The thread started by venture79 is getting pretty long, and hard to follow. Thought I'd start a new thread. Thanks venture for keeping that other thread going.

Changes this year to note:

American's OKC-LAX [Los Angeles] begins 4/5/11
Once daily service on Canadar Regional Jet CRJ-700

Delta's OKC-MSP [Minneapolis/St. Paul] increases to 4x daily flights in early-mid June
All 4 flights scheduled on Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-200
Delta's OKC-ATL [Atlanta] goes to 2x mainline flights per day, and 3x regional jet
2 mainline flights will be McDonnell Douglas MD-88, the 3 regional flights are scheduled with Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-900.
New flyokc.com website went live in early March
Airport Trust planning Commercial East Side Development Program
Mix of aviation, retail, and offices on the east side of the airport property near I-44/I-240 interchange.
Atlantic Aviation building hangar/FBO for Spring 2011 opening
New FBO [Fixed Base Operation -- providing services for general aviation and business aircraft] scheduled to open on the east side of the airport in late Spring 2011.
ARINC building new add-on hangar
Large hangar to compliment their existing hangar on the east side of the airport. Scheduled to open in June or July of 2011
United's OKC-LAX [Los Angeles] due to go to 1x flight daily in the fall
Most likely in response to American's add of OKC-LAX driving down passenger numbers on United. Good to see United keep the route. It was a strong performer last year. Also on Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-700.


Feel free to add things I may have forgotten. 2011 is likely to be a good year for OKC [Airport]. We are getting more attention than we have had in a while.

Its no biggy, but the airport shuttlles will be getting a new paint job soon

Thanks for the info, didn't know that. Are they going to a different logo or just going plain white?

Im not sure yet what it they will look like... So do you know when they will add more gates? the rumor run crazy here in the parking lot on when that will happen.. we hear that will be ina couple years blah blah blah, then in 4 years...

^Highly unlikely in the next two years, unless the passenger traffic increases at a high rate (as in going above 4 million/yr). The thing is, to begin with, there are four empty gates-1, 8, 11 and 12. And chances are once the UA and CO merger is fully completed, the new UA will likely consolidate operations to three gates from the current four (2 CO and 2 UA-> 3 UA). So that will leave one more gate open. Frontier's not doing too well at OKC, if it goes... you get the idea.

Hopefully any terminal expansion includes the ability for a business/frequent flyer lounge (or club) - but non-exclusive to an airline, and also at least 1 gate with the ability of handling international arrivals.

Not sure about any airline club, but I know for sure they plan it to have immigration.

Interesting analysis of ticket pricing and the most expensive (and inexpensive) airports. We make the list in the most-expensive list for mid-sized airports, paying about $57 more per flight than we should.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/which-airports-have-the-most-unfair-fares/

Ah,.. but the cost of living is so much less expensive in Oklahoma,....haven't you heard?

This was a good quote from that story...


Prices are higher the more the legacy airlines dominate an airport, but they also tend to be a bit higher where Southwest has a large share as opposed to other low-cost carriers like AirTran and JetBlue. (Southwest is cheap, but it isn’t quite as cheap as some of these up-and-coming airlines and now represents something of a middle ground.) Also, prices tend to be higher when any one airline dominates an airport, regardless of whether it is a legacy carrier or a low-cost one.

I'm sure this has a part to play here. Southwest is rarely the lowest on a route unless they are trying to force competition out. They are fairly dominant here, though the others do keep up. Unfortunately Frontier is pretty weak here, so they aren't able to force Southwest to stay low. AirTran would have been our best shot, but that's gone now. JetBlue is about all that is left since Allegiant won't touch us again.

http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/March%20Enplanementl.pdf

Not quite as good of percentage gain as the previous months, but the initial recovery spike occurred March 2010, so we are trying to beat numbers that skyrocketed, so a huge gain on top of a gain probably isn't going to happen. This is modest growth on top of good growth. This is good. Hopefully we can keep this trend going. Frontier's numbers look bad. But remember they aren't offering as many flights as they did last year, with Orlando and Tampa service. So they may still be filling the seats they are offering into OKC, but there's not as many offered seats as March 2010. So the numbers do look bad, but they probably aren't as bad as they appear.

http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/March%20Enplanementl.pdf

Not quite as good of percentage gain as the previous months, but the initial recovery spike occurred March 2010, so we are trying to beat numbers that skyrocketed, so a huge gain on top of a gain probably isn't going to happen. This is modest growth on top of good growth. This is good. Hopefully we can keep this trend going. Frontier's numbers look bad. But remember they aren't offering as many flights as they did last year, with Orlando and Tampa service. So they may still be filling the seats they are offering into OKC, but there's not as many offered seats as March 2010. So the numbers do look bad, but they probably aren't as bad as they appear.

Horribly simplistic math would put it around 48 passengers per flight based on those numbers. That is if they were doing 3 flights a day...noticed this week they are only doing 2 it seems. Is that what they had going in March?

Depends on the day. Sundays they have 2 ERJ170's and a Dash 8, Mon-Friday they had 2x flights through some of march, peak days with 3. So there's too many variables to put on that. April will be a little easier because right now it's 3x daily and a sub Dash 8 on Sundays.

Frontier Airlines has just come out with some new fee policies. I'm not sure if this is a desperation move or a good marketing strategy to try to compete more with Southwest.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20110413/ap_tr_ge/us_travel_brief_frontier_airlines_reducing_fees_1

Southwest is definitely out to kill them after they rejected the merger. Not sure what will happen though. They seem to be hanging in there except in markets extremely loyal to Southwest (OKC being one). Either way, Southwest is about to get extreme distracted folding in AirTran to really care much.

Okay, it is close enough to summer to say that the summer schedule uploads that occurred in March and April have stuck and are "firm" schedules. So, I'd like to take this opportunity to post what the air service will look like for Oklahoma this summer.

The reference date is July 20, 2011.

Codes are at the bottom of the file.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ApZAHW3DpIvFdDFPVTZ0RVROeF94anl4Vl9UZGFPR VE&hl=en&authkey=CKnco9gK

I would like to see OKC go above 100 permanently at some point. We'll have to wait till passenger numbers inrcrease though.

I am going to be making my first ever flight in late June.

I have booked a trip that starts with an early morning UA flight to ORD on an ERJ-145. I plan to make an appointment with one of the shuttle services to pick me up at home and take me to the airport.

I'm wondering what to expect.

Do UA ERJs load using a jetway or do you go down stairs and walk across the tarmac.

If this thread is not for specific questions and discussions about service details, just toss me off of the bus.

They load from a jetway at OKC. Depending on where you part at O'hare you'll either load from the ramp (the tarmac) or a jetbridge. Enjoy your flight, what's your final destination?

If everything goes according to plan: After a layover at O'Hare, I will be boarding another UA ERJ-145 for an early afternoon arrival at CAK (Akron-Canton Regional).

My recollections of Will Rogers World Airport date from when most carriers that had gates at the airport flew 727s: Braniff, American, Continental, and TWA. Central, which became Frontier, flew turboprop Convair 580s, if I recall correctly. Braniff flew my favorites, The Boeing 727-100 and the Lockheed L-188 Electra.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5269/5653518674_e412163409_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/39213183@N02/5653518674/)
1:200 Braniff International Boeing 727-100 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/39213183@N02/5653518674/) by woodyrr (http://www.flickr.com/people/39213183@N02/), on Flickr

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5023/5653518828_8654748865_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/39213183@N02/5653518828/)
1-200 Braniff International L-188 Electra (http://www.flickr.com/photos/39213183@N02/5653518828/) by woodyrr (http://www.flickr.com/people/39213183@N02/), on Flickr

Beginning July 14, Frontier will add a mainline flight into OKC from Denver, an Airbus A319.

With this, we can now say every airline in OKC has a mainline presence.

Beginning July 14, Frontier will add a mainline flight into OKC from Denver, an Airbus A319.

With this, we can now say every airline in OKC has a mainline presence.

Wow, surprising. Even with their decreasing numbers, they still add a flight. Very encouraging!

I live in Denver and SW is killling Frontier. What time of day?

Isn't Concourse C at DEN basically Delta/DL Conxn and Southwest now? I was out there last year in August, great airport.

I know it's fairly far off, but I just wanted some other opinions... How long do you think it will be before an airline adds an international route out of Will Rogers? Say maybe a tourist spot like Cancun. Or simply a route to Canada?

Cancun would have the greatest potential. As far as Canada goes, Calgary would probably be our best bet (the Canadian Houston, of the oil/energy industry). Devon also has a large Canadian, and specifically Calgary presence.

But, with that said, don't count on it tomorrow. We need integrated FIS at Will Rogers, which we don't have. The flight would need to stop at another airport to clear customs. I think Calgary might have pre-clearance. But I am not sure.

I know it's fairly far off, but I just wanted some other opinions... How long do you think it will be before an airline adds an international route out of Will Rogers? Say maybe a tourist spot like Cancun. Or simply a route to Canada?

OKC has had regular charter flights in the past to both Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. They had to be seasonal because the year round support just wasn't there. I would expect it would be at least 10 to 15 years before anything like that is considered again. As SkyWest mentioned, those flights were nonstop from OKC to Mexico but had to make a stop elsewhere for customs and immigration before coming back to OKC. Those kind of facilities absolutely have to be planned for in the next expansion at Will Rogers.

Destinations are going to be limited to those with US Customs pre-clearance. Right now I don't think CUN provides this, but most Canadian cities do. However, Canada is either going to be WestJet or Air Canada (the other airlines don't serve the US that much except for Porter which doesn't have the aircraft to reach OK). WestJet likely won't come to OKC anytime soon. Air Canada is the best chance, but they server the market over United Airlines thanks to the Star Alliance code-share.

We need the facilities to process international flights before we'll start to pick up nonstop flights to such destinations.

Porter's main goal is to cater to business travellers in the northeast region and regional connection to its Toronto City Center hub. I doubt it will ever go far from that business line, at least in the near term anyway. In the longer term, who knows. Southwest, again, is a great example.

Yeah, I think OKC's international venture should be focused on CUN for now. YYC is a possibility, but highly unlikely unless a profit is guaranteed. YYC does have Canadian pre-clearance though.

Porter's main goal is to cater to business travellers in the northeast region and regional connection to its Toronto City Center hub. I doubt it will ever go far from that business line, at least in the near term anyway. In the longer term, who knows. Southwest, again, is a great example.

Yeah, I think OKC's international venture should be focused on CUN for now. YYC is a possibility, but highly unlikely unless a profit is guaranteed. YYC does have Canadian pre-clearance though.

Right. Porter just isn't happening this far south. Plus the Q400s fit their model perfectly out of Toronto City Centre. I'm just not sure on any Canadian destination working when you can get up there pretty easily through Star or Oneworld airlines.

CUN probably would get the highest number of passengers, but it is going to be incredible seasonal and low yield. I would almost rather try to get Aeromexico Connect to MEX (Mexico City) to provide more options throughout the country and other Latin America connections. Again though, it can be argued existing airlines already take care of this. However, with the growing Hispanic population in OKC the opportunity may finally arrive to offer such service. It also helps Skyteam is the group Aeromexico is part of, which in the US is Delta. With no direct southward option from OKC (instead of a jog over to MEM or ATL) it might make it attractive. I just don't know if it would be enough to dedicated an Embraer 190 to the route since the ERJ-145 isn't going to have the legs to make it here.

OKC has had regular charter flights in the past to both Cancun and Puerto Vallarta. They had to be seasonal because the year round support just wasn't there. I would expect it would be at least 10 to 15 years before anything like that is considered again. As SkyWest mentioned, those flights were nonstop from OKC to Mexico but had to make a stop elsewhere for customs and immigration before coming back to OKC. Those kind of facilities absolutely have to be planned for in the next expansion at Will Rogers.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong or enlighten me - but aren't the next expansion plans more or less drawn up and they include some sort of customs area? The reason this isn't being built is funding/demand.

Maybe I dreamt all of this up.....

Someone please correct me if I am wrong or enlighten me - but aren't the next expansion plans more or less drawn up and they include some sort of customs area? The reason this isn't being built is funding/demand.

Maybe I dreamt all of this up.....

Phase III of the expansion is essentially the east concourse and the main terminal east side expansion. Back when this was announced, it never mentioned the inlusion of a sutoms facility, whether that has changed or not is not too clear.

Phase III of the expansion is essentially the east concourse and the main terminal east side expansion. Back when this was announced, it never mentioned the inlusion of a sutoms facility, whether that has changed or not is not too clear.

I've never seen any firm plans for the expansion but I believe that a customs and immigration area has at least been discussed and considered.

I've never seen any firm plans for the expansion but I believe that a customs and immigration area has at least been discussed and considered.

I've heard the same thing. It would be smart to add immigration during the next expansion; that way the airport will be ready if an international route is added down the road.

Pretty sure that integrated customs/immigration is in the plans for the east concourse. If not, they will be programmed for easy installation for when/if the need occurs.

http://www.flyokc.com/releases/UA%20Announces%20New%20OKC-SFO%20Service.pdf

Nice, finally here.

That is huge news Worthy Cook.

About time. Now to get Seattle, Miami, Charlotte, or Philadelphia. :-)

Great to see the addition, little disappointed it is on a regional jet though. What increase in passenger numbers would we have to see before larger plans begin flying into and out of OKC?

Great to see the addition, little disappointed it is on a regional jet though. What increase in passenger numbers would we have to see before larger plans begin flying into and out of OKC?

Increase in yield is the big thing. If they can get plenty of premium fares on the route, which will be possibly with the flights having the 3-class layout, then they will increase the aircraft size. However, if the flights get filled with too many low fare pax, they'll kill the route.

Increase in yield is the big thing. If they can get plenty of premium fares on the route, which will be possibly with the flights having the 3-class layout, then they will increase the aircraft size. However, if the flights get filled with too many low fare pax, they'll kill the route.

The size of the aircraft might increase, but it would still likely be a regional jet. The CRJ-700 is Skywest's biggest offering, and if yields did warrant more capacity, then we'd probably just see an increase in frequency on the same sized jet. Still, Skywest is a good regional carrier (in my opinion), and any new destinations are fantastic.

Great news for OKC.

Interesting to note that this was in fact an independent route addition, and not a batch addition. Meaning, this route wasn't part of a large expansion of SFO. For example, we gained our AA OKC-LAX because AA added about 13 or so routes all at the same time out of LAX. We just happened to have been one of those, and we probably would not have gained that service had they not done a batch. This was an independent addition, so that means there is growing interest in serving OKC. This year has been tremendous so far in airline additions.

Delta is adding capacity to MSP, and ATL is gaining a second mainline flight.
American just added OKC-LAX
Frontier is adding a mainline flight to DEN in July.
United is adding OKC-SFO.

Next up is Southwest, the only airline that hasn't added any capacity this year at OKC. We will most likely see them (or AirTran) add OKC-ATL late this year or sometime next year as the merger moves forward.

Again, great news for OKC!

Definitely good news.

Now, OKC has non-stop flight coverage to all of United's heritage US hubs: Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington Dulles.
That is 'at least' what I'd like to see, OKC having at least one daily non-stop to the hub airports for every airline that the city has service.
Hopefully, there can be an upgrade to mainline once the route becomes more mature (as I'd expect).

I'd really love to see a route schedule that has mainline service connecting United's cross-country hub via OKC (perhaps at a somewhat lower cost than non-stop coastal). The possible routing, IAD-OKC-SFO (begin early am EST), LAX-OKC-ORD (begin mid afternoon PST), ORD-OKC-LAX (begin mid afternoon CST), SFO-OKC-SFO (begin afternoon PST). Could be a good venture, offering seats to OKC (mainline hopefully) but also a more cost-effective pricing offering than nonstop between the coasts - allowing the nonstops to cator to business and the OKC connects to catch leisure and any cost conscious business. United is set up beautifully for this, and it could work using Airbus A319 aircraft (with break even at 80-88 pax) since it is basically an additional hub-to-hub flight (just stopping in OKC).

But this is great news and hopefully a great 'start' at inproving United's share of OKC.

http://newsok.com/united-adds-nonstop-flights-between-oklahoma-city-and-san-francisco/article/3566391?custom_click=headlines_widget

Growing bioscience sector in OKC helped persuade United to add nonstop between OKC and SFO.

I'd really love to see a route schedule that has mainline service connecting United's cross-country hub via OKC (perhaps at a somewhat lower cost than non-stop coastal). The possible routing, IAD-OKC-SFO (begin early am EST), LAX-OKC-ORD (begin mid afternoon PST), ORD-OKC-LAX (begin mid afternoon CST), SFO-OKC-SFO (begin afternoon PST). Could be a good venture, offering seats to OKC (mainline hopefully) but also a more cost-effective pricing offering than nonstop between the coasts - allowing the nonstops to cator to business and the OKC connects to catch leisure and any cost conscious business. United is set up beautifully for this, and it could work using Airbus A319 aircraft (with break even at 80-88 pax) since it is basically an additional hub-to-hub flight (just stopping in OKC).

Likely to never happen and I pray it doesn't as well. We do NOT want leisure and cost conscious people to be throw onto the seats going in and out of OKC. Yes passenger numbers are nice, but it would destroy yields and cause flights to become less (un-) profitably. Let's just be happy to have the spokes getting connected. Enjoy the high yield O&D traffic and leave the low fare junk revenue to the hubs. Granted, I'm sure there will be some who will try to do what you suggest but that will be limited to mainly just mile runners needing extra segments.

http://newsok.com/united-adds-nonstop-flights-between-oklahoma-city-and-san-francisco/article/3566391?custom_click=headlines_widget

Growing bioscience sector in OKC helped persuade United to add nonstop between OKC and SFO.

Oh, quick, maybe our legislature will ban more science experiments.

Oh, quick, maybe our legislature will ban more science experiments.

haha lol,come on!

http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/April%20Enplanement.pdf

Could be better...., not "bad" though.

I live in Denver and SW is killling Frontier. What time of day?

Sorry missed your post, the flight will leave Denver for OKC at 1045am arriving here at around 115pm. Departing here for Denver around 155pm. It will be on an Airbus A319. Also, the schedule update that got uploaded to the system on Saturday night moved the start date from the 14th to the 17th of July.

http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/April%20Enplanement.pdf

Could be better...., not "bad" though.

4% drop in passengers isn't bad, and still up 1% for the year. It would be nice if they got a bit more detailed in their report that other airports do. Posting load factors/seats offered would be a very nice help in figuring out exactly how airlines are performing.

They updated the map today:
http://flyokc.com/NonstopFlights.aspx

Posted yesterday:
http://www.flyokc.com/statistics/April%2011%20Activity.pdf

I'll have images of the new ARINC hangar and the new Atlantic Aviation FBO up tonight or tomorrow. Both are coming along nicely.

Does anyone know how the schedules work?

I have received my (hopefully) last itinerary change for a flight about a month away and none of the three flights show up on flightaware. The flight out of OKC is to DEN on UX (Skywest) 6217, but there is a GoJet flight (3611) in approximately that slot right now.

Regional contractors change pretty frequently. SkyWest is still operating 6217 in June.

Hey all, I am new so forgive me if this is in the wrong "discussion", but any idea why USAirways does not serve OKC? I would think with only 1 airline hitting the southeast (Delta) to the southeast, CLT could atleast serve 2 perhaps 3 flights a day?? Thoughts???

Can anyone tell me why USAir doesn't fly to OKC? I would think with Delta being the only airline flying n/s to the southeast, that USAir could support maybe 3 flights a day to CLT on an EMB...thoughts???

Can anyone tell me why USAir doesn't fly to OKC? I would think with Delta being the only airline flying n/s to the southeast, that USAir could support maybe 3 flights a day to CLT on an EMB...thoughts???

USAir was in OKC a couple of years ago after they merged with America West and then pulled out. I not opposed to it but CLT wouldn't benefit us much unless someone was flying there. They don't have much in the way of connections that we can't already get with other airlines (Delta would be the main competition in that area).

Can anyone tell me why USAir doesn't fly to OKC? I would think with Delta being the only airline flying n/s to the southeast, that USAir could support maybe 3 flights a day to CLT on an EMB...thoughts???

Well as you can tell by my avatar, I may be a bit partial to US. LOL They tried maintaining the old America West routes out of here to LAS and PHX, but Southwest destroyed them. CLT would be a great market for them out of here, tons of connecting opportunities, and an great low risk hub to fly through. Not to mention it also is a major banking hub and that never hurts. :)


USAir was in OKC a couple of years ago after they merged with America West and then pulled out. I not opposed to it but CLT wouldn't benefit us much unless someone was flying there. They don't have much in the way of connections that we can't already get with other airlines (Delta would be the main competition in that area).

The point would be to increase competition out of OKC. Right now direct to the southeast US we have...Delta. Until Southwest looks at adding ATL (once AirTran is fully integrated), Delta will continue to control that market. CLT has a much lower delay risk than ATL and will get you anywhere along the East Coast and Central America/Caribbean.

O&D might be the only concern for the route, but that could develop once the route is started. Should be decent though with a couple ERJ-170s a day.

Effective in November Southwest will reduce Houston Hobby from 4x daily to 3x through January (end of schedule). Most likely a seasonal draw-down.

CLT would be a great market for them out of here, tons of connecting opportunities, and an great low risk hub to fly through. Not to mention it also is a major banking hub and that never hurts. :)

Not to mention that USAir is a big business carrier here on the East Coast with hubs in Charlotte and Philadelphia and with good vacation access to Florida, the Caribbean, and Europe. They fly into 8 airports here in Florida.