urbanMSP

Pretty sure the taxiways are part of the 2020 plan when they are intending to move the Glumack Drive interchange between the concourses, and I assume they would just sacrifice 6 or 8 A gates for this connection. A/B opened in 2002 and was planned at the height of the RJ boom, but it seems like there's been a lot of slack in those two concourses recently. I don't think the gates can even handle anything bigger than a CRJ-200 side by side due to wingspan.

From the Star Tribune on December 31st:

Francophiles and sun lovers take note. In May, Air France will join Delta Airlines in providing direct flights from here to Paris. Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Airports Commission hopes to regain direct flights to Honolulu by offering incentives to any airline that flies the route. According to the 2013 travel trends survey by Plymouth-based Travel Leaders, Maui, Honolulu and Kauai are among the top 10 domestic destinations for Minnesotans.

Terminal 1 will get an expanded international arrivals area, porter service and grab-and-go food at baggage claim. Flyers will be able to find the quickest security line by phone or on the MSP website. In Terminal 2, the auto rental facilities will expand, and new food options will be Surdyks Flights, Subway, Cocina del Barrio and Caribou Coffee. Hogan said the moves are in part "to make way for Jet Blue, should we ever be able to attract them here."

Would be a great year if we gained JetBlue and Hawaiian in addition to Air France.

Two questions:
1. Don't we already have direct service to Hawaii? I've been there from MSP before (a while ago now) and the flight was direct.
2. Why WOULDN'T Jet Blue want to have operations here? Isn't this THE market to have Ops out of, since carriers can charge close to what Delta is charging (i.e. way too much)?

Two questions:
1. Don't we already have direct service to Hawaii? I've been there from MSP before (a while ago now) and the flight was direct.

Not for the last 2 years, give or take.

I think we have had "direct" service the past two years, but we have not had "non stop" service since whenever delta dropped the flight. I think the latter is what the MAC is going for.

Correct. Newspapers and airlines do not mean the same thing when they say "direct."

I meant non-stop.

Delta canceled the Northwest legacy flight to Honolulu a few years back, after first making it less than daily (3 days a week it was sent to Detroit instead). Hard to say whether it was unprofitable, or they just felt they could make more money with the A330 on another route. There are also just more options to connect to Hawaii since the merger, as MSP was the farthest west hub for Northwest. Here is a long thread discussing the possibility of service to Hawaii on airliners.net:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... n/5648403/

In airline parlance, direct means you don't have to change planes, but there may be a stop. This is of course different to the general use of the word to mean "non-stop". Some Delta flights to the west coast continue on to Hawaii. On one flight I took to Seattle, while approaching in the rain, the flight attendant announced our descent into Honolulu. There were chuckles throughout the plane, but the flight attendant never corrected himself

I'm at the airport right now and there is a westjet flight to montreal leaving at 330. What's the deal with this? Charter? Id love to see westjet star flying here.

A quick look at the WestJet website indicates that all of their flights out of Minneapolis are code shares with Delta and are flown by Pinnacle DBA Delta Connection.

Bummer! Was hoping to see some westjet metal sometime soon. Just a whole lot of Delta today with the only exception being a frontier a320. Maybe ill get lucky here in denver waiting for my next flight.

Given the MSP 2020 expansion, do you think Delta is going to divert a couple Asian and European non-stop flights from Detroit over to MSP since they are planning to build a new international facility in the next few years or so? I know Detroit is Delta's 2nd largest hub but wouldn't Minneapolis be a more desirable market for non-stop flights to places like Frankfurt and Seoul as long as we have the available facilities? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I am just a little curious on the matter. Overall though it seems that regaining non-stop service to Honolulu is probably more important at this time.

There's a reason Detroit is the current Int'l hub, and although I'm not 100% sure why, I think it has a lot to do with Detroit's auto-centric nature and the level of international exposure that comes with it.

But I agree, there should be more. There should probably be London, Paris, Hawaii, Tokyo, Beijing/Shanghai/Hong Kong, Frankfurt/Berlin, Amsterdam, Milan/Rome and Seoul.

There are a few reasons DTW got more of the international flights. First, NW built a nice dedicated terminal. Second, it has shorter distances from many midwest/mid-south cities to Europe, and less backtracking east coast to Europe. I would have thought MSP would have had geographical advantages to be a transpac hub, but DTW had the auto traffic to Japan and now SEA has emerged as the secondary transpac gateway (with feed via Alaska). I don't imagine DTW expanding much, especially since Delta can now route passengers to Europe via JFK and Atlanta for one stop routings to secondary European markets. These two will probably be the first contenders for these secondary European markets, but then after that I think MSP would have just as much appeal as DTW. MSP should easily be able to get FRA, and hopefully pick up slack from DTW and SEA for transpacs down the road. A ICN/Korean flight would make sense due to their nearly-joint venture via Seoul.

I guess I wasn't thinking about the auto industry at all, but that does make a lot of sense that Detroit is an international hub given that industry. I was just thinking on a overall economic scale (based on the strong corporate presence given the number of Fortune 500's in the cities) and the international expansion of those corporations based in MN might make turn MSP into a stronger international hub for the Midwest within the next few years. On Wikipedia, it says we did have DC-10 service to Oslo (for Scandinavian relatives? ) and Frankfurt back in 1998, along with 747-400's going to Osaka and Hong Kong but the services were all as shortlived as the Tokyo-SLC flights discussed earlier in this thread. Maybe non-stop flights to Frankfurt are not thought of since AMS can be used as a short stopover, given that is the most frequent and busiest international route out of MSP.

I can't see Hong Kong coming back (probably easier just with a stopover at O'Hare, SFO, or LAX), along with Osaka (Narita is probably good enough). I could see at least one Chinese non-stop flight from either Shanghai or Beijing, one Korean flight (Seoul-Incheon of course), and one more European city like Frankfurt within the next 5-10 years at MSP. Maybe a seasonal flight (summer) to Rome, and Oslo I have no clue about.

Something about airports/airlines/routing is just so interesting. I wish there was some equivalent of Railroad Tycoon II for air travel. They made those Airport Tycoon games, but those were crummy.

Something about airports/airlines/routing is just so interesting. I wish there was some equivalent of Railroad Tycoon II for air travel. They made those Airport Tycoon games, but those were crummy.

I already spent many hours throughout the past 10 years playing SimCity 4, I don't know if I could handle another addicting sim-building game . Maybe in the new SimCity, they could have their airport system set up so you can fly to destinations like your friend's cities in other regions, and then expand the facilities based on demand. It could work well since it does require an internet connection to play.

I think I've posted this before. It's from the DOS era and still has an active developer base. Some might say a cult following. Takes a little bit of work to set up but it's a classic

Open Transportation Tycoon Deluxe

Allows for routing Planes, Trains, and Automobiles all in one game.

Spirit will be starting seasonal service to Denver in April. That brings the total number of airlines flying non-stop to DEN up to 5. Delta, United, Southwest, Frontier and now Spirit. Should make flying out to Colorado even cheaper

Edit: Forgot to mention they will also start service to Dallas (DFW) in early April as well.

I noticed tonight while on 35W heading south of downtown (about 42nd or 46th street) that the sign on the freeway indicating to follow MN 62 East for the airport had a change to say "MSP Airport" instead of "Int'l Airport".

What a waste of money and time for MnDOT to place a green patch over "Int'l" to place "MSP" over it. The sign would have been new when the new Crosstown Commons opened, so it's not that old at all.

I just think it's wasteful and silly since we really only have one major airport. Is this just the stupid re-branding of MSP with the whole "Terminal 1" and "Terminal 2" rebranding?