Will Rogers World Airport

[Laramie]

Love that Freddy's is coming to WRWA. Nice to have a nice option with a full(er) menu (I like their product better than most similar concepts).

They're from Wichita so fairly close to being local ala Sonic. Good on them

Can't wait to sample some of their products. Have been trying to get away from the fast food crave and eat a variety of more healthy product options.

[SEMIweather]

Freddy's quality is definitely a step above fast food burgers but I wouldn't call it healthier lol

[Paule4ou]

We have pre-check but pre-Covid there were a few times the pre-check line had ~25-35 people in it. It was always better than the regular line. I still think Clear would be good to have, especially since we pay for it. Might as well be able to use it more places...

Just for comparison, Birmingham (AL) airport has Clear, and in 2019 they only had 3.09 million travelers, while OKC had 4.42 million. Surely an airport 43% larger than Clear's smallest airport could lure them?

Confirmed with the airport this week that Clear will not be part of the new security area when it opens. Bummer.

[Thomas Vu]

Can't wait to sample some of their products. Have been trying to get away from the fast food crave and eat a variety of more healthy product options.

Saltiest fries I've ever had, which at one time wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

[shawnw]

Haaaaave you had the fries at Wing Stop? Oy...

[HangryHippo]

Haaaaave you had the fries at Wing Stop? Oy...

Watch your mouth, Shawn, lol. Love me some Wingstop.

[Laramie]

Saltiest fries I've ever had, which at one time wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Thanks for the warning; my hypertension doesn't need to be tested or the Llisinopril. My high blood pressure has been in check for the last 10 years, so I'll pass on the french fries.

[brianinok]

Birmingham has some special business travel circumstances that might have pushed that Clear addition? They have (or had) a Delta 767 to Frankfurt for a while because of Mercedes Benz...

Not sure about the past, though I can't find anything Googling it, but their current flight options are more limited than OKC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmin...tional_Airport

[shawnw]

Watch your mouth, Shawn, lol. Love me some Wingstop.

I also love wing stop, just saying their fries are definitely the saltiest

[Thomas Vu]

Haaaaave you had the fries at Wing Stop? Oy...

Yup. Saliter than that. I also prefer the voodoo fries at wingstop which may mask the salt with other things.

[BG918]

Birmingham has some special business travel circumstances that might have pushed that Clear addition? They have (or had) a Delta 767 to Frankfurt for a while because of Mercedes Benz...

Maybe a charter but BHM has never had a scheduled non-stop trans-Atlantic flight

[LakeEffect]

Maybe a charter but BHM has never had a scheduled non-stop trans-Atlantic flight

Nope, not a charter, but also not a non-stop. It was a 767 that started at BHM, did a quick ATL stop (think of a like a Southwest flight where you stay on the plane) and then over to Germany. I saw it a few times in 2019 when I was doing work in Alabama.

[Bill Robertson]

A huge, 4 engine, 4 landing gear plane just landed at Will Rogers. All white with United States Of America on the sides. Any idea who or what?

[PoliSciGuy]

E4B Nightwatch, basically an airborne command post (or its more dire nickname "The Doomsday Plane"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4

They're based out of Offutt near Omaha, but do come down occasionally for touch and goes.

[Bill Robertson]

Ok. Thanks. I've worked right there for years and never seen it. Bad timing I guess. That's a big plane.

[shawnw]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CRZwEx7DX6u/

[BoulderSooner]

E4B Nightwatch, basically an airborne command post (or its more dire nickname "The Doomsday Plane"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_E-4

They're based out of Offutt near Omaha, but do come down occasionally for touch and goes.

it is the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP ) commonly called NE-Cap in air force circles ...

[OkiePoke]

It is supported by Boeing here, but based at Offutt.

[DelCamino]

For the WRWA staff who are members on this board -- is the timing for the opening of the concourse expansion still scheduled for later this month? Is it possible to see some updated photos of the project? Thanks.

[shawnw]

The governor posted something about seeing it upon his return from Azerbaijan. I just presumed that meant it was about done.

[gopokes14]

Pete,

Is there any timeline set to when the new restaurant and retail will be open at WRWA? Was there last weekend and only one food option was available with the entire cafeteria area, where Tucker's used to be, closed off.

[Anonymous.]

I was there 2 weeks ago and the new area looked basically finished construction-wise. However, none of the new TSA equipment or queue control was in place.

[Pete]

I believe everything has been delayed due to the crew at the airport being hit by Covid-19.

I'm trying to find out more.

[TheTravellers]

Well, that was a crappy experience...

As others have said, there are pathetic food/drink options.

Pedestrian tunnel was closed in Feb when we flew out and it's *still* closed, despite a published completion date of 2 months ago (per the airport website, and no updates to say "We're running behind, it's still closed").

Self-service parking payment kiosks were broken in Feb, and are *STILL* broken - absurd!

And lastly, getting out of parking was just f-ing ridiculous - took us almost 30 minutes!!! About 40 cars stacked up, 2 lanes were closed, 2 were human cashiers, and the two "automatic" payment lanes were just functioning extremely poorly - some cars took 5 minutes to get through, no human assistance except for one guy that came out once to do something. The car in front of us looked like they were doing everything right (it's not hard - put your ticket in, then put your card in and it says "approved" and the gate lifts), but the gate wouldn't lift (they did that dance about 12 times and it finally worked). It worked for us first time, but 2/3 of the other cars had to try multiple times to get them to work. Only thing that was decent about the airport itself was that there was nobody in the TSA line ahead of us when we left on Thu morning....

So a word of warning - do *NOT* go through the automatic payment lanes, not consistently reliable at all.

[ChaseDweller]

Got a communication that COVID-19 has really hit the construction crews hard and that has delayed the project.