Omaha are actually going.

[Mr.Nuke]

Ok, airport nerds. Here's some interesting reading.

Eppley competition plan

OMA Competition Plan

Some interesting stuff in there. It looks like the airport started allowing some common use gates in 2016. It makes sense for the airlines that serve Eppley infrequently, but that had never been publicly confirmed as far as I know. I was a little disappointed to see Sun Country and Alaska's actual leases omitted in the exhibits, but that was probably for trade secrecy reasons.

Presumably due to gate configuration on the South side they also appear to be able to go to 24 gates from 22 without actually expanding anything based on the diagrams, which also wasn't known.

[Bearcat06]

Ok, airport nerds. Here's some interesting reading.

Eppley competition plan

OMA Competition Plan

Some interesting stuff in there. It looks like the airport started allowing some common use gates in 2016. It makes sense for the airlines that serve Eppley infrequently, but that had never been publicly confirmed as far as I know. I was a little disappointed to see Sun Country and Alaska's actual leases omitted in the exhibits, but that was probably for trade secrecy reasons.

Presumably due to gate configuration on the South side they also appear to be able to go to 24 gates from 22 without actually expanding anything based on the diagrams, which also wasn't known.

I found page 18 quite interesting. The diagram appears to suggest the aircraft that could potentially park at each gate. Gates 22 and 24 appear to suggest some larger planes than the others.

[Gobears27]

That would make sense because gates 23 and 24 appear to have the bridge to accommodate international arrivals.

[FishFighter92]

I didn't see it mentioned, but they have a decent amount of glass up over the street and the terminal expansion is well underway with steel already up. I had an odd routing on my previous trip where I took AA through ORD. I hadn't been there in years. The AA terminal at ORD is really overdue for a remodel, it was pretty bad.

This year my company is keeping us "home" over the winter, so I won't be at the airport for several months. Hopefully you all keep us updated on construction progress.

[Mr.Nuke]

I found page 18 quite interesting. The diagram appears to suggest the aircraft that could potentially park at each gate. Gates 22 and 24 appear to suggest some larger planes than the others.

Believe it or not, we've actually known about that gate diagram for about two years (at least). See Bellevue Kid's post below from December of 2022 and the actual PDF is from November of that year.

The link appears to have been removed from the Terminal Modernization Program page; however, a PDF was shared with updated information including renderings from a November 17th meeting.

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

Pages 10 and 11. Obviously it is a bit harder to see there because the focus isn't on the gates, rather the terminal space itself. They also slightly changed the gate number system since then as well. However it shouldn't really come as that big of a surprise.

Eppley handled the Aer Lingus A330 for Husker charter to Dublin out of gate A2 (they spray painted the parking line on that one), and I can tell from the Douglas County GIS that United had B13 marked for a stopping position for a 777-300 as recently has last year, this year has it marked for at least a 787-10 (likely more but there is a plane at the gate blocking the rest). UA also has Gate 14 marked for 767-300's, none of those 3 planes Omaha has ever seen on United to my knowledge.

I can't really make out any one else's gate stop positions from the same source as everyone other than United and Southwest is using a much smaller stencil, but again It wouldn't surprise me of some of the other gates like A2 and A5 that have multiple different parking configurations aren't marked for things way bigger than Eppley normally sees either. At least one of American's gates likely has some odd planes as well. You can also kind of see this on page 17 of PDF Bob found where it crudely shows current gate widths.

That would make sense because gates 23 and 24 appear to have the bridge to accommodate international arrivals.

The international arrivals themselves are likely to be mainly on 737s are A320s to Cancun, both planes Eppley normally sees and that any gate in the new terminal (and probably any gate in the existing terminal is capable of handling obviously excluding the international arrival part). Where it does make some sense to have one as you noted, and probably why United currently has a gate marked for 787, is that depending on how the FIS is staffed at Eppley, you may see Delta and United and American to an extent divert Chicago or Minneapolis international traffic in weather issues here if they know they can get people off the plane if they need to. The airport obviously saw an Asian in bound A350 for Delta last year and used to occasionally see United widebody diversions especially when United employees actually worked at Eppley; but with the tarmac delay programs now, you'd probably be wanting to divert traffic to where you know they could actually get off the plane if they needed too.

[joleo]

Allegiant starts Omaha to Sarasota in February and lasts through early May. 2x weekly. Fares are cheap right now, $69 one way on many days.

Allegiant also bringing back LAX next May and increasing both Orlando and Tampa/St Pete to 3x and 4x weekly respectively.

[FishFighter92]

Allegiant starts Omaha to Sarasota in February and lasts through early May. 2x weekly. Fares are cheap right now, $69 one way on many days.

Sarasota and St Pete / Clearwater are less than 50 miles apart. Interesting strategy. There must be a high demand.

[joleo]

Allegiant starts Omaha to Sarasota in February and lasts through early May. 2x weekly. Fares are cheap right now, $69 one way on many days.

Sarasota and St Pete / Clearwater are less than 50 miles apart. Interesting strategy. There must be a high demand.

If you look at their route map, they do this from dozens of cities across the us. Des Moines has had Sarasota service for a few years now. I'm surprised Omaha doesn't have Fort Lauderdale yet except for southwest flying the route a few days a year to prevent Allegiant from adding it, looks like it has worked still.

Sarasota and Tampa/St Pete are an hour from each other with no traffic. With traffic, goes up from there and they are both large cities with large amount of tourism each.

https://www.allegiantair.com/interactive-routemap

Still no mention of this on Omaha.com yet. Wonder if it will hit the news channels tonight? Hopefully it does.

[skinzfan23]

Ouch only up .2% for October, still 5.7% for the YTD though

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

[jjjjhskr]

Ouch only up .2% for October, still 5.7% for the YTD though

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

still impacted by hurricanes in October. Nice to see AA close to 100k

[skinzfan23]

Update from their Facebook page:

Steel on the new concourse is going up. Glass on the canopy is coming together and the new Central Utility Plant is progressing.

[TitosBuritoBarn]

Those are some massive jetways for the inner Southwest and Delta gates.

[Mr.Nuke]

Ouch only up .2% for October, still 5.7% for the YTD though

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

Kansas City was .4% and Des Moines was down -0.4% so it isn't just an Eppley thing.

[Brad]

Update from their Facebook page:

Steel on the new concourse is going up. Glass on the canopy is coming together and the new Central Utility Plant is progressing.

For some reason I thought the glass would go in faster.

Those are some massive jetways for the inner Southwest and Delta gates.

I've used the southwest one. Seems like it just keeps going and going...

[Bob from Omaha]

A question. I'm guessing Nuke can answer this but anyone can jump in.

In the prior rendering before the current one there were 28 gates proposed. Now Eppley is growing to 22. Are there plans to expand, to allow for expansion? Obviously there is room for it but my question is is the current construction going on with an eye toward more gates easily?

[Bob from Omaha]

A question. I'm guessing Nuke can answer this but anyone can jump in.

In the prior rendering before the current one there were 29 gates proposed. Now Eppley is growing to 22. Are there plans to expand, to allow for expansion? Obviously there is room for it but my question is is the current construction going on with an eye toward more gates easily?

Here's the prior plan. Note the "new south parking garage"

[Brad]

A question. I'm guessing Nuke can answer this but anyone can jump in.

In the prior rendering before the current one there were 28 gates proposed. Now Eppley is growing to 22. Are there plans to expand, to allow for expansion? Obviously there is room for it but my question is is the current construction going on with an eye toward more gates easily?

Yes, its here on the airport website:
https://www.buildoma.com/updates/eppley ... enovation/

An increase to 22 arrival/departure gates from the current 20, with the ability to add further gates for future growth

[Mr.Nuke]

For some reason I thought the glass would go in faster.

Even with limiting where Pedestrians are crossing, it has to be really difficult to work on this while still allowing Pedestrian crossings and especially the commercial traffic i.e. shuttle buses on the road. That is why they're shutting down the road access completely overnight right now during the week. They said that was going to be through Mid-November so they might be slightly behind schedule on this.
https://www.flyoma.com/2024/09/16/overn ... elocation/

A question. I'm guessing Nuke can answer this but anyone can jump in.

In the prior rendering before the current one there were 29 gates proposed. Now Eppley is growing to 22. Are there plans to expand, to allow for expansion? Obviously there is room for it but my question is is the current construction going on with an eye toward more gates easily?

Here's the prior plan. Note the "new south parking garage"

Yes the 22 to 28 gate expansion as your graphic shows (#25) would be part of PAL 3. That is triggered at 7 million passengers. Re: the parking garage, as we've talked about over the years, and again your graphic shows (#28) that is something the airport has identified beyond PAL 3 as possibly needing at a future date.

[Bob from Omaha]

Given the current configuration I don't see room for a garage where the former rendering envisioned it. Okay, so it could go somewhere else.

I didn't notice before but the former rendering shows 29 gates, not 28. Doesn't matter. The rendering is moot now.

The funny thing is that the former rendering shows overnight hard stands for 15 aircraft. Wow.

[Mr.Nuke]

Given the current configuration I don't see room for a garage where the former rendering envisioned it. Okay, so it could go somewhere else.

Yeah it either goes somewhere else if they do it or you get rid of the 3 or 4 back side gates like their renderings initially envisioned, and put them in a longer linear terminal when you go to 28. That master plan and the other rendering in your post are obviously well before Holder/Corgan were consulted and the actual terminal design was finalized. Everyone would've been on the same page though that ultimately the airport plans on going to 28 gates at some point and may want a 3rd parking garage somewhere in the vicinity of the terminal.

The funny thing is that the former rendering shows overnight hard stands for 15 aircraft. Wow.

They have 15 right now. The competition plan pdf you found as well as aerial imaging confirm this.

[Bearcat06]

Ouch only up .2% for October, still 5.7% for the YTD though

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

A bit disappointing, but actually a fair amount better than the 2018 and 2019 numbers, which were impressive for the time.

With this report, I'm still estimating over 5.3 million passengers the year with a total of 5,314,741.

[Mr.Nuke]

A bit disappointing, but actually a fair amount better than the 2018 and 2019 numbers, which were impressive for the time.

With this report, I'm still estimating over 5.3 million passengers the year with a total of 5,314,741.

You basically need to average right about 4% growth over November and December of last year to hit 5.3 million. Obviously the airport is still above that year over year, but getting to 5.3 may prove to be tricky if the last 3 months you've gone from +6.9% month over month, to 3.4%, to 0.2%

[skinzfan23]

I agree, I think 5.3 Million is in reach. Typically November and December usually have good numbers with all the holiday travel.

[Bob from Omaha]

Here's a comparison of Omaha, Des Moines and KC. Something is going on with DSM. They were killing it the prior couple of years or so but this year not so much.

[skinzfan23]

Here's a comparison of Omaha, Des Moines and KC. Something is going on with DSM. They were killing it the prior couple of years or so but this year not so much.

Thanks for the graphs and data. I know that Des Moines does have their terminal currently under construction, but so does Omaha, so I am not sure what the deal is.

[Omaha Cowboy]

A bit disappointing, but actually a fair amount better than the 2018 and 2019 numbers, which were impressive for the time.

With this report, I'm still estimating over 5.3 million passengers the year with a total of 5,314,741.

You basically need to average right about 4% growth over November and December of last year to hit 5.3 million. Obviously the airport is still above that year over year, but getting to 5.3 may prove to be tricky if the last 3 months you've gone from +6.9% month over month, to 3.4%, to 0.2%

I think it can happen (5.3 Mill) we’ll see…

Ciao..LiO…Peace

[Mr.Nuke]

I agree, I think 5.3 Million is in reach. Typically November and December usually have good numbers with all the holiday travel.

On average they're Eppley's 7th and 8th best months out of the year and the holidays are obviously there every year. Eppley itself is estimating 186,000 passengers this week up 2.7% over last year's week of Thanksgiving. https://www.wowt.com/2024/11/22/tips-th ... -airfield/

186,000 passengers would represent about 45% of the total passengers for last November this week alone, but 2.7% growth still obviously isn't the 4.0% growth for the month you'd need to be on track for 5.3 million.

Here's a comparison of Omaha, Des Moines and KC. Something is going on with DSM. They were killing it the prior couple of years or so but this year not so much.

It looks like an Allegiant issue for DSM. Not sure why they're down, and Frontier is making up a good chunk of the difference; but especially if a LCC like that is down passengers, there are likely people that just aren't going to fly at all instead of chosing another carrier. Allegiant was obviously down about 7% at Eppley in October (still up for the year unlike DSM), but G4 is a minuscule amount of the traffic in Omaha.

[Bearcat06]

A bit disappointing, but actually a fair amount better than the 2018 and 2019 numbers, which were impressive for the time.

With this report, I'm still estimating over 5.3 million passengers the year with a total of 5,314,741.

You basically need to average right about 4% growth over November and December of last year to hit 5.3 million. Obviously the airport is still above that year over year, but getting to 5.3 may prove to be tricky if the last 3 months you've gone from +6.9% month over month, to 3.4%, to 0.2%

I think it can happen (5.3 Mill) we’ll see…

Ciao..LiO…Peace

My spreadsheet uses past years numbers as comparisons, along with the current year's numbers in an attempt to estimate a total year-end figure that adjusts monthly as the totals come in. I'm sure there is a way to get a bit more accurate overall and it's certainly not infallible, but I'm admittedly not an excel wizard.

Last year I think my spreadsheet estimated a total of 5.042 million and the actual total was around 5.026 million.

Oct is traditionally in the top 6 busiest months for Omaha so the small increase this year could be a bit of a warning sign for the EOY numbers, but Florida and the east coast were getting hammered with hurricanes too, so that may have impacted some travel.

I'm guessing we'll be pretty close to 5.3 million, plus or minus 20-30k or so unless something like a global pandemic or multiple day cross country winter storms significantly impact travel around the holidays. Fingers crossed, as it be a nice milestone to go along with the first year with a month of 500k+ travelers!

[almighty_tuna]

Sounds like we need to start some predictions. Price is Right rules or just the closest guess?