JIA Concourse A almost done?

[Steve]

From today's Daily Record

Speaking of the Aviation Authority, it will officially open the renovated Concourse A at Jacksonville International Airport during a May 9 ceremony at 10:30 a.m.

[DetroitInJAX]

I work over in Concourse C and noticed yesterday on my walkabout of the airport that the jetways (passenger boarding bridges) have been put in the north/northwest side of the new Concourse A.  The immediate airlines to move will be Delta and Northwest.  The building itself is nearing completion, but the ramp areas on the south side of the concourse are not, and will not, be completed until the old Concourse A is vacated, demolished, and a new slab is poured (which takes several months to cure). Expected full move in on Concourse A should be sometime in the Fall, when AirTran and Continental join Delta and Northwest.  I also noticed that the lighting system inside the concourse has finally been turned on.

The entire project is not expected to be completed until 2009, when Concourse C is finished.  There is also a renovation of the existing Concourse B scheduled, to bring it up to the new standard the airport has set with the new concourses.

So far, the alignment of airlines looks like this:

Concourse A:
Delta
Northwest
Frontier (before they decided to go Seasonal, so this is all up in the air)
AirTran
Continental/Continental Connection (Gulfstream)

Concourse B:
JetBlue
ExpressJet (depends on how long they'll last)
United

Concourse C: 
US Airways
Southwest
American

There will be several JAA owned "open" gates in the concourses.

[Jason]

How would you compare the recent renovations and expansions to other airports?  Is JIA making a good move by building something for the future or is it a lackluster attempt at modernization?

[Ocklawaha]

Another Dud... Yes the airport is pretty inside, yes, it's clean, but service and size is a joke. Until we get aggressive and go after hub status with some medium up and coming carrier, we will never again be Florida's Gateway City.

Ocklawaha

[reednavy]

The city is trying, thats all I gotta say, just try harder damn it! Now, my hometown of Nashville is currently undertaking a multi-year COMPLETE terminal renovation. Concourse C is currently being worked on, and then on to a centralized security area, then Concourse B, then Concourse A. Currently, our "hub" is Southwest, and is listed as a focus city. It is the major connecting airport for SWA in the South since Delta and AirTran have a choke-hold on the pitiful Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Int'l. You all should visit the website and it has a link, and takes you to the renovations page. We are adding many local restaurants and cafes, such as O'Charley's(based there), Bongo Java, Noshville, and a Tootsie's to name a few. Check it out for yourself. This is the kind of airport that JAX needs to model after. KBNA is alos planning a 11,500 to 13,000 foot long runway and an international flights only terminal on the east side of the property. Lastly, KJAX needs a MUCH BETTER web page, it sucks, and has a jacked up address. The renovations link is under the Butterfly with "POSITIVELY TRANSFORMED" as the renovations logo.

Nashville International Airport

http://www.flynashville.com/
http://www.nashintl.com/

[DetroitInJAX]

You have to remember though, Nashville was once a hub for American Airlines, and has the existing infrastructure to prove it.  Also, theres a reason its NOT a hub anymore (Origination traffic wasnt there)..

Also, JIA is in the shadow of some very very large airports aka Orlando and Atlanta... The amount of service Jacksonville gets is on par with other cities of the same size, and we do have the disadvantage of being located so close to Orlando (when it comes to tourist traffic) and Atlanta (when it comes to hub development).

You think an airline is just going to plant a hub here?  Hubs are about connecting traffic, sure, but theyre also about O&D traffic, and Jacksonville just cant generate that much O&D.  Look at what happened in Pittsburgh.  US Airways totally ripped down the hub, once their largest...  Why?  Less O&D than Charlotte and Philadelphia.

I mean honestly, who comes here??  Besides business people and some cruise traffic, or visiting Aunt Pearl in Callahan, who comes here?

How does the JIA project compare with others?  Well, the net gain on gates isnt huge, but then again before the project started they couldnt fill what they had in the first place.  I think the airport made a good decision when it comes to not going off the deep end and constructing some behemoth of an airport without the traffic numbers to back it up.  Airports are not Field of Dreams.  If you build it, they most certainly will NOT come.

Itll be nice, Itll be new, and it'll be right-sized for our city for years to come, I think.

[Ocklawaha]

Hubs, don't have to have Origination and Destination traffic. Piedmonts Dayton, Charlotte and Winston Salem hubs proved that. National Airlines, one of the most profitable in history was HQ and Hubed in Jacksonville. Even when the HQ left, the system remained a giant "T" laying on it's right site. The bottom of the "T" was Los Angeles, The top New York, the bottom Miami, Tampa, etc... The crossing point? Jacksonville. They were bought out and destroyed not for their excellence, service or $$ making ability, but because the needy giants aircraft were falling apart and they used junk bonds to buy National.


Lost this one to an accident in DCA

Same with railroads, Jacksonville, was not always the major Origination and Destination station in Florida for passengers. It sure was for trains though.

It's fairly simple, draw lines on a map connecting all of the major O and D stops, and see where the lines cross, If we could convince some large regional that crossing them in Jax, would open all of Florida to fast frequent connecting flights without the crowds and troubles, we'd be in the game. Incentives and salesmanship is what it's about. Did you know we are almost (within a mile or two) of half way between Atlanta and Miami? Imagine that as a clock with Jax at the center. Now spin the hands around... about 1/2 way from Charlotte and Tampa? Sarasota? Ft. Myers? How about Norfolk and ?, or Nashville and ?, This is how it works.


Piedmont had plans for a hub, we became a crew base, they built a giant hanger, introduced the commuter jet service then got eaten and our plans were flushed with US AIR... (everybodys favorite)

BTW, I started in the airline industry right here at Jax. We can do it. We could have done it years ago. JUST DO IT!

Ocklawaha

[thelakelander]

Here's National's route map around the time it was headquartered in Jax.

[Steve]

I think it could happen one day, but it would be unlikely.  We might be a "Focus City" for an airline, but I don't see a full blown hub - actually the new design of JIA's councourses lends itself to furhter expansion.  It's built very similar to Atlanta's, but the councorses look a lot better.

Personally, in this day and age, I don't know how many airlines you will see starting up or moving a hub (unless it's to another existing hub because of a merger).

[Steve]

I think it is interesting that even though the airline was based in Jacksonville, it looks like their hub was Miami.

[thelakelander]

Their hub was in Jacksonville for a short period of time.  They started off in St. Petersburg, moved up to Jax, briefly and then relocated to Miami.

Imo, Jax would have a better chance becoming an air freight hub (like Memphis or Louisville) then growing to become a passenger hub like Atlanta.  We missed that boat when National left to head down to Miami.

[Jason]

Great point Lake.  Jacksonville's location is absolutely perfect for that type of growth.  Hopefully the seaport expansions will help to further the interests in air based freight traffic.

[reednavy]

Not trying to raise up my hometown or anything, but we have China Cargo 747's come and go from Nashville Int'l. If Jax extends a runway, then it can happen. Plenty of room to grow out there. Like I said months ago, switch Cecil and JAX operations around and it'd fit better.

[Steve]

Isn't 10,000 feet long enough for a 747?

[DetroitInJAX]

You folks are talking about National... That was 40 years ago.  The industry isnt the same.  In the eyes of the airlines, Jacksonville is a spoke city.  Not a hub.  We get service TO THE HUBS, but we're not going to become one.  Its just not going to happen.

Ock, I admire your "can-do" attitude, but it WONT happen, no matter how much salesmanship we use.  I spoke to the station manager of ExpressJet when they started service and he envisioned Jacksonville becoming one of ExpressJet's focus cities or hubs.  Down the road now, ExpressJet is hemmoraging cash (besides their Continental Express flying), Jacksonville service to Raleigh has been lost (American ran them out), and other frequencies have been cut back (like its now once a day to Kansas City).  Theyre effectively smaller than what they started with.

All you have to do is look at history.

National had large ops here, and ended up hubbing at Miami.

Piedmont/US Air built a hangar, made this city an integral part of "The Florida Shuttle", with Dash 8's going to places like Tallahassee, Orlando, West Palm, Tampa, Melbourne, etc.....   Piedmont/US Air at a time operated pretty much the entirety of Concourse B, except for one gate that was used by Air Canada (which, also, no longer operates service here).  Now, US Air has 2 gates and serves their hubs/focus cities of Charlotte, Washington DC/Reagan, and Philadelphia.

United for many years only operated United Express flying here, going as far as contracting the entire station support services to Delta Global Services.  Only recently did they reintroduce mainline aircraft (Airbus A319s), but theyve already downgraded the service to 3x daily to Chicago/ORD with Boeing 737-300s (smaller airplanes).

I've also been told that British Airways (who operates their North American reservations center just off JTB), wanted to add a JAX stop to their nonstop Gatwick-to-Tampa flight.  Did it happen? no.  Why?  The airport was ill-equipped to handle intl. pax. (which is still the case, a German charter Airbus A330 came here and the airport took like 4 hours to process 200 and some odd people)  AND it was determined that the market could not support such flights.

Just because Jacksonville was a major transit point for trains does not mean its a great transit point for airplanes.  The rail lines were built when Jacksonville was the "be all end all" of Florida.  Now, we're in the shadow of our neighbors downstate.  Why fly from New York to Miami via Jacksonville when you can just fly direct New York to Miami?  Why fly from Miami to Los Angeles via Jacksonville when you can fly direct Miami to Los Angeles?  In the days of National it may have made sense to operate things this way, but now theres so much direct service from points north and west into Florida, airlines simply overfly Jacksonville.  Just because its located at the top of the peninsula doesnt mean everything has to be funneled in and out of the state through here.

Jacksonville, any way you slice it, is a regional airport.  We couldn't even support one daily flight to Los Angeles with Delta (they cut the route).  We also couldnt support a year round Denver service (Frontier is going seasonal).

In fact, the only airline that doesn't fly large amounts of passengers to their hubs is Southwest (from here), but thats because their model is not really hub and spoke.. Its more point-to-point.  Southwest builds a large presence at some airports, and a moderate presence at all others.. then proceeds to connect the dots (hence why Southwest flies to Indianapolis, Birmingham, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Norfolk, Philadelphia, soon-to-be Las Vegas, etc.. out of here..) They serve the most destinations nonstop from Jacksonville, actually.  Why?  They connect the dots.  Dont confuse this with the creation of a hub.

An Air Freight Hub makes more sense to me, being that Jacksonville IS one of the biggest logistically oriented cities in the south.