Tag Archives for austin.
FedEx freighter flight 1432 was cleared to land in Austin, while a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737, flight 708 to Cancun, was cleared to take off, using the same runway. The incident occurred around 6:40 a.m. on Saturday morning. Thankfully the FedEx plane pulled up and away, mere feet from landing on top of the passenger flight.
Delta gained control of a full gate at Dallas Love Field under a legal settlement last summer, and will begin fully utilizing it in June.
Meanwhile Delta is finally going to grow in Austin. I broke the news they planned a focus city in my home town nearly five years ago. Growth here, delayed by the pandemic, is finally beginning.
While Chase’s use of the space is confirmed the Austin airport offering will not be a permanent space or part of the lounge network.
I just took my first trip with scheduled charter airline JSX, which lets you fly in and out of private terminals. You can show up just 20 minutes before your flight and skip TSA security. And you get more legroom than flying coach on another airline. In my case that was all for $83 more than flying Southwest.
Austin airport is experiencing record passenger growth, and the terminal needs to grow along with it. So the city’s solution is to use eminent domain to acquire property they already own, by cancelling a lease that they themselves signed. It’s a strange use of the government takings power, which underscores that the city never keeps its word and anyone investing $12 million dollars in a city project does so at their own risk.
This stat may surprise you: Austin’s airport sees more diverted flights than any other airport in the country.
In 2019 there were 574 diversions to Austin. From May through August the airport saw an average of about 50 diversions per month over the past 15 years. Summer thunderstorms are a driver. There are (4) reasons more flights divert to Austin than any other airport.
While American Airlines has grown tremendously in Austin – quadrupling destinations and doubling flights – Southwest remains the largest carrier in the market by a wide margin. In fact it carries an even larger share of Austin traffic than it did three years ago, before the pandemic.
United and Delta have shrunk a bit. So has JetBlue. Allegiant has gown, while Spirit and Frontier have shrunk. Few would have guessed that of Delta, which still calls Austin a focus city.
This is a little bit insane. In 2015 Austin entered into a 30 year lease so that a private company could build a second airport terminal. The ‘South Terminal’ also has two 5 year extension options built into the lease. But the city wants to use eminent domain to terminate the lease, because it now prefers to expand the main terminal.
They’ve offered to compensate the builders less than $2 million for a project that cost as much as $20 million, while the city teaches every business it would be dumb to enter into a lease on city property because no deal with Austin is guaranteed.
Some of you will be sure that American Airlines treated me this well ‘because I’m a blogger’ or something like that. Believe me I do not receive special treatment from American Airlines. For several years I’ve been unpopular enough among certain members of senior management that I’m surprised I still have an AAdvantage account.
People were abandoning rental cars and walking to the terminal in order to make their flights. PreCheck lines extended outside the terminal. And the airport warned airlines to bring extra fuel.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
