How could WRW Airport get nonstop service to an international destination?

[okcitian]

I was curious about this question. I've heard that they had nonstop service to Mexico City from our airport in OKC in the late 70's or early 80's yet I'm not sure if this was true. What about a flight to Toronto?

[BDP]

Seems like this is all dependant on O/D. Is there an int'l city that people fly to from Oklahoma City on a regular basis?

[chrisok]

We already have a non stop to Cancun. However, you have to stop in Texas on the way back.

[Kerry]

I think the biggest deturant to international flights is the lack of a customs office. That is why the flight from Cancun has stop in Texas first.

[chrisok]

yep

[BDP]

I think the biggest deturant to international flights is the lack of a customs office.

If we had the traffic, we'd have the customs facilities. It's all based on demand, plain and simple.

[metro]

Exactly BDP, we can have a Customs Office all day long, if there isn't enough traffic to justify international flights, then there is no needs for the Customs Office in the first place. Get the traffic counts up, then it will fall into place. Start taking many more flights if you want to see it happen.

[jbrown84]

It's another one of these "chicken or egg" things. Kind of like retail and residential downtown.

[Oil Capital]

We already have a non stop to Cancun. However, you have to stop in Texas on the way back.

OKC to Cancun non-stop? I can't find it. Can you give us details? Airline, days...? And where does it stop on the way back? Houston, D-FW?

[BDP]

It's another one of these "chicken or egg" things.

Not really, because you can fly to international destinations from OKC right now, you just can't fly non-stop. So that chicken is already there and they know how many people are traveling out of the country from OKC and it presumably isn't enough to warrant a customs office or non-stop flights. If there was enough traffic to international destinations, the egg that is the customs office would be there. Having a customs office would not suddenly generate more demand in OKC to travel internationally.

[chrisok]

OKC to Cancun non-stop? I can't find it. Can you give us details? Airline, days...? And where does it stop on the way back? Houston, D-FW?

It's on Champion Air. 2 days a week. I think Wednesday and Saturday. It's a seasonal flight, so it's probably not going on right now. I also read where Champion was going to offer flights to Puerto Vallarta as well this summer. The return flight stops at DFW.

[venture]

Everyone has really nailed this one. O&D is key. It also has to be quality O&D. The non-hub cities out there that have international service are either in the same region as that city, have plenty of tourism traffic, or have a lot of high paying industries.

Examples would be...the Northeast and Great Lakes that have flights to Toronto or Montreal simply because it is like another regional hub for traveling.

Tourism flights...look at what Frontier is doing on all their flights to Mexico from random cities in their network.

The last example would be non-hubs like Raliegh-Durham that have nonstop flights to cities like London due to their local industries...banking and R&D being RDU's big one.

Customs aren't as big of a deal as they use to be. For the cities OKC would target...in Canada, Mexico, etc....the growth of Pre-clearance services (going through US customers in those international cities before boarding) will help this out. Toronto is one of those cities. Cancun is suppose to be getting it soon.

[bombermwc]

I think we should really focus on domestic flights first. We still have a pretty small airport (which I'm happy for that...places like O'hare...yuk). I think the place would really need to double in size for the traffic flow to really consistently feed international travel. Think about how many international flights are on large wide bodies like a 747, and think how often you even see a domestic flight like that at Will Rogers. We're just getting into direct flights on commuter jets folks, so lets not push the limit before we're ready to handle it.

[venture]

We need to clarify the international flights we are talking. There won't be any 747s or A380s flight into OKC going off to transatlantic/pacifc routes. Routes like Cancun, Grand Cayman, Toronto, Puerto Vallarta, and Mexico City are what we could see. There could all be done with RJs or narrowbodies. Also, all of this traffic would be O&D based...not connecting. OKC offers little incentive for anyone to set up a connecting operation here.

OKC isn't a small airport by any means...I believe we are classified as a "medium hub" by DOT. People need to realize...there are only a few ATLs, DFWs, and ORDs of the world. Domestic service though does still need some help. Mergerama is going to make things interesting the next 2 years on what happens with who.

[bombermwc]

Well I can't say that I would ever choose a flight on a jumperjet. It's bad enough being crammed in those for 2 hours to Chicago, much less an international flight for 4+ hours.

I love the airport right now. It's clean, fast, comfy...so much better than those large crazy ones. Last time I was at O'hare it took me 20 minutes just to walk (briskly) to baggage claim....OKC, about 5 minutes of strolling. There's something to be appreciated in having the smaller facility. Granted its not dinky like Mobile or Shreveport or soemthing, but I would to see that second wing of gates opened up some time. I can't seem to find any information about why they didn't do that with this phase of construction. I guess maybe it was just planned for future growth as needed?

[jbrown84]

They back-peddled after 9-11.

[bombermwc]

So they scaled back the design in lieu of dimished air travel after 9-11? If that's the case, then I see no reason to even think about international travel in OK at all. If we have to cut back a design plan because of lower travel, then why do we think international travel will be better?

I mean so you have to go to Dallas or whatever to leave the country....yeah but you do still leave OKC. So one way or another you still pay through OKC because you leave and return here. International flights won't really help because people aren't going to choose OKC as their inbound destination unless they live here. Why? Because they won't be getting the connection flights they want to get home....ie they choose Dallas because it has the connection to bumbledoo Indiana or whatever but OKC doesn't. So why fly into OKC from Mexico to fly to Dallas to fly home?....they'd just choose Dallas, so I restate that the only people that benefit are the OKC folks, which aren't making enough international connections to warrant the expense we have to pay to do those flights. Not to mention we have no where to stage customs to seperate the flights right now.

[OUman]

Anyone who has queries or comments on the postponed eight gate East Concourse, read all the threads on WRA and especially the ones where gates are discussed. Those will help out.

As for international flights, there are second tier airports that are very close to large hubs and still have a few international flights (BNA, MKE, AUS are a few examples) but solely due to the volume of int'l pax traffic that supports such ops, albeit with turboprops or RJ's). We have charters to/from CUN every summer, and now we'll also have charters to/from Puerto Vallarta with Champion Air beginning this summer, so I think we're headed in the right direction. To get daily RJ service to cities like Toronto and Mexico City, we'll have to have greater pax traffic to those destinations to convince carriers that it'll be a good yearly or seasonal flight at least, and then we'll have to get a customs facility built in the terminal. Until then, yeah, domestic traffic will need to continue to grow.

[Kerry]

The biggest problem I see with Passenger traffic in OKC is the failure to advertise on the part of WRWA. There should be a big billboard near Ardmore advertising OKC over DFW. The same thing should be somewhere out near Ft Smith.

[OUman]

^Good idea but I dunno how effective that will be, a lot of people already know about the expanded service to/from OKC (people drive from Lawton, Altus and many other surrounding towns to OKC to board flights). And those who live in places like Ardmore won't even bother, they'll still drive down to DFW to catch a flight (why go to OKC and connect at a hub when DFW is about the same distance away and you can practically go anywhere?). Ft. Smith travellers have 3 good choices, XNA just 40 miles north and LIT to the east, plus TUL. All three airports have a good choice of destinations combined. XNA has daily n/s's to JFK, LAX, MSP, DTW, etc, LIT has n/s's to all hubs in the region plus n/s's to CLT with USX. And TUL's service pretty much mirrors OKC's. Now advertising in places like Enid and such, I can see it getting attention there, not by people who already use OKC, but those who've not paid attention as of late about the new terminal, and expanded service etc.

[jbrown84]

Why does XNA have all those non-stops?

[OUman]

^Mainly because Wal Mart, Tyson Foods and a few other major companies have their world HQ in the Fayeteville/Bentonville region. Of course, business traffic is a major component so most flights are operated with RJ's, but you get the pic. AA has a few mainliners to DFW but that's about it.

[brianinok]

I've got a friend who works at Wal-Mart out there. They tell me that Wal-Mart actually guarantees the airlines a profit on their flights to LA and NY. So, Wal-Mart is picking up the tab. They are greatly used for international travel from Asia and Europe to Wal-Mart's hq by suppliers.

The largest company in the world does have a certain amount of needs I guess....

[OUman]

^Yep, makes sense. Wal Mart is a global company and now that it's going to set up shop in India (much to my dismay, but that's another topic), it needs nonstops.

[venture]

Toronto shouldn't be an issue, they have preclearance there, so no need for customers in OKC. However, I doubt there is enough of a demand to fill an RJ daily to YYZ.