Is the Bay Area the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports?

77H · Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:57 am

as739x wrote:
Great question, but this needed to be thought out a little more before asking. Your definition of an INTL airport is very loose. As the post above have picked apart. Try to narrow it down more. Because yes, the SF region is rare as it has 3 large international ops airports, with transoceanic flights, wide bodies by foreign carriers, etc.

But Joe Smith is going to reply here that ABC airport with on-call CBP is an Intl airport, and you can't argue they are wrong.

If you go by the busiest airports in the US by total pax for example, then yes SF would with the 7th, 36th and 41st busiest airports in the US (some would included SMF which is 42nd)

But long story short, if you can come up with some perimeters to this questions, its a good question.

Not only is the definition of international very loose an open to interpretation but how are we defining a region? I saw MDW-MKE-ORD mentioned above. From a geographic perspective MKE and CHI are certainly part of a region. But in that regard we could say that HNL, ITO and KOA are all "international" airports and HNL, KOA, LIH and OGG have commercial international services. That's 4 airports in the same region.

I think the question the OP is posing is, "is the Bay Area the only metro area with 3 large airports with commercial international/intercontinental operations in the US?"

77H

TOGA10 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:12 pm

PatrickZ80 wrote:
KTPAFlyer wrote:
Well it does seem as though as though we've established that SF and possibly NYC are the only two US regions with three Intercontinental airports, so we can open up to other regions outside the US, I'd love to hear them!

That changes it of course.

First thing I can think of is the Ruhrgebiet area in Germany. Dusseldorf, Cologne-Bonn, Dortmund and Weeze are all international airports. Another one is Milan, Italy which has Malpensa, Linate and Bergamo. The British Midlands is one more with Manchester, Birmingham, East Midland, Doncaster-Sheffield, Liverpool and Leeds-Bradford. Last but not least there's southern Scotland with Edinburgh, Glasgow intl. and Glasgow Prestwick.

Paris: CDG, ORY and BVA.

Ziyulu · Wed Aug 02, 2017 12:52 pm

Also PVG, SHA, and HGH.

BENAir01 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:06 pm

MarcoPoloWorld wrote:
DaufuskieGuy wrote:
the Bay Area is unique in many ways and the 3 airports with overseas flights is one of them.

Bingo.

So I'm just amazed how far this site has deteriorated over only a couple of years. It was obvious that the OP was referring to flights to other continents, yet stupid commenters here seized the nominal "international" in order to try to include airports with the tiniest crossborder flights just to f**k up the post.... So sad.

So as far as I know, the answer to the OP's question is, yes the San Francisco region is the only one in the States (or even the Americas period) to have intercontinental service to/from three airports.

What the hell are you talking about? No it was not clear, which was why we were all commenting about airports with the "tiniest cross border flights". It wasn't to f*ck up this post, it was to answer the OPs question the best we could. He said I ternational, not intercontinental, so that's what we were commenting about. I'm sorry that you have some crazy connection with the OP and just know what he's trying to say, or maybe happy for you, I don't really know, but saying it was obvious and we're all f*cking up this post is outrageous and rude. Gosh.

greenair727 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:49 pm

Cleveland has CLE and BKL that has a flights across the atlantic, but they are not scheduled service. (I see more Europe flights out of Burke and more Middle East flights out of Hopkins). Not sure if Akron (CAK) sees any such service or if its capable/legal, but if it is, then Cleveland has three airports as well.

synanthropic · Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:11 pm

drdisque wrote:
OK, folks slow your roll a bit. Let's limit this to intercontinental flights.

If you do that then only the bay area and NYC have 3 and NYC only does if you count SWF.

South Florida has two.

DC has two if you include BWI.

Boston has two if you include PVD (I don't - I consider PVD its own market).

Orlando has two

The last I heard, airlines don't separate "International" into "Intra-continental" and "Inter-continental"; It's all either International or Domestic.

Why would you randomly and unilaterally get to decide the OP's question? They asked if the Bay Area is the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports. Clearly, the answer is no. Take the South Florida region from the example above: there are multiple airports within the tri-county area that one may utilize to fly to a different country (e.g., "International", e.g., directly an answer to the OP's question). However, the OP didn't even ask about active or previous service, just if the Bay Area is the only region with three Int'l airports.

So the answer is no, the Bay Area is not the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports.

zeke · Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:17 pm

London has 6, LCY, LHR, LGW, SEN, LUT, STN.

greenair727 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 2:41 pm

iflyalexair wrote:
SWF is incorporated into the metropolitan area definition of NYC according to IATA.

Does IATA define metro areas? If so, where could I find this list? Thanks.

FX1816 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 3:43 pm

CitrusCritter wrote:
From a purely international perspective for airlines, LA does as well with LAX, SNA, and ONT. The latter two have limited intl flights to Canada and/or Mexico.

ONT also has the limited service to China, twice a week with Dynamic.

PatrickZ80 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 4:30 pm

It all comes down to how you define a region, and in my opinion there are no strict borders to regions. Maybe I shouldn't have used the term Midlands, maybe central England suits it better.

If you define strict borders to a region, then what happens to an airport that is at the very edge of the region? Airports have a catchment area that extends into the next region, people are not bound to regional borders. Therefor you should see regions a bit wider. Sometimes an airport is inbetween two regions and it serves a bit of both. It doesn't matter what they're officially "grouped" to.

For example, to keep it British, take someone from Northampton. The nearest airport is obviously Birmingham, so you could say Northampton belongs to the Midlands region. However, it's at the very edge of it and from Northampton it's also a short drive to Luton which is in the London region. Both airports got Northampton in it's catchment area, even if they are in different regions. There is a bit of overlap between the two regions and Northampton is in both.

PA12 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 4:40 pm

Does congonhas have international scheduled flights?

modesto2 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:15 pm

I think the OP meant to ask about U.S. metropolitan areas that have three airports with regularly scheduled intercontinental service. As others have mentioned, the Bay Area is unique in that all three airports have intercontinental service with New York (including SWF) being the other area.

thekorean · Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:21 pm

Should have said three airports with long haul service.

Then I can't really think of one other than Bay Area. Stansted doesn't have one.

DaufuskieGuy · Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:29 pm

the Bay Area has a mix of heavy Asian population (historically the gateway to/from Asia), a lot of European tourists (which eventually induced Norwegian), Silicon Valley tech sector who travel a lot, international tech sector who visit a lot, even NYC area doesn't have this, though it's much larger.

I'd expect other legacy carriers to eventually expand to OAK like BA has done, primary growth in the Bay Area is east of Oakland. Plus SFO is getting rather full in the Int'l terminals correct?

jnev3289 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:29 pm

Who doesn't love an argument on semantics?

airzona11 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:37 pm

Anyone flown BA from LHR to SFO/OAK/SJC? Pretty cool that BA flies to all 3.

SFOA380 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:01 pm

airzona11 wrote:
Anyone flown BA from LHR to SFO/OAK/SJC? Pretty cool that BA flies to all 3.

BA to OAK is from LGW, not LHR. The establishment of this service was a direct response to DY LGW-OAK.

SFO is very constrained gate-wise at the moment, particularly Int'l G. You can see SFO's long-term plan to grow to 121 gates here: http://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/sfo-tom ... r-terminal

Seabear · Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:15 pm

Orlando has international service at MCO, AND.... and MLB (Orlando Melbourne International Airport).

United787 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:18 pm

tilerchin wrote:
If MKE, ORD, and MDW can qualify as a region than that as well

GYY definitely qualifies as being a "Chicago" airport and is officially an international airport although it currently lacks any scheduled commercial service (let alone international service)

RFD is also considered a "Chicago" airport and is officially an international airport and has international flights on Apple Vacations... not sure if those are scheduled or charter...

So Chicago has 3-4 international airports depending on your definition.

MKE is a part of a different Metro area, at least according to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_M ... ical_Areas

BENAir01 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:44 pm

Seabear wrote:
Orlando has international service at MCO, AND.... and MLB (Orlando Melbourne International Airport).

and SFB AFAIK

Seabear · Wed Aug 02, 2017 6:54 pm

BENAir01 wrote:
Seabear wrote:
Orlando has international service at MCO, AND.... and MLB (Orlando Melbourne International Airport).

and SFB AFAIK

Yep, that's what I intended to type, my phone had other intentions... ;-)

Andy33 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 7:01 pm

PatrickZ80 wrote:
For example, to keep it British, take someone from Northampton. The nearest airport is obviously Birmingham, so you could say Northampton belongs to the Midlands region. However, it's at the very edge of it and from Northampton it's also a short drive to Luton which is in the London region. Both airports got Northampton in it's catchment area, even if they are in different regions. There is a bit of overlap between the two regions and Northampton is in both.

I've lived in Northampton myself, though I don't now. The nearest airport with commercial service is Luton (38 miles), followed by Birmingham (46 miles), East Midlands (52 miles), Heathrow (67 miles). The time difference by road is only around 30 minutes between the nearest and the furthest. Even Stansted at 81 miles only takes 45 minutes longer than Luton. But Northampton people see Luton as their local airport and are more likely to use Heathrow than Birmingham if Luton doesn't have the destination that they want, after all Heathrow is almost certain to have it if Luton doesn't. And to keep vaguely to topic, all these UK airports have service to at least two continents apart from Europe.
The UK government says Northampton is in the East Midlands. Increasingly it is actually part of London & the South East. It's never had much in common with the West Midlands, hence the disregard of Birmingham. Suggesting people from Northampton should fly from Manchester, Liverpool, Doncaster-Sheffield, or Leeds-Bradford would be greeted with disbelief locally, These aren't perceived as being in Central England by anyone in the UK but in Northern England. Gatwick with its burgeoning low cost long haul routes and huge selection of summer sun routes is both nearer and quicker to get to from Northampton, despite being the wrong side of London.

airzona11 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 10:54 pm

SFOA380 wrote:
airzona11 wrote:
Anyone flown BA from LHR to SFO/OAK/SJC? Pretty cool that BA flies to all 3.

BA to OAK is from LGW, not LHR. The establishment of this service was a direct response to DY LGW-OAK.

SFO is very constrained gate-wise at the moment, particularly Int'l G. You can see SFO's long-term plan to grow to 121 gates here: http://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/sfo-tom ... r-terminal

True, my mistake. But same question, has anyone on here flown BA between London and the 3 Bay Area airports? A380/744/789/772, just missing the 77W/788 and you'd have all their long haul types in the Bay Area.

sq256 · Wed Aug 02, 2017 11:39 pm

The SE Queensland region in Australia (Brisbane & the Coasts) have 2 full-time Intl Airports (BNE & OOL), and 2 smaller Airports with limited Intl services - MCY (Seasonal NZ services to AKL) & WTB (1 per week freighter service to HKG).

That's 4 Airports in the region with Intl services (2 Full-Time & 2 seasonal/limited).

precure787 · Thu Aug 03, 2017 12:24 am

The Los Angeles Area is also the region with three international airports (LAX, SNA, and ONT).

AtomicGarden · Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:07 am

gatibosgru wrote:
AtomicGarden wrote:
gatibosgru wrote:

He said US

No, he only gave US examples

With new service at OAK and SJC in the last year, does that give the Bay Area the distinction of being the only region with three International airports? NYC has three but only JFK and EWR are Int'l, DC has three, but only IAD and BWI are Int'l. There are many cities with two Int'l airports but SF has three and all three are Int'l! Are there any others?

It's literally in the thread title: "Is the Bay Area the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports"? While it is ok to list examples everywhere, his question was, at least originally and based on the title, about the US.

Sorry. I re-read the title and still didn't see the US part. My bad.

MarcoPoloWorld · Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:11 am

BENAir01 wrote:
MarcoPoloWorld wrote:
DaufuskieGuy wrote:
the Bay Area is unique in many ways and the 3 airports with overseas flights is one of them.

Bingo.

So I'm just amazed how far this site has deteriorated over only a couple of years. It was obvious that the OP was referring to flights to other continents, yet stupid commenters here seized the nominal "international" in order to try to include airports with the tiniest crossborder flights just to f**k up the post.... So sad.

So as far as I know, the answer to the OP's question is, yes the San Francisco region is the only one in the States (or even the Americas period) to have intercontinental service to/from three airports.

What the hell are you talking about? No it was not clear, which was why we were all commenting about airports with the "tiniest cross border flights". It wasn't to f*ck up this post, it was to answer the OPs question the best we could. He said I ternational, not intercontinental, so that's what we were commenting about. I'm sorry that you have some crazy connection with the OP and just know what he's trying to say, or maybe happy for you, I don't really know, but saying it was obvious and we're all f*cking up this post is outrageous and rude. Gosh.

Then you, Sir, are a true idiot. Enough said.

MarcoPoloWorld · Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:14 am

synanthropic wrote:
drdisque wrote:
OK, folks slow your roll a bit. Let's limit this to intercontinental flights.

If you do that then only the bay area and NYC have 3 and NYC only does if you count SWF.

South Florida has two.

DC has two if you include BWI.

Boston has two if you include PVD (I don't - I consider PVD its own market).

Orlando has two

The last I heard, airlines don't separate "International" into "Intra-continental" and "Inter-continental"; It's all either International or Domestic.

Why would you randomly and unilaterally get to decide the OP's question? They asked if the Bay Area is the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports. Clearly, the answer is no. Take the South Florida region from the example above: there are multiple airports within the tri-county area that one may utilize to fly to a different country (e.g., "International", e.g., directly an answer to the OP's question). However, the OP didn't even ask about active or previous service, just if the Bay Area is the only region with three Int'l airports.

So the answer is no, the Bay Area is not the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports.

Yes it is, unless you totally distort the intentional question of the OP. But never mind, you're just here to bring us all down to the lowest common denominator, aren't you?

MarcoPoloWorld · Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:17 am

precure787 wrote:
The Los Angeles Area is also the region with three international airports (LAX, SNA, and ONT).

Did you just wake up from a very long hibernation?

tilerchin · Thu Aug 03, 2017 3:35 am

LCY-JFK can also count so LHR, LGW, LCY make 3 for london

PatrickZ80 · Thu Aug 03, 2017 5:19 am

tilerchin wrote:
LCY-JFK can also count so LHR, LGW, LCY make 3 for london

You don't need London City for that. Stansted has some intercontinental flights as well, so with Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted London already has three. Furthermore London also has Luton and Southend. At the moment they don't have intercontinental flights, but that might change. However, if we're talking about international instead of intercontinental then all of them count and London has six international airports.

tilerchin · Thu Aug 03, 2017 11:25 am

Moscow, SVO, DME, and VKO. VKO has service to dubai along with the other 2

tilerchin · Thu Aug 03, 2017 11:29 am

Plus Dubai if SHJ can count as Dubai in addition to DXB and DWC

BENAir01 · Thu Aug 03, 2017 12:29 pm

MarcoPoloWorld wrote:
BENAir01 wrote:
MarcoPoloWorld wrote:

Bingo.

So I'm just amazed how far this site has deteriorated over only a couple of years. It was obvious that the OP was referring to flights to other continents, yet stupid commenters here seized the nominal "international" in order to try to include airports with the tiniest crossborder flights just to f**k up the post.... So sad.

So as far as I know, the answer to the OP's question is, yes the San Francisco region is the only one in the States (or even the Americas period) to have intercontinental service to/from three airports.

What the hell are you talking about? No it was not clear, which was why we were all commenting about airports with the "tiniest cross border flights". It wasn't to f*ck up this post, it was to answer the OPs question the best we could. He said I ternational, not intercontinental, so that's what we were commenting about. I'm sorry that you have some crazy connection with the OP and just know what he's trying to say, or maybe happy for you, I don't really know, but saying it was obvious and we're all f*cking up this post is outrageous and rude. Gosh.

Then you, Sir, are a true idiot. Enough said.

Then if I'm an idiot,please help me understand. Please fill me in on what my brain can't. I'm just unsure how you see international and immediately assume intercontinental, because when I see international, I assume international. Do you not consider US-Canada/Mexico an international flight? Do you consider Canada and Mexico part of the US?

ZyreaxPlayz · Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:36 pm

Boston, MA region ALMOST had 3, had DY gone with Portsmouth, NH, but I guess Providence, RI still counts as that region. Manchester, NH had some charter international flights a bit back, and Portland, ME has some flights to Halifax, NS via Elite Airways. I am from MA, and consider these all to be within that region.

WorldFlier · Thu Aug 03, 2017 1:55 pm

ZyreaxPlayz wrote:
Boston, MA region ALMOST had 3, had DY gone with Portsmouth, NH, but I guess Providence, RI still counts as that region. Manchester, NH had some charter international flights a bit back, and Portland, ME has some flights to Halifax, NS via Elite Airways. I am from MA, and consider these all to be within that region.

People from Vermont drive down to Manchester all the time (as do Montrealers to Burlington), so "region" can be quite large!

iflyalexair · Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:03 pm

greenair727 wrote:
iflyalexair wrote:
SWF is incorporated into the metropolitan area definition of NYC according to IATA.

Does IATA define metro areas? If so, where could I find this list? Thanks.

http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/code-search.aspx

iflyalexair · Thu Aug 03, 2017 2:04 pm

jnev3289 wrote:
Who doesn't love an argument on semantics?

At least in the context of SWF, it isn't semantics. There was a formal petition filed with IATA to incorporate SWF into the metropolitan definition of NYC. In the end, this petition was supported by the FAA, and in September 2015, SWF was adopted into the NYC definition.

MarcoPoloWorld · Fri Aug 04, 2017 2:50 am

BENAir01 wrote:
MarcoPoloWorld wrote:
BENAir01 wrote:
What the hell are you talking about? No it was not clear, which was why we were all commenting about airports with the "tiniest cross border flights". It wasn't to f*ck up this post, it was to answer the OPs question the best we could. He said I ternational, not intercontinental, so that's what we were commenting about. I'm sorry that you have some crazy connection with the OP and just know what he's trying to say, or maybe happy for you, I don't really know, but saying it was obvious and we're all f*cking up this post is outrageous and rude. Gosh.

Then you, Sir, are a true idiot. Enough said.

Then if I'm an idiot,please help me understand. Please fill me in on what my brain can't. I'm just unsure how you see international and immediately assume intercontinental, because when I see international, I assume international. Do you not consider US-Canada/Mexico an international flight? Do you consider Canada and Mexico part of the US?

Never mind, I wave the white flag. I said some things I shouldn't have said, please forgive me....

Either way, let's just all try to pay attention to the topic at hand, and try to contribute as much as we can to the knowledge value-add that the OP is asking us for.

synanthropic · Fri Aug 04, 2017 11:15 am

MarcoPoloWorld wrote:
Never mind, I wave the white flag. I said some things I shouldn't have said, please forgive me....

Either way, let's just all try to pay attention to the topic at hand, and try to contribute as much as we can to the knowledge value-add that the OP is asking us for.

Exactly. The question the OP asked is "Is the Bay Area the only region in the US to have three Int'l airports?", to which the answer is a resounding "No".

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