Omaha Eppley Airfield

[nebugeater]

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!

[Brad]

WN 3487
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA3487

Maybe we will learn more tomorrow. http://avherald.com/ doesn't have data from today.

Thanks!

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!

True, but I am fairly certain 737's fly from Chicago to the west coast every day without stopping for fuel...

[nebugeater]

True. Happens all the time.

But if Buba culled it and messed up or If a gauge malfunctioned I still like the idea of a stop!

[Omababe]

Must have been an otherwise slow news day in Omaha!

[Mr.Nuke]

Ever hear of a Southwest Airlines Plane flying from Chicago to Seattle stopping in Omaha just to Refuel?

It happens more often than what you would think. Three Delta flights did it on the evening of June 6th/ following morning.

What should've been Salt Lake City to Raleigh Durham
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2 ... /KSLC/KOMA

What should've been Salt Lake City to Reagan National
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2 ... /KSLC/KOMA

What should've been Regan National to Salt Lake City
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/DAL2 ... /KDCA/KOMA

Maybe we will learn more tomorrow. http://avherald.com/ doesn't have data from today.

Nor will they for fuel stops.

True, but I am fairly certain 737's fly from Chicago to the west coast every day without stopping for fuel...

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.

MTOW can be limited to maximum permissible takeoff weight be several factors including but not limited to:


Obstacles- if there is something at the end of the runway be it terrain or buildings that needs to be avoided the required climb performance is increased.
Winds- A stronger headwind allows for a more favorable takeoff, lighter winds or even worse a headwind takeoff dictate higher speeds and thus more runway to reach a safe climb.
Airport elevation- higher elevation airports have lower ambient air pressure. This limits engine thrust
Temperature- higher temperatures leads to lower air density which also impact engine thrust. Air pressure and temperature combine to form a special effect: See Density altitude https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safet ... y-altitude. As temperature and altitude increase, air density decreases. Thus on hotter days the airplane effectively acts as if it is flying higher up than it actually is limiting performance. This leads to decreased performance. The plane takes longer to accelerate requiring more runway and has diminished climb performance.
Runway length- a shorter runway obviously gives a plane less time to accelerate. On shorter than average runways it is quite possible that the permissible takeoff weight will be less than the certified MTOW for the plane. See temperatures as well right above for the corresponding effect here.

Airline dispatchers and flight crews have resources that will calculate takeoff settings*. In the case of Salt Lake City flights, the diversions were a combination of airport elevation and temperatures. High elevation airports like SLC and Denver are impacted especially on longer flights on warm days. In the case of this Southwest flight it was a combination of temperature (approaching 90 degrees) and runway length. Midway has relatively short runways (could've been compounded by winds forcing the use of one of the shorter runways yet there). Additionally, a 737-800 (the type in the Southwest flight and 2 of the 3 Delta flights) requires longer than average takeoff distance on a good day as it is essentially a high capacity slightly stretched version.

The options in both the Salt Lake City where it is temps+elevation= not enough runway or in the Chicago Midway situation where it is temps+runway length= not enough runway are to 1) either leave passengers behind or 2) leave cargo behind. This works well if the flight is marginal on meeting maximum permissible takeoff. It is also why you don't hear about this happening every day. In high and hot airports or short and hot airports like La Guardia or Midway seats are often proactively blocked off on planes like the 737-800 that are likely to be marginal on making it; and if it is close you can often convince a couple of people to take a later flight or re-reroute with a travel voucher.

If you are going to miss the maximum permissible takeoff weight by a lot say 10,000 pounds, it doesn't make sense to try and kick 50 people or 1/2 to 1/3 of the plane off. Rather you can easily save the 10,000 pounds in fuel initially by flying to an airport with a longer runway. Eppley is a favorable spot for these types of scheduled diversions as it is an easy airport to get in and out of with minimal traffic, pending winds aloft is often right under some of the main East/West flight plans, and has ground handling services for most of the major airlines should an issue come up where you had to deplane.

*And in most cases on favorable days/conditions they'll actually use the performance data in flex/assumed temperature/de-rated takeoffs to "trick" the plane into thinking the outside temperature is warmer than what it actually is to reduce takeoff thrust and prolong engine life.

[Omaha_corn_burner]

Mr. Nuke, what about the DEN->NRT flight? Does United ever have issues where that flight has to stop to refuel?

[Mr.Nuke]

Mr. Nuke, what about the DEN->NRT flight? Does United ever have issues where that flight has to stop to refuel?

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.

[Stargazer]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm at KCI, haven't been here in years. How depressing ! Eppley is a much nicer airport, this place doesn't look like it's been updated since it was built. I only see one eating option open. The little groups of gates behind glass seem really weak for keeping secure, within a paper airplane toss of the curb (okay maybe some convenience there as well). And then, the place is almost completely empty! It's Friday am, weekend of the 4th, in a market of 2 million, where is everyone?

[Omaha_corn_burner]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I'm at KCI, haven't been here in years. How depressing !

Are you not familiar with the history of the airport? I suggest you read the wiki page for MCI. Very interesting read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_Ci ... al_Airport

[Stargazer]

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.

[Omaha_corn_burner]

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.

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.

[NovakOmaha]

An interesting little tidbit I ran across, or rather Google did....

https://deathandlifeofomaha.wordpress.c ... l-airport/

[Omababe]

Ok, please don't shoot the messenger here, ok?

Yesterday afternoon I had an informal tete a tete with the two guys who gave me the crash course in "International Airport 101" a while back (plus a third), 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.

They rattled off several airports, all smaller than Eppley, which have regular flights from Toronto and do not have that big customs hall. They also rattled off a few airports larger than Eppley which do not have the customs halls either, the one I remember being La Guardia. 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.

Direct quote: "You could definitely have flights from Toronto to Omaha, starting tomorrow, if they had the business."

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.

Big learning point take-away was the difference between "elevation" and "altitude", which basically is that elevation is on the earth and altitude is in the air.

Please throw soft stones, ok?

[daveoma]

Thank you for the education Omababe!

[Omababe]

Thank you for the education Omababe!

Thanks.

You realize that I'm former faculty for Trump University, right?

[Mr.Nuke]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

MTOW can be limited to maximum permissible takeoff weight be several factors including but not limited to:

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.

[joleo]

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!

[NovakOmaha]

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!

My list of fill ins in the route map:
Boston
JFK
BWI
Dulles
PHL
MIA
FLL(yes, Fort Lauderdale in addition to Miami)
Ft. Myers
Nashville
New Orleans
San Diego
Toronto
Cancun
Puerto Vallarta
Cabo San Lucas

Let's put the issue to bed. I don't care if they call it Omaha Hooterville Airfield. Bring on the international flights. There are tons of "International" airports out there. If that makes your pants bulge a bit more, so be it. If OMA has flights to Canada & Mexico, what's the difference.

[damonhynes]

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 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!

[damonhynes]

Future wishlist service:

I'd love AA's OMA-CLT to go to mainline.

[Ben]

In regards to Eppley and international flights, you should note that the new Customs facility is on the private air side of the airport (as shown in one of the articles posted by Mr Nuke), connected to the TAC air facility. Not saying that they couldn't process commercial flights over there, but its nowhere near the main terminal, and would be tough figuring the logistics out of how to utilize this facility and then get people back over to the main terminal for pickup/etc.
Clearly it was designed with primarily private jet traffic in mind.

[Coyote]

I've been through numerous airports where a bus took you to and from the 'International' terminal.

[Omaha_corn_burner]

I've been through numerous airports where a bus took you to and from the 'International' terminal.

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.

[NovakOmaha]

Look, to me this is revenue for the airport. If there is something that needs to be done that hasn't been done yet by all means do it. I can't believe that Smithey didn't do it or that there is a compelling reason why it hasn't yet happened. The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.

It is frustrating that those in charge of the airport can't seem to pull the trigger on this, and moreso, advertising to the region. There was the "We're Flying" campaign decades ago & nothing since. The airport is an economic engine that for the above and other reasons hasn't hit the magic 5,000,000 mark yet. Who needs to read this and act on it? Print it out and shove it in his or her or their eyes.

[Omababe]

The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.

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.

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.

[jimyedy]

The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.

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.

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.

I know for certain that Eppley has interest in Cancun and airlines have interest in flights to Cancun from Omaha. However, until Cancun is either designated as pre-clearance (its not) or a customs facility to process passengers after arriving back in USA (requires extra space, federal agents, $$) then it is a non-starter. I don't know how much leverage the airports or the airlines have in getting such an office built. I would venture to say it could find its way into Phase II or Phase III of the master plan. I want Cancun service so bad but I don't know that our elected officials are going to have much luck getting an already understaffed DHS to agree to commit resources to Omaha.

It wouldn't surprise me to see the addition of San Diego or Boston service in the next year. Allegiant would be a great candidate for San Diego.

[Mr.Nuke]

I like pie in the sky ideas for what could fill in route holes for Omaha or where I would like to see service, but I think we need to look at this rationally too.

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. I think it is also important to keep in mind that just because people are flying to these cities doesn't necessarily mean they'd take the direct flight if there was one be it: allegiance to a competing airline, better timing with a 1 stop connection, or price, etc. I also don't have a clue what PDEW in airline is looking for prior to starting service, but my guess is even if you are using 1 regional jet a day you'd like to see 90+ and or be relying on connecting passengers (something PDEW doesn't factor).

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.

Future wishlist service:
Alaska to San Diego

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.

Southwest to Minneapolis, Houston and Nashville.

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.

Southwest - a second daily flight to Dallas. (they are testing a second daily flight on select weekends this winter)

DAL alone, not including DFW has a PDEW of 88, obviously higher than many of the metros we've already discussed.

Southwest switching Orlando service to year-round service instead of summer only and weekend only other times of the year.

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.

Frontier going to daily service year-round to Denver and double daily in the summers.

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.

American to Philadelphia would be nice too!

Only 51 people daily each way.

My list of fill ins in the route map:
Boston

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.

JFK

Nope. While the New York metro has a PDEW of 230, JFK is only a measly 12.

BWI , Dulles

Nope and nope. BWI is 41 and IAD is only 32. Entire metro is 224 very similar to the NYC situation.

PHL

Already addressed.

MIA
FLL(yes, Fort Lauderdale in addition to Miami)

The entire metro is only 78. Getting service to one is questionable much less both.

Ft. Myers

Nope only 25.

Nashville

Already addressed

New Orleans

Only 36

San Diego

Already addressed.
International is a bit different as there isn't the same data source. For this i'm relying on 2011 Brookings Institute data, which is the best I can do.

Toronto

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.

Cancun

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.

Puerto Vallarta

See Toronto. 11,577 or 15.85 passengers daily each way.

Cabo San Lucas

Same. 10,517 or 14.4

Let's put the issue to bed. I don't care if they call it Omaha Hooterville Airfield. Bring on the international flights.

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.

[Mr.Nuke]

The revenue from flights to Toronto, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, or any combination of the above would pay for whatever it is.

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.

Is there really enough demand to fill a plane from say, Omaha to Toronto?

As the data above illustrates no there isn’t.

Those short-lived Tucson and San Diego stopped, from what I understand, due to no demand.

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.

Continental spun off ExpressJet into its own independent company. A few years later Continental realized the risk of having only one airline doing its regional flights i.e. if ExpressJet decided to go on strike, Continental would be screwed. As such, on the next round (really the first independent round for CO) of bidding for regional flying Continental decided to diversify their regional partners.

This left ExpressJet in an odd position. They had roughly 50 planes, most of them under 5 years old, with cabin crew already on staff and nowhere to fly them. Either you park the planes in the desert and lay off the staff or you recognize that your company is already handling baggage and ticketing for Continental at many “outstation” airports like Omaha and decide that you might be able to use the newly available planes for your own service. The latter is what they opted to do.

Early 2007 is when they started service. Oil and thus Jet A fuel was fairly low. This plays into things later on. I show in early 2007 that JET A was $1.81 per gallon. By mid-2008 (prior to the financial crisis) oil and Jet A had more than doubled. Roughly when XJET announced that they were leaving Omaha (they ended their own independent airline several months later entirely) JET A was up to $3.91. On a Omaha to San Diego flight this means you would roughly need to sell 7 more seats on their 50 seat aircraft than before to make the same amount of money as you did a year earlier when the route was launched. That is a tough sell on a small plane and what ultimately did them in.

Compounding this at roughly the same time, Delta ended a contract with them for regional service as well. Suddenly they had lost more guaranteed revenue. Bear in mind when they were operating for Continental or Delta they were getting paid a set amount of money to fly the plane regardless of how many passengers were on it. With their own service, they obviously weren’t. Signficantly higher fuel prices made their venture suddenly unprofitable and combined with losing the guaranteed income from another airline, they decided to pull the plug on their independent venture in Mid 2008 right before the financial crash which would've probably done them in as well.

One of the cool things about PDEW data is that I can pull up old data. ExpressJet launched Omaha to Ontario Ca, Tucson, and San Diego in 2007. Looking at PDEW data like the previous post this time for 2006 a full year before XJET launched; the aviation market was actually stronger from Omaha pre-recession that it is right now. In the Q1 2006 PDEW for OMA-SAN was 118 (nearly 40% higher than right now), for Los Angeles (their Ontario service at a time when no when was flying direct OMA-Los Angeles) 283!, and Tucson was 42. Tucson was the only questionable decision there. The Los Angeles market and San Diego were both obviously under-served markets. My long winded point is especially in this instance, don’t necessarily judge past failures as a market not being viable, it may be the airline flying it.

[Omaha Cowboy]

Oh well, at least Omaha is still a medium hub and ranked the 60th busiest airport in the US.. Serving more customers than Memphis,TN, Louisville, KY, OKC, Tulsa,OK and Tucson,AZ (among others) ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of ... ted_States

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[Mr.Nuke]

Not saying that they couldn't process commercial flights over there

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!1e3

15,000 square feet is 6.25 times larger than the facility attached to TAC Air. People can either walk back to the main terminal or take a shuttle bus. In Omaha a similar facilty could easily be built just to the Northwest of Terminal B (North terminal) on the overnight aircraft parking ramp. Putting it there would allow access to the existing exit road leaving the terminals.

I've been through numerous airports where a bus took you to and from the 'International' terminal.

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.

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.

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.

Logistically I think having a flight arrive over there would be worse for the airline than anyone. You have to send over at least one employee to man a gate (one that isn’t there right now), either run ground equipment and crews across the runways to unload the plane or have redundant equipment over at a gate that gets used at best once a day, and then you’ve either got to tow the plane back to the main terminal or have a flight crew taxi it.

*MKE is in the process of re-doing an existing terminal to incorporate C&I

[Omaha Cowboy]

Here is a more detailed listing of the busiest airports in the US for 2015. It may surprise some that Omaha is a busier airport (and maintains a Medium Hub ranking) over some cities "perceived" to be a bigger or more vibrant "International" airport...

http://www.faa.gov/airports/planning_ca ... ements.pdf

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[joleo]

Omaha to Houston - Hobby on Southwest was announced today. Daily nonstop starting in the middle of March!

Also Omaha to Phoenix on Southwest is 4x daily in March this year on Southwest, past years it has only been 2x daily, 3x daily at most a few odd years.

The Omaha air market continues to be strong.

I really want Southwest to start Omaha to MSP. Right now, only 55 people fly each way as was mentioned above but prices are horribly expensive. If Southwest were to start this, I would expect that 55 people to go to 200-250 people easy! It is a very short flight but it's a 6 hour drive having to go through Des Moines. There is no direct angled highway.

[Omababe]

Omaha to Houston - Hobby on Southwest was announced today. Daily nonstop starting in the middle of March!

Great news! Much nicer airport and real planes. No big-plane-little-plane roulette!

[NovakOmaha]

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.

Where did you get the pdew data? Could you post a link? Also, how does pdew differ from o/d? Thanks

[Omaha_corn_burner]

Omaha to Houston - Hobby on Southwest was announced today. Daily nonstop starting in the middle of March!

Great news! Much nicer airport and real planes. No big-plane-little-plane roulette!

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.

[Omababe]

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.

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.

Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.

[daveoma]

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.

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.

Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.

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.

[bigredmed]

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.

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.

Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.

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.

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.

[Mr.Nuke]

Where did you get the pdew data? Could you post a link? Also, how does pdew differ from o/d? Thanks

Last question first. PDEW is the common measure for O/D. PDEW= o/d

The PDEW data came from the Department of Transportation's Domestic Airline Consumer Airfare Reports here: https://www.transportation.gov/policy/a ... are-report

Tables 6 and 1A are of the most value for this exercise. 6 lists every city pair that averaged at least 10 passengers daily one-way and 1A breaks down city pairs into individual airports. So if we want to see how many passengers are going to/from Omaha to Chicago via O'Hare vs. Midway or to New York City via Newark vs. LaGuardia vs. JFK we can do so there. The passenger data on both charts is listed as one-way passenger trips per day. To convert to PDEW (passengers daily each way) that column needs to be divided by two. The only other thing to note is that Omaha may be listed in either the first or second city column so you need to look in both places.

[damonhynes]

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.

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.

Hobby is much closer to where I have to go and the new flight looks promising, depending on the schedule and price, of course.

I flew OMA-IAH back in 2010 and it was three 737s a day, including the new-plane-smell one I was on.

Wednesday 03 Aug, nothing but RJs. And my E170 leaving at 6PM was about 3/4ths full. :-(