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The US airport barely anybody knows about or uses. MidAmerica Airport, Illinois.
An airport built with hopes of flying millions of passengers across America now boards a mere 16,000 a year - because nobody wants to go there. MidAmerica Airport, in Illinois, cost $313million and was originally planned to have 85 gates to load a heavy stream of flyers onto hundreds of flights a day. Now just two gates are needed at the busiest of times, with just four flights a week leaving the desolate runway near St Louis. (www.dailymail.co.uk) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Sunk cost. How long before they spend another few million to hook the place up with public transit back to StLouie?
Does this remind one of Dulles Airport?
No, Dullas is busy.
Some context of why this airport was built:
In the 1990s STL was facing serious congestion with both the number of flights as well as number of passengers. In 1995 STL passenger traffic was above 25 million and still climbing and that airport was JAM PACKED to serve that many passengers and that many flights. Traffic would constantly back up and then get worse when weather narrowed operations to a single runway. At the same time Scott Air Force Base was on a list of facilities to be closed with another round of BRAC decisions from Congress. Decisions were made that resulted in BLV being built to A) save Scott AFB from being BRACed, and B) to function as a reliever airport for STL. Thus, $300 million was spent to build a second, civilian runway at Scott AFB, a new civilian airline terminal, and a joint control tower for the entire airfield. The construction worked to keep Scott AFB off the BRAC list because the entire ruse was that Congress wouldn't close a base that they just spent $300 million to upgrade and expand.
The second goal of BLV was a goal that is nearly impossible to achieve: to function as a reliever airport for STL. The primary logistical problems of having two airports in such close proximity are that airlines don't want to operate out of both airports. They don't want duplication in services to require more staff, more equipment, and more aircraft. Airlines would have to offer service at both airports to compete and that's a terrible waste of resources. No airline is going to operate out of both airports because then it's a nightmare to offer any connecting flights. Any flights to and from any location have to be offered at BOTH airports in order to compete because if you split your serviced destinations between those two airports you run into a lack of options. People can fly from ATL to BLV, but then passengers from ATL who want to connect and go to DEN might find that the flight to DEN only leaves from STL. So how do passengers do that? Arrive at BLV, collect their luggage, somehow find a way to schlep across town, across a river, to ANOTHER STATE to check in again for their connecting flight?! No, no one wants to do that. Thus airlines had to choose either STL or BLV. Airlines already serving STL didn't want to relocate to BLV because then they miss out on passengers who already want to go to STL, or are arriving at STL on feeder airlines connecting through code share partnerships. BLV was forever going to be consigned to a few small airlines that didn't want operate out of STL, or couldn't afford to compete at STL.
After pressing forward with the dumb idea of a reliever airport, the economy and other things gave BLV a roundhouse kick to the face. TWA merged with AA. AA had plans to keep STL as a major hub to relieve their operations at DFW and ORD, but the 9/11 attacks and the following economic crash greatly reduced air travel to the point that AA cut flights to/from STL over the years. In 2004 passenger totals at STL bottomed out at 13.4 million, down from 30.6 million in 2000. A greater than 50% decline in passengers meant that a reliever airport at BLV was entirely unnecessary. In addition that, STL had started construction on an additional runway in 1998 to relieve congestion at the airport. The $1.1 billion runway opened in 2006. It's little used right now due to the location being further from the terminal and most gates, but it's there for additional traffic at STL if and when it is needed.
BLV as a passenger airport is a disaster. It is a hideously expensive boondoggle that stands as a monument to government waste. Taxpayers all across the nation were fleeced of millions of dollars, and the residents of St. Claire County were robbed of even more. The residents of St. Claire County keep on losing every single year when their tax dollars are spent on an airport that loses millions. If you lived in St. Claire County, wouldn't you want $18 million of your tax dollars to go towards things that actually help you rather than an airport that exists to fly 16,000 people a year to Florida? $18 million divided by 16,000 passengers is $1,125 each. The residents of St. Claire county pay $1,125 to give each airline passenger a cheap trip to Florida on Allegiant Airlines!
BLV should be closed and abandoned so as to quit wasting more money that will never be recouped in future operations. The only possible use for BLV is free parking so that passengers can use the Park & Ride lots for a Metro train trip to STL for their flight, and St. Claire County taxpayers shouldn't even be paying for that.
In the 1990s STL was facing serious congestion with both the number of flights as well as number of passengers. In 1995 STL passenger traffic was above 25 million and still climbing and that airport was JAM PACKED to serve that many passengers and that many flights. Traffic would constantly back up and then get worse when weather narrowed operations to a single runway. At the same time Scott Air Force Base was on a list of facilities to be closed with another round of BRAC decisions from Congress. Decisions were made that resulted in BLV being built to A) save Scott AFB from being BRACed, and B) to function as a reliever airport for STL. Thus, $300 million was spent to build a second, civilian runway at Scott AFB, a new civilian airline terminal, and a joint control tower for the entire airfield. The construction worked to keep Scott AFB off the BRAC list because the entire ruse was that Congress wouldn't close a base that they just spent $300 million to upgrade and expand.
The second goal of BLV was a goal that is nearly impossible to achieve: to function as a reliever airport for STL. The primary logistical problems of having two airports in such close proximity are that airlines don't want to operate out of both airports. They don't want duplication in services to require more staff, more equipment, and more aircraft. Airlines would have to offer service at both airports to compete and that's a terrible waste of resources. No airline is going to operate out of both airports because then it's a nightmare to offer any connecting flights. Any flights to and from any location have to be offered at BOTH airports in order to compete because if you split your serviced destinations between those two airports you run into a lack of options. People can fly from ATL to BLV, but then passengers from ATL who want to connect and go to DEN might find that the flight to DEN only leaves from STL. So how do passengers do that? Arrive at BLV, collect their luggage, somehow find a way to schlep across town, across a river, to ANOTHER STATE to check in again for their connecting flight?! No, no one wants to do that. Thus airlines had to choose either STL or BLV. Airlines already serving STL didn't want to relocate to BLV because then they miss out on passengers who already want to go to STL, or are arriving at STL on feeder airlines connecting through code share partnerships. BLV was forever going to be consigned to a few small airlines that didn't want operate out of STL, or couldn't afford to compete at STL.
After pressing forward with the dumb idea of a reliever airport, the economy and other things gave BLV a roundhouse kick to the face. TWA merged with AA. AA had plans to keep STL as a major hub to relieve their operations at DFW and ORD, but the 9/11 attacks and the following economic crash greatly reduced air travel to the point that AA cut flights to/from STL over the years. In 2004 passenger totals at STL bottomed out at 13.4 million, down from 30.6 million in 2000. A greater than 50% decline in passengers meant that a reliever airport at BLV was entirely unnecessary. In addition that, STL had started construction on an additional runway in 1998 to relieve congestion at the airport. The $1.1 billion runway opened in 2006. It's little used right now due to the location being further from the terminal and most gates, but it's there for additional traffic at STL if and when it is needed.
BLV as a passenger airport is a disaster. It is a hideously expensive boondoggle that stands as a monument to government waste. Taxpayers all across the nation were fleeced of millions of dollars, and the residents of St. Claire County were robbed of even more. The residents of St. Claire County keep on losing every single year when their tax dollars are spent on an airport that loses millions. If you lived in St. Claire County, wouldn't you want $18 million of your tax dollars to go towards things that actually help you rather than an airport that exists to fly 16,000 people a year to Florida? $18 million divided by 16,000 passengers is $1,125 each. The residents of St. Claire county pay $1,125 to give each airline passenger a cheap trip to Florida on Allegiant Airlines!
BLV should be closed and abandoned so as to quit wasting more money that will never be recouped in future operations. The only possible use for BLV is free parking so that passengers can use the Park & Ride lots for a Metro train trip to STL for their flight, and St. Claire County taxpayers shouldn't even be paying for that.
Question about your doubts regarding BLV's ability to function as a "reliever airport for STL", why couldn't the operations be managed similar to ORD/MDW? Clearly, Chicago has managed to work out a method of operating two airports in "close" proximity without the problems faced by STL/BLV, or even JFK/LGA. Airlines aren't duplicating operations, which would be the mess described, but specific airlines like Southwest are operating exclusively at the satellite airport, relocating traffic from the primariy airfield. It seems like the STL/BLV combination, if properly managed and marketed, could relocate some of the hub activity of ORD/MDW due to its location near the center of the U.S. (reducing some flying times, saving fuel), and the fact that facilities at ORD are saturated, making expansion by airlines or addition of new airlines difficult or impossible.
The continued existence and use of MDW in Chicago is really just an aberration strongly related to the existence of Southwest airlines, who has a different operating model than other airlines. That, and for a while MDW had a few small air carriers who simply could not compete if they were to move to ORD. They were small and needed to just stay at MDW for their operations, at least until they went out of business (ATA, anyone?) and some of their assets were acquired by Southwest. If you look at MDW you will see that Southwest essentially owns that entire airport and there isn't any competition. So yeah, if you wanted to have one exclusive airline that controls 95% or greater of traffic out of an airport such as BLV, they could survive without having to have any operations at STL. But Southwest is already at STL and doing just fine because, as I detailed above, traffic plunged when AA cut operations at STL and they also opened another runway that can help during times of peak operations.
ORD is nowhere near saturated. They've completed major runway relocation projects that have cut down on flight delays and enabled increased operations, with plans to add more runways if traffic requires it in the future. There is no airline that wants to split operations from a hub at ORD to a satellite hub in STL because that requires duplication of services. The whole point of a hub is to consolidate your operations at one airport for cost efficiencies.
ORD is nowhere near saturated. They've completed major runway relocation projects that have cut down on flight delays and enabled increased operations, with plans to add more runways if traffic requires it in the future. There is no airline that wants to split operations from a hub at ORD to a satellite hub in STL because that requires duplication of services. The whole point of a hub is to consolidate your operations at one airport for cost efficiencies.
Just annex it to Scott...