Great Plains International Airport

[no1cub17]

Does any businessman want to take a 30 min train ride to catch a flight? (Besides you)

I don't think that the ride in itself is the issue - as JTF explains, all over the world it's the norm. Narita is still a cool one hour from most parts of Tokyo, even longer at times. HKG is 25 minutes from Central Hong Kong. Milan Malpensa is about the same. Singapore's CBD is 20-25 minutes from Changi via MRT. So in the proper context, there's no issue with riding a comfortable express train 30-40 minutes to the airport.

The issue is the massive paradigm shift that would be required to make such a system viable here. I think it's safe to say that OKC will never be as dense and transit oriented as Tokyo, Hong Kong, or Singapore - so such a system here is sadly a non-starter. Though I have to say - in-town check-in at the station is incredible. Saves an unbelievable amount of hassle when you travel with as much stuff as we do!

[zachj7]

The furthest cities in the US that share an airport might be SeaTac? DFW, Minneapolis St Paul, and a few others. 100+ miles between cities is too far. Airports want to be as close to the financial district as possible. It's all about business. If Wichita, Tulsa, and OKC were about 50-60 miles away from each other in a triangle, then there might be some possibility.

[hoya]

I'm not an expert on the airline business by any means, but I'd say there are probably 50 different things that OKC can do to improve our air travel options. If we do enough of them, in 30 years we could be a hub.

-Establish a functional and popular metro-wide light rail system
-Connect Will Rogers to it
-Connect all major entertainment attractions in city to it
-Get 3-5 more Fortune 500 companies HQs here
-Major expanded presence by Boeing and GE
-Successfully develop Core 2 Shore and Producers Co-Op into thriving urban areas with Deep Deuce-plus density
-4 Thunder NBA championships
-Highway beautification within the city limits
-A dozen 300+ ft residential towers
-Completed AICC
-A new Smithsonian-level science museum to replace the Omniplex
-A major salt water aquarium
-Solidify the city as a solid tier 2 convention city
-Host a yearly major tourist-oriented convention like Comic-Con
-Make Stockyard City into a Western-themed tourist friendly area with restaurants and live entertainment
-Increase undergrad enrollment at OU to 40,000 while retaining high enrollment standards
-A dozen different nationally ranked top 10 educational fields at OU
-HSR to Dallas and Tulsa
-Pandas at the OKC Zoo
-Extensive nationwide tourist-y marketing campaign
-NFL team
-Space Needle/Gateway Arch type tall building attraction
-Austin-level population growth from 2020 to 2040


That's 23 things right there, and yes, it's mostly a wishlist of stuff I want. And many of those would be quite difficult to pull off. Making OU competitive with the University of Michigan in academics and enrollment is a major league task. Some of the things are completely out of our hands, like the population growth. But my point really is that by making the city a better place, a more exciting place, increased air traffic will follow. OKC people need to travel to other cities more often, which will happen more as we get more transplants here and as we have more disposable income. And people from around the country need more reasons to come here to visit, which will happen as we have more transplants and more things to do.

[no1cub17]

I think HSR to Dallas would hurt - not help - our air service.

[hoya]

I think it would improve our economy more than it would decrease our air travel. It's about making the city more important and more influential.

[Rover]

So if WRWA was to double the number of passengers is the consesus then that OKC would not get more frequent service, nor more direct cities, nor lower fares, but only larger aircraft?

If that is the case then tell me again why people shouldn't drive to DFW.

Also, I am pary of the OKC business community and am not a recreational travler, so the ' business community won't support it' comment isn't true.

Sometimes people SHOULD drive to DFW. I've never found it convenient or worth the price, but I know some people who do. Of course, I know some people that will drive 25 miles to find a gas station selling gas 5 cents a gallon less too. When you realize that people have all kinds of reasons for doing what they do and quit trying to make everyone do the same thing the same way then one has a better understanding of capitalism and marketing.

Frankly, I like and have always been served well by being able to be at WWWA in 15-30 minutes and speed through to my flight. Much rather do that than take 15-30 min to drag bags to a train station, take the train 30 min or hr. to an airport, then still take 15-40 min to clear in a much more crowded airport. When I board here at the airport I don't need to clear again at my hub airport. I don't have to schlepp bags from train (or plane) to plane. It is easy.

[Just the facts]

I think HSR to Dallas would hurt - not help - our air service.

If it happened there would be almost no reason to keep WRWA open, but OKC would have better transportation service. Let that sink in for a little bit.

[Rover]

I think it would improve our economy more than it would decrease our air travel. It's about making the city more important and more influential.

That's great...if you want to be isolationist in business, which usually doesn't work well.

[Rover]

If it happened there would be almost no reason to keep WRWA open, but OKC would have better transportation service. Let that sink in for a little bit.

We have history to show that wouldn't happen. There are both HSR and regional airports all over Europe. They work together, not to close one or the other. I am not sure where you get this absolutism as truth for everything. Get our of your theoretical world and realize how the world REALLY works.

[Rover]

I think HSR to Dallas would hurt - not help - our air service.

HSR would work both ways. OKC could market a more efficient, easier and less crowded airport. Likely all those in north Texas would have a choice they don't believe they have. And, we might pick up from Northern OK and southern Kansas who would HSR to OKC vs. Wichita or Tulsa. Why suppose the railroad only works one way...going south.

[Just the facts]

That's great...if you want to be isolationist in business, which usually doesn't work well.

How would getting people to more destinations, cheaper, and faster be isolationist? Look at it in the inverse, if we already had HSR to DFW and there was a proposal to close it and build a local airport, with far few direct flights and higher prices would that make sense to do?

[Just the facts]

Some of you are really missing how this works. I must be doing a poor job of explaining it because so far every objection has zero to do with what I suggested.

[Rover]

I guess you assume no cost of the rail...and no time. Your picture always leaves out what you don't want to consider.

Reducing air to OKC would be isolationist and bad for business. ADDING HSR would be good for business. We need both. The market will sort out the balance if true costs are represented in the prices to use both.

[no1cub17]

I think it would improve our economy more than it would decrease our air travel. It's about making the city more important and more influential.

Certainly that's a possibility - my question is - is there a business case for a private developer to come in and build such a line? And if not (there is not), how many billions of our tax dollars would it take to get a HSR to Dallas up and running - and is there a better use of the billions of dollars? Almost certainly. We live in an incredibly unwalkable city for the most part, so why don't we spend some money making our city one that would even be conducive to supporting a HSR line first, before building it in the first place. Just because you build a rail line doesn't mean anyone will use it. There's little logic in taking a train from one unwalkable city (with poor to non-existent mass transit) to another - which is what an OKC to Dallas HSR line would accomplish. And I don't want to hear about how central Dallas is urban and walkable - it's not. DART's poor ridership numbers reflect that.

If it happened there would be almost no reason to keep WRWA open, but OKC would have better transportation service. Let that sink in for a little bit.

Again that's also debatable - why wouldn't or couldn't WRWA stay open? The notion that WRWA would close just because we had a HSR line to Dallas is just insane, quite frankly. So if a business traveler needed to get to LA, you think there's a better business case for them to use a HSR to Dallas, then get to DFW, then get on their 3 hour flight to LA, rather than just boarding here and reaching LA by 8 AM anyway? Huh? In an ideal world, a HSR and a healthy WRWA would complement each other. I'm just not sure that building said HSR would be the best use of our limited resources (at the moment).

How would getting people to more destinations, cheaper, and faster be isolationist? Look at it in the inverse, if we already had HSR to DFW and there was a proposal to close it and build a local airport, with far few direct flights and higher prices would that make sense to do?

Of course not, which is why that's fantasy and not reality.

[catch22]

If it happened there would be almost no reason to keep WRWA open, but OKC would have better transportation service. Let that sink in for a little bit.

So if I want to fly nonstop to San Francisco, I would have to ride a train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding the nonstop flight OKC-SFO.

If I want to go to Seattle, I would have to take the train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding the nonstop flight OKC-SEA.

If I want to go to Chicago, I would have to take the train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding one of the 10 daily nonstop flights OKC-ORD/MDW?

If I want to go to Las Vegas, I would have to take the train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding one of the 2 daily nonstop flights OKC-LAS?

If I want to go to Denver, I would have to take the train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding one of the 9 daily nonstop flights OKC-DEN?

If I want to go to Los Angeles, I would have to take the train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding one of the 3 daily nonstop flights OKC-LAX?

If I want to go to Washington DC, I would have to take the train to Dallas, then fly nonstop.
As opposed to getting to the airport, and boarding one of the 2 daily nonstop flights OKC-IAD/BWI

Do I need to continue this for all of the cities served or have I made my point? How would this system be an improvement over the current setup?

[no1cub17]

Some of you are really missing how this works. I must be doing a poor job of explaining it because so far every objection has zero to do with what I suggested.

That may be the case - so if you can let me know what I'm missing, I am all ears. I'm just not sure - I've taken trains to the airport in nearly every city I've visited where it's physically possible (Chicago, Philly, Singapore, Newark, Hong Kong, Osaka, probably a few others - not Rome though - didn't feel like getting pickpocketed), so I'm genuinely curious what I'm missing.

[Rover]

Some of you are really missing how this works. I must be doing a poor job of explaining it because so far every objection has zero to do with what I suggested.

I once had an employee who was so caught up in her own intelligence that she thought the ONLY way that people could disagree with her was that they just didn't understand. Obviously, if everyone understood they would see the brilliance and not possibly object. LOL.

We get it, we just disagree.

[Just the facts]

Catch22 - yes, if you wanted to fly non- stop to SFO you would go to a check-in station here in OKC, give them your bags, go through security, and get dropped off at DFW on the secure side of the terminal. You then board one of their many many flights to SFO at a lower cost. Now granted, going to SFO isn't the best example for this because a direct flight does exist, but what if you wanted to go to San Jose, Oakland, or Sacramento?

[no1cub17]

Catch22 - yes, if you wanted to fly non- stop to SFO you would go to a check-in station here in OKC, give them your bags, go through security, and get dropped off at DFW on the secure side of the terminal. You then board one of their many many flights to SFO at a lower cost. Now granted, going to SFO isn't the best example for this because a direct flight does exist, but what if you wanted to go to San Jose, Oakland, or Sacramento?

Then you either a) connect in (insert hub here) to get to SJC, OAK, or SMF via the quickest one-stop option, or b) you take the nonstop to SFO and hop on the train (or your Uber) to your destination. Either way will save time and expense. You conveniently leave out the cost of the HSR ticket and time required. Currently an OKC-DFW flight is 30 minutes in the air, one hour gate to gate (give or take). With AA's banks you can usually make your connecting flight within 40 minutes to an hour, and you still checked your bags (how many business travelers actually check bags?) in OKC. Granted this is just one airline but it's the one I'm most familiar with so that's why I used it as my example.

HSR tickets won't be cheap. Tokyo to Osaka one-way is routinely $150-200 or more on the Nozomi. What makes you think that an OKC-Dallas HSR could be significantly cheaper and faster?

[Just the facts]

I once had an employee who was so caught up in her own intelligence that she thought the ONLY way that people could disagree with her was that they just didn't understand. Obviously, if everyone understood they would see the brilliance and not possibly object. LOL.

We get it, we just disagree.

So why don't the objections have anything to do with I proposed? You think HSR would bring passengers to OKC. Why would a person going from Dallas to Richmond, VA go to DFW, go though security at DFW, then take a train to OKC, so they could fly to Atlanta, change plains, then fly to Richmond? The answer is, you didn't read what I suggested.

[no1cub17]

So why don't the objections have anything to do with I proposed? You think HSR would bring passengers to OKC. Why would a person going from Dallas to Richmond, VA go to DFW, go though security at DFW, then take a train to OKC, so they could fly to Atlanta, change plains, then fly to Richmond? The answer is, you didn't read what I suggested.

Just curious - have you read any of my replies? I'm still curious as to what I'm missing.

[no1cub17]

HSR would work both ways. OKC could market a more efficient, easier and less crowded airport.

That doesn't really work or appeal to all, especially not to time-sensitive business travelers. For years, Milwaukee tried to market itself as Chicago's 3rd airport, but all it led to was an unsustainable turf war between F9, FL, WN, and others, all of whom eventually dehubbed MKE - and it's right sized itself back to being a very large focus city/spoke for the legacies.

Not that it wasn't a decent idea - Milwaukee is far closer to Chicago than OKC is to DFW - and Amtrak's Hiawatha Service stops directly at Mitchell Airport - so it sure had a decent chance, but just didn't work.

[Just the facts]

Just curious - have you read any of my replies? I'm still curious as to what I'm missing.

I have. When I get to keyboard tonight I can expound a little more.

I left cost out of it because I don't know what the cost would be. However, running 3 airports also has a cost so while implementing some form rapid rail will have a cost, closing 3 airports will have a tremondous savings.

[Just the facts]

Back to Catch22's comnent about direct flights. OKC has 3 flights to LAX. If I want to go to LAX dirctly I can pick one if those 3 flights. How many flights does DFW have to LAX?

Also how many flights to LAX does OKC, Tulsa, and Wichita have?

[hoya]

That's great...if you want to be isolationist in business, which usually doesn't work well.

What are you talking about? One of us definitely misread the other's post.