Will Rogers World Airport

[warreng88]

On the money trail: Oklahoma City airport expansion plans progress | News OK

[gopokes88]

Three gates costs 72 million?

[catch22]

Three gates costs 72 million?

They are extending the terminal building by 3 bays, and have to build a small stub concourse to the east.

The gates themselves are cheap, but the building still costs money to build.

[gopokes88]

They are extending the terminal building by 3 bays, and have to build a small stub concourse to the east.

The gates themselves are cheap, but the building still costs money to build.

I was speaking more towards the fact that each gate is costing an average of $24 million, seems pretty high. Or would 6 cost 144 million? In other words seems like we aren't getting good economies of scale on the project. Especially since gate 2 is for lease.

[catch22]

Each gate does not cost $24 million. Expanding the terminal building (counter, baggage claim) by 20%, building an East Concourse connector, the initial infrastructure for the East Concourse, and 3 gates cost $75 million.

[Plutonic Panda]

Have you heard anything about the new signage? I haven't seen any movement on them.

Also, any updates on the tunnel?

[Snowman]

I was speaking more towards the fact that each gate is costing an average of $24 million, seems pretty high. Or would 6 cost 144 million? In other words seems like we aren't getting good economies of scale on the project. Especially since gate 2 is for lease.

At this point those gates are as much making it easier to extend it to roughly the same number as the west wing as it is having the three gates, the main driver for building it is the other work to the terminal and cargo handling areas not the gates themselves.

[warreng88]

And isn't the expansion going to be set up for an easy six gate expansion?

[Just the facts]

There are some renderings and pictures of construction photos on the MOT Facebook page.
Facebook - Minot International Airport

Very nice.

[soondoc]

How many gates will the new east concourse be able to hold? I know they are building 3 right now, but do they have plans for increasing it to say 10-12 in the future?

[bchris02]

I think one of our biggest issues is how close we are to Dallas which has nonstop flights to most major cities in the world. Then, you have Houston which is the same way. So, from basically anywhere in the world, you can have a connecting flight of hour away to get to OKC. Why would an airline expand into OKC when they can increase their number of flights to larger cities?

I disagree. I don't think distance between airports has as much to do with it as market size and demand.

Charlotte is roughly the same distance from Atlanta as OKC is from Dallas and CLT has a significant hub. It's also a major banking capital with 2.4 million in the metro area now so there is demand for the flights that are there. I agree with hoyasooner that the flights will come as the city grows and diversifies. In today's day and age, a major airline isn't going to be putting a hub in OKC. To increase the availability of flights here there will have to be an increase in real demand for them.

If anything hurts OKC's airport, its the fact regional cities such as Tulsa and Wichita all have their own service and virtually none of the smaller regional airports (Lawton, Ft Smith, XNA) feed into OKC at all. Virtually nobody from or doing business outside the metro area has any reason to use WRWA.

[ljbab728]

How many gates will the new east concourse be able to hold? I know they are building 3 right now, but do they have plans for increasing it to say 10-12 in the future?

This will give you complete details about current and future expansion plans.

http://www.flyokc.com/projects/04181...acket-rev3.pdf

[venture]

I disagree. I don't think distance between airports has as much to do with it as market size and demand.

Charlotte is roughly the same distance from Atlanta as OKC is from Dallas and CLT has a significant hub. It's also a major banking capital with 2.4 million in the metro area now so there is demand for the flights that are there. I agree with hoyasooner that the flights will come as the city grows and diversifies. In today's day and age, a major airline isn't going to be putting a hub in OKC. To increase the availability of flights here there will have to be an increase in real demand for them.

Exactly. O&D has to increase for more flights to come here.

If anything hurts OKC's airport, its the fact regional cities such as Tulsa and Wichita all have their own service and virtually none of the smaller regional airports (Lawton, Ft Smith, XNA) feed into OKC at all. Virtually nobody from or doing business outside the metro area has any reason to use WRWA.

Tulsa really isn't that much smaller Chris. I wouldn't call them a "regional" market in the same light as Lawton. Their impact on OKC's service isn't really that great. We are still talking 2-3 hour drives to those airports, at the most you are losing fair weather flyers chasing low fares. And now...none of LAW, FSM, SPS, or XNA feed into OKC and they shouldn't. There is probably near zero O&D on any of those routes. However, if you think people from Lawton and Wichita Falls don't drive here to fly - you are mistaken. OKC probably pulls from a much larger area geographically than airports back east. Of course east of Mississippi the population density increases some, but you still have plenty of cities smaller than OKC with service all while being much closer to other airports with service.

[bchris02]

Tulsa really isn't that much smaller Chris. I wouldn't call them a "regional" market in the same light as Lawton. Their impact on OKC's service isn't really that great. We are still talking 2-3 hour drives to those airports, at the most you are losing fair weather flyers chasing low fares. And now...none of LAW, FSM, SPS, or XNA feed into OKC and they shouldn't. There is probably near zero O&D on any of those routes. However, if you think people from Lawton and Wichita Falls don't drive here to fly - you are mistaken. OKC probably pulls from a much larger area geographically than airports back east. Of course east of Mississippi the population density increases some, but you still have plenty of cities smaller than OKC with service all while being much closer to other airports with service.

A lot of smaller cities back east have regional airports that are much smaller than a similar-sized city in this part of the country. Augusta, GA for instance has two flights, one to Atlanta and one to Charlotte. If you fly out of Augusta you have to connect through one of those cities. Augusta is the same size as Little Rock, which has Clinton National Airport. That airport is almost as large as WRWA.

Why couldn't smaller regional airports in places like Ft Smith, NW Arkansas, Amarillo, etc connect through OKC as an alternative to going through DFW? That would increase demand here for more flights to more places.

[jn1780]

A lot of smaller cities back east have regional airports that are much smaller than a similar-sized city in this part of the country. Augusta, GA for instance has two flights, one to Atlanta and one to Charlotte. If you fly out of Augusta you have to connect through one of those cities. Augusta is the same size as Little Rock, which has Clinton National Airport. That airport is almost as large as WRWA.

Why couldn't smaller regional airports in places like Ft Smith, NW Arkansas, Amarillo, etc connect through OKC as an alternative to going through DFW? That would increase demand here for more flights to more places.

Why would the airlines want to do that when they already have most of the flights connecting through DFW?

[no1cub17]

A lot of smaller cities back east have regional airports that are much smaller than a similar-sized city in this part of the country. Augusta, GA for instance has two flights, one to Atlanta and one to Charlotte. If you fly out of Augusta you have to connect through one of those cities. Augusta is the same size as Little Rock, which has Clinton National Airport. That airport is almost as large as WRWA.

Why couldn't smaller regional airports in places like Ft Smith, NW Arkansas, Amarillo, etc connect through OKC as an alternative to going through DFW? That would increase demand here for more flights to more places.

Yeah that last part makes no sense. Connect through OKC? OKC isn't a hub - DFW just a 30 minute hop from us is one of the airline industry's most formidable megahubs. For better or worse, OKC will never come close to being a DFW, ATL, or ORD.

[bombermwc]

And isn't the expansion going to be set up for an easy six gate expansion?

Like jibjab showed with the drawing, the FINAL version is for 9 gates. It's a phased approach as the gates are leased out. The first three are so much more expensive because of all of the infrastructure work required to get them built (including demo of the existing cargo area...and it's move). Then, it's a much more simple task to just stick a few more gates on the end, so the remaining 6 gates will be far less expensive to add than the first 3.

Remember, this is about LEASED space, not traffic in/out of a gate at any time. Some gates might sit empty most of the day, but it doesn't mean the airport isn't making money off of them.


bchris - if you lived in TUL or Witchita, would you want to give up a 20 minute drive to an airport for a 2 hour drive? TUL is really about the same size as OKC and connects to a lot of the same places. You can't really count them out like that. And Lawton is 90% Ft Sill traffic....and mostly to DFW. Like JN said, if they're already going to DFW, why would they want to go to OKC? Lawton, for example, is basically all AA flights, going to DFW as the hub. It wouldn't make any sense to go to OKC and then have to hop to DFW....and don't think for a minute that OKC is going to have the options directly out of OKC that DFW has....ever. We lost that hub bid decades ago, and I'm not really that sad about that.

[Just the facts]

I think another reason OKC has limited direct flights is because the major industry in Oklahoma is oil - and when those people fly for business their destinations are Denver, Dallas, and Houston, which also happen to be hubs. That is a win-win for the airlines because their leisure and business travels are going to the same place.

[warreng88]

I disagree. I don't think distance between airports has as much to do with it as market size and demand.

Charlotte is roughly the same distance from Atlanta as OKC is from Dallas and CLT has a significant hub. It's also a major banking capital with 2.4 million in the metro area now so there is demand for the flights that are there. I agree with hoyasooner that the flights will come as the city grows and diversifies. In today's day and age, a major airline isn't going to be putting a hub in OKC. To increase the availability of flights here there will have to be an increase in real demand for them.

If anything hurts OKC's airport, its the fact regional cities such as Tulsa and Wichita all have their own service and virtually none of the smaller regional airports (Lawton, Ft Smith, XNA) feed into OKC at all. Virtually nobody from or doing business outside the metro area has any reason to use WRWA.

Fair enough. You are a lot closer to this than I am, so you should know. Do you think we will see more direct flights or possibly become a place where we aren't just the end or the beginning destination if we keep growing? I don't think we will get to hub status for a long time and I am ok with that. I would just like to see more direct flights than we already have.

[venture]

Fair enough. You are a lot closer to this than I am, so you should know. Do you think we will see more direct flights or possibly become a place where we aren't just the end or the beginning destination if we keep growing? I don't think we will get to hub status for a long time and I am ok with that. I would just like to see more direct flights than we already have.

I'm not really sure you are addressing the question to the right person, I wouldn't really considering bchris close to this at all based on past comments.

With that said, you won't see OKC used as a connecting point for much more than what currently happens with Southwest flights and some of the other airlines. Airlines still demand some O&D pax on a route segment with a large percentage of connecting traffic. Once some newer market data comes out, I'll start revisiting it and bringing those numbers up for discussion.

[catch22]

Market growth will come from increasing aircraft size and frequency to the hubs. There may be Point to point via Southwest at some point, but likely we will just see better service to the hubs.

You won't see United start OKC-SAN, you won't see AA start OKC-AUS, you won't see DL start OKC-PDX, you won't see WN start OKC-BOS. Southwest is moving away from point to point, slowly.

However, you will see multi-daily flights to existing hubs that are single daily, you will see larger aircraft, and we may see growth into a few new markets. OKC-MIA and OKC-PHL seem like likely mid range candidates for service. OKC-Aus or SAT on WN could happen someday. Someone may enter the LGA-OKC market some day. JetBlue or Spirit may enter the market if we keep growing and they keep growing.

But we will never have a huge connecting operation. We will never have point to point service on legacy carriers to non hub airports. Even large stations such as AUS don't have legacy carriers running point to point service. It's all through the hubs.

[OUman]

Even large stations such as AUS don't have legacy carriers running point to point service. It's all through the hubs.

Except that now AUS has over 150 daily flights to 41 cities, not to mention carriers like WN and UA providing near-daily/daily nonstops to Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, and BA's daily to Heathrow (and coming soon, Air Canada Express daily to Toronto). And having over 10.7 million passengers in 2014 pass throgh your terminal helps in a big way too. AUS keeps scoring new cities and more flights on existing routes. It definitely helps to have a big business traveller base (and large functions that bring in thousands of visitors each year). Would be nice to have half that here.

[catch22]

Except that now AUS has over 150 daily flights to 41 cities, not to mention carriers like WN and UA providing near-daily/daily nonstops to Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, and BA's daily to Heathrow (and coming soon, Air Canada Express daily to Toronto). And having over 10.7 million passengers in 2014 pass throgh your terminal helps in a big way too. AUS keeps scoring new cities and more flights on existing routes. It definitely helps to have a big business traveller base (and large functions that bring in thousands of visitors each year). Would be nice to have half that here.

I'm not sure what you are attempting to argue... Legacy carriers are still not running point to point out of AUS other than some Mexico leisure routes. Most of AUS service is hourly or twice-hourly service to Dallas and Houston, a ton of flights to Atlanta and Chicago, a ton of flights to LAX and SFO.

[tfvc.org]

Have you heard anything about the new signage? I haven't seen any movement on them.

Also, any updates on the tunnel?

Pete mentioned a few pages ago that the tunnel has a lot of behind the scenes work to be done first before you see any work done inside the tunnel. That stuff will be done last.

[OUman]

I'm not sure what you are attempting to argue... Legacy carriers are still not running point to point out of AUS other than some Mexico leisure routes. Most of AUS service is hourly or twice-hourly service to Dallas and Houston, a ton of flights to Atlanta and Chicago, a ton of flights to LAX and SFO.

Not arguing anything, just making a general point. And Austin certainly has multiple daily flights to the New York City/Newark airports as well, plus fairly decent service to multiple cities on both coasts.

As for legacy cariers running point-to-point, I don't think they do that any longer in any market, big or small, save for a few oddball routes like United's Micronesia island hopper flights.