2020 Oklahoma City Aviation Thread

[catch22]

Clearly it's dropped...

Schedules are erratic right now. I would expect some of these to return when things begin to return to normal.

[Plutonic Panda]

Clearly it's dropped...

Schedules are erratic right now. I would expect some of these to return when things begin to return to normal.

Catch, sorry if you have answered this before, but do you have any idea on when things will even start returning to normal?

[catch22]

If I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be a baggage handler. My best guess, things will remain as-is for the next 6-9 months. If a vaccine is approved businesses may begin traveling again. Business traffic pays the bills, so until then the airlines will be inconsistent in scheduling as they all chase a very small percentage of low-yield leisure traffic. No one will be making money, they are all racing around trying to lose the least amount of money. 2022 I would imagine things beginning to look "stable". 2025 to return to 2019 levels. just guesses.

[gopokes88]

If I knew the answer to that I wouldn't be a baggage handler. My best guess, things will remain as-is for the next 6-9 months. If a vaccine is approved businesses may begin traveling again. Business traffic pays the bills, so until then the airlines will be inconsistent in scheduling as they all chase a very small percentage of low-yield leisure traffic. No one will be making money, they are all racing around trying to lose the least amount of money. 2022 I would imagine things beginning to look "stable". 2025 to return to 2019 levels. just guesses.

I’d bet it’s a like quicker than that but still not till 2023.

Growth is returning, but at a snails pace. Vaccine gets us to 70-80%. The last 80-100% will take a couple years.

[Celebrator]

WN suspended BWI too, now. So there are no nonstop options east of CLT for the time being. Weird times.

[PistolChad]

Most of my flying is international. While a small portion of overall flying is international, we are literally blocked from going to very many places. Once governments get out of the way, we will be back flying internationally ASAP. So nothing can return to normal until we can actually fly where we want to go. Once that happens I think you will see international travel rebound back closer to pre-COVID numbers even faster than domestic. In my experience international travelers are willing to accept greater risk than purely domestic travelers. Foreigners will flock back to traveling to the USA very quickly as well.

[Plutonic Panda]

This isn’t Oklahoma City specifically but some good news for airports around the state:

https://okcfox.com/news/local/16m-in...cross-oklahoma

[gopokes88]

August is up. Clearly off the bottom. Slow growth.

https://flyokc.com/sites/default/fil...nplanement.pdf

[damonsmuz]

I flew for the first time since the Pandemic started this weekend from OKC-CLT (and back) on AA. It was a weird experience. Walking through Will Rogers and seeing restaurants closed and it looks like Cool Greens was taken out. All signs had been removed.

The flight itself. The boarding announcements hit the need to wear a mask hard and AA handed out sanitizing wipes as we came onboard. CLT was packed when we got in. Almost looked pre-Pandemic. But, everyone had on masks.

The flight was about 90% full going out on Friday in a CRJ-900 and about 80% full coming back on a CRJ-900. (I also flew CLT-RDU) on a 737 which was 100% full.

Just posting for those that are curious as to how things are.

Did I feel safe? Yes. I did. But, it was because of my actions mostly. I wore a thicker mask with a thicker filter. I didn't bump into people and kept my distance. I used more hand sanitizer than I normally would. I put my mask on as I stepped foot into OKC Airport and did not take it off once while in-flight, at Charlotte Airport or even on my flight to RDU. I didn't take it off until I got out of RDU airport. I used hand sanitizer before I removed it so that I didn't touch my face until my hands were clean.

[Bill Robertson]

Just judging by traffic on Meridian I can estimate that aviation traffic is still a fraction of pre covid. I go to/from our two facilities on Meridian just N of the airport and on Air Cargo road a few times a day. Pre covid it was a major PIA to get on Meridian almost any time of the working day. I can still almost not even look and turn left on to Meridian 90% of the time.

[Edmond Hausfrau]

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/10/06/...mpression=true
Southwest with possible paycuts in lieu of furlough.

[catch22]

Maybe I knew this and forgot, or maybe I didn't know this and just found. Crazy year. UA is only operating 2 flights a day in OKC right now. 737 to IAH and 1 E175 to DEN. Pretty depressing.

[PaddyShack]

Maybe I knew this and forgot, or maybe I didn't know this and just found. Crazy year. UA is only operating 2 flights a day in OKC right now. 737 to IAH and 1 E175 to DEN. Pretty depressing.

That is astounding

[catch22]

It was pointed out to me there were in fact other flights. There must have been a bug in UA's internal metric software last night when I was checking. Because of how strange that seemed, I checked around and several other stations in OKC's group were only showing 1 flight to IAH and 1 flight to DEN. I checked again this morning and it is showing the other flights.

8 a day right now.

3x IAH
2x DEN
2x ORD

Not sure why the system wasn't displaying everything. Sorry!

[brianinok]

I just need the AA flight(s) to LAX to return by next summer. Those figure heavily in my travel plans for next summer and fall, assuming we have a Covid-19 vaccine by then. I think everything else I need is still operating. No travel until then unfortunately.

[Celebrator]

Fun to watch a huge (for us anyway) UA 773 on final this morning over NW OKC. It looks like it was a cargo flight operating from EWR. Any one know anything about this? Scheduled to depart for RIC soon here. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N2136U
Definitely an unusual visitor and routing but nice to see something different in our skies from time to time.

[catch22]

2580 EWR OKC arrived empty, ferry
2572 OKC RIC charter
2581 RIC ORD empty, ferry.

[sooner333]

2580 EWR OKC arrived empty, ferry
2572 OKC RIC charter
2581 RIC ORD empty, ferry.

Seems like an odd charter pair. Can’t think of anything obvious (such as a sports event).

[catch22]

now that is has landed in RIC, i can say it's a military charter

[gopokes88]

https://flyokc.com/sites/default/fil...nplanement.pdf

Basically flat the last 3 months.

[Celebrator]

now that is has landed in RIC, i can say it's a military charter

Interesting, thanks for the info.

[Ward]

Probably a lot of soldiers from Fort Sill needing to get somewhere soon.

[Richard at Remax]

Fun to watch a huge (for us anyway) UA 773 on final this morning over NW OKC. It looks like it was a cargo flight operating from EWR. Any one know anything about this? Scheduled to depart for RIC soon here. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N2136U
Definitely an unusual visitor and routing but nice to see something different in our skies from time to time.

I was wondering what this was. I live near 150th and Western and saw it to my NW. It was MASSIVE.

[BG918]

Southwest Airlines to start service in 2022 at COS (Colorado Springs). It will be interesting to see if this means COS-OKC/TUL is a possibility. Western Pacific Airlines used to fly to COS in the 90's and the last airline to do it was the failed Great Plains Airlines which ran a triangle route TUL-OKC-COS-TUL that ended in 2004. My guess is they start with DEN, PHX, LAS, DAL, HOU and maybe MCI or STL.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/10/...-springs-2021/

[catch22]

Close to 0% chance.