That's the biggest issue now. Airport board is already maxxed out with debt payments, so any new parking is a long way off. The most likely option would be another off-site private operator opening a lot or garage nearby.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

The most likely option would be another off-site private operator opening a lot or garage nearby.

That's the part that truly has me scratching my head:
if there's (clearly) this much demand, why aren't private operators busting down the doors (or in the case of the damaged lots, working overtime) to get something up and running?

NolaMD88fan wrote:

That's the biggest issue now. Airport board is already maxxed out with debt payments, so any new parking is a long way off. The most likely option would be another off-site private operator opening a lot or garage nearby.

The airport authority could allow a private company to build a deck under a long term lease agreement that allows the company to recoup their costs of building plus some mutually agreed upon built in profit.

ATLgaUSA wrote:

NolaMD88fan wrote:

That's the biggest issue now. Airport board is already maxxed out with debt payments, so any new parking is a long way off. The most likely option would be another off-site private operator opening a lot or garage nearby.

The airport authority could allow a private company to build a deck under a long term lease agreement that allows the company to recoup their costs of building plus some mutually agreed upon built in profit.

That may the best way to go at this point.

I'm sure US Park is wanting to get the Airline lot reopened, but could be a myriad of reasons for delays (insurance issues, hiring staff, finding contractors, etc.)

Park n Fly not reopening their lot is the most baffling. They could be making money if they reopened it. It's been closed since the pandemic killed travel back in April 2020.

Land acquisition is the biggest obstacle for any new entrants. There isn't much open land to build on near the airport without needing to buy some properties up and demolish them.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Park n Fly not reopening their lot is the most baffling. They could be making money if they reopened it. It's been closed since the pandemic killed travel back in April 2020.

So wait, their lot isn't damaged? It's just them choosing not to open it?

LAX772LR wrote:

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Park n Fly not reopening their lot is the most baffling. They could be making money if they reopened it. It's been closed since the pandemic killed travel back in April 2020.

So wait, their lot isn't damaged? It's just them choosing not to open it?

Yeah, a “for sale” sign is posted on the fence at the old Park n Fly lot. It’s been deserted since covid started.

SunsetLimited wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Park n Fly not reopening their lot is the most baffling. They could be making money if they reopened it. It's been closed since the pandemic killed travel back in April 2020.

So wait, their lot isn't damaged? It's just them choosing not to open it?

Yeah, a “for sale” sign is posted on the fence at the old Park n Fly lot. It’s been deserted since covid started.

Just so odd. I get that times are tough, but seems the market is proving that your services would be in significant demand.

There is also the old credit card lot on the southside that is sitting unused AFAIK. That's a lot of parking that is going to waste.

LAX772LR wrote:

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Totally agree on the need to build a new parking garage though. I always thought it was foolish to not build a third garage there from the start.

Did they have the funds, considering the overrun on what's already been planned/built?

On the bright side, with the garages being consistently full, they should be raking in plenty of money, especially as the north terminal parking options are the more expensive ones. Hopefully that gives the board funds to pursue the next phases of development soon. There is a massive lot that was cleared for construction parking and staging just west of the terminal. It might be currently used for the taxiway extension work, but that should be completed soon. I could be mistaken, but I thought the long-term garage may have been financed by a private entity in exchange for a portion of the revenue. Perhaps something like that could be arranged for a third garage.

Regarding the change order, these are usually brought to the board in advance of the construction taking place, based on the few virtual meetings I've listened to. I did see a few contracts for hurricane repairs posted on the city's procurement site, but 23 million seems like it would be excessive based on the reports of mostly light damage.

Mentioning the taxiway work - has anyone heard any updates on that? It was supposed to be completed this month, but I'm sure the hurricane delayed it. Given it involves some temporarily closures and shortening of rwy 11/29, I wonder if that might impact BA and other longer flights.

msycajun wrote:

Given it involves some temporarily closures and shortening of rwy 11/29, I wonder if that might impact BA and other longer flights.

Why would it though?

BA was no stranger to using 02/20 when the winds favored it, even though 11/29 was available... and they spent a month going off 02/20 when 11/29 was shut down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmxW9V0g-vY

The airport posted July and August statistics.

https://flymsy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Airline-Statistics-July-2021.pdf
https://flymsy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Airline-Statistics-August-2021.pdf

July was the busiest month at the airport since the pandemic began with 908,108 passengers reported. This was a 184.2% increase over July 2020, but numbers were still down 16.3% from July 2019. Overall, things were looking up for the airport with increasing passenger counts getting much closer to pre-pandemic levels.

Hurricane Ida and the Delta variant then greatly impacted numbers in August. The airport was effectively closed for the final 3 days of the month. Passenger numbers fell to 654,651 which was still an increase of 111.8% over August 2020. However, these numbers were 36.8% below August 2019 totals. This also resulted in the airport ranking falling from 38th to 39th busiest in the country. The airport was positioned between RDU and MCI.

July 2021 domestic and April 2021 international load factors and passenger numbers by route have been calculated. This is the first post with international data since March 2020.

WN restarted service to CUN in April. The route did decently with a load factor of 74.5% in the first month of operation.

April International route seat count(% change), pax count(%change), and load factor(change):

Airline............Seats.........Pax...........LF
WN.................572...........426.........74.5%

As compared to July 2020, airport-wide domestic seat count rose by 59.2%, and domestic pax traffic increased by 173.9% resulting in a 72.0% increase in load factors to 85.4%.

The route with the highest load factor in July was B6's MSY-BOS route with a 95.7% load factor. The route with the lowest load factor was WN's MSY-IAH route with a 53.3% load factor.

Unfortunately, I was hoping that Breeze (MX) would report data for the 10 new routes they started in July, but there was no data reported to the government for that month. It would have been nice to see how the routes were performing in terms of loads. Hopefully, they will start reporting their data soon.

July Domestic route seat count(% change), pax count(%change), and load factor(change):

Airline............Seats..............................Pax..........................LF
3M.................1,260..............................920.........................73.0%
AA..............193,837(+54.1%).........171,894(+130.4%).......88.7%(+49.5%)
AS................10,884(+21.9%)...........10,240(+173.1%).......94.1%(+52.1%)
B6.................28,820(+111.0%).........25,272(+498.1%).......87.7%(+138.5%)
DL..............165,627(+241.1%).......138,442(+514.4%).......83.6%(+80.1%)
F9.................17,582(+62.3%)..........15,137(+139.2%).......86.1%(+47.3%)
G4..................6,108(-5.8%)...............5,003(+62.3).............81.9%(+72.3%)
NK..............126,740(+6.4%)..........109,235(+50.1%)..........86.2%(+41.0%)
UA..............121,088(+247.4%)......100,985(+499.7%)........83.4%(+72.6%)
WN.............376,276(+29.6%)........318,555(+159.3%)........84.7%(+100.0%)

International Data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19MtMvo1Tg88CVQKmbR8i2TqnbK1fWqgixGmPviewVZw/edit?usp=sharing

Domestic Data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zx1l3b1yQKyz5yRYvlM7Q2RDnkXkW8SFwSHCml4ski4/edit?usp=sharing

First time parking at the economy lot, not to bad of an experience. I did not really need to wait to be picked up on either end, which was nice but I would say it added about 20 mins on both ends of trip, but not a bad experience for half the price. It was the first time I had really been on that side of the airport since the move and I really don't get the closed parking lots unless they just can't compete with the Airports 12/day option due to the need of constant shuttles. Anyway the airport was relatively busy and I had completely full DL 737-900er and 757 flights both was from ATL. Just wish they could get the rest of the food options opened, I'm guessing it's staffing at this point.

Any word on how Breeze is doing? I saw they pulled back some more flights and found it odd that they would have a plane just sitting over by the old terminal at noon during a weekday.

It's definitely a staffing issue for the still closed restaurants/shops in the terminal. Until the labor market normalizes, we'll continue to see some closed amenities at pretty much every large airport in the country.

Breeze only flies a few days a week, so it is not surprising that a plane was parked in the middle of the day. Their aircraft have very low utilization, but overhead cost is very low since they are acquired at a steep discount.

Here are the number of passengers, number of seats, and load factors for WN flights out of MSY in August 2021:
ATL-MSY - 14332 passengers, 18517 seats, 77.40% load factor
AUS-MSY - 11348 passengers, 15226 seats, 74.53% load factor
BNA-MSY - 17863 passengers, 21866 seats, 81.69% load factor
BWI-MSY - 11573 passengers, 13702 seats, 84.46% load factor
DAL-MSY - 27562 passengers, 37442 seats, 73.61% load factor
DEN-MSY - 17473 passengers, 24031 seats, 72.71% load factor
FLL-MSY - 13885 passengers, 21046 seats, 65.97% load factor
HOU-MSY - 30310 passengers, 43394 seats, 69.85% load factor
IAH-MSY - 9976 passengers, 27959 seats, 35.68% load factor
LAS-MSY - 13364 passengers, 16011 seats, 83.47% load factor
LAX-MSY - 6776 passengers, 7760 seats, 87.32% load factor
LGA-MSY - 838 passengers, 858 seats, 97.67% load factor
MCO-MSY - 17968 passengers, 25112 seats, 71.55% load factor
MDW-MSY - 18454 passengers, 21520 seats, 85.75% load factor
MIA-MSY - 4559 passengers, 7216 seats, 63.18% load factor
MSY-PHX - 7099 passengers, 8744 seats, 81.19% load factor
MSY-STL - 4616 passengers, 7359 seats, 62.73% load factor
MSY-TPA - 10762 passengers, 13971 seats, 77.03% load factor

August 2021 domestic and May 2021 international load factors and passenger numbers by route have been calculated.

Vacation Express restarted the CUN flight in May. The route did poorly with a load factor of 39.7% in the first month of operation. I list Vacation Express as WG as they are a subsidiary of SunWing.

May International route seat count(% change), pax count(%change), and load factor(change):

Airline............Seats.........Pax...........LF
WN................1,716.........1,497.......87.2%
WG..................720............286........39.7%.

As compared to August 2020, airport-wide domestic seat count rose by 31.0%, and domestic pax traffic increased by 105.2% resulting in a 56.7% increase in load factors to 72.2%.

The route with the highest load factor in August was WN's MSY-LGA route with a 97.7% load factor. The route with the lowest load factor was WN's MSY-IAH route with a 35.7% load factor.

Breeze did not report any data to the government for the month of August.

August Domestic route seat count(% change), pax count(%change), and load factor(change):

Airline............Seats..............................Pax..........................LF
3M.................1,120..............................596.........................53.2%
AA..............167,210(+33.6%).........125,569(+78.7%).........75.1%(+33.8%)
AS..................9,638(-8.4%)................7,926(+64.9%).........82.2%(+36.6%)
B6.................26,362(+118.6%).........19,689(+378.1%).......74.7%(+118.7%)
DL..............140,490(+59.7%).........105,392(+192.1%).......75.0%(+82.8%)
F9.................14,172(+16.0%)..........10,120(+49.4%)..........71.4%(+28.7%)
G4..................4,626(+5.5%)...............2,736(+61.7).............59.1%(+53.3%)
NK.................93,821(+32.2%).........56,623(+29.8%)..........60.3%(-1.8%)
UA..............110,014(+101.2%)........81,540(+220.2%)........74.1%(+59.1%)
WN.............331,734(+7.5%)..........238,758(+93.4%)..........72.0%(+80.0%)

International Data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Domestic Data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

BA's loads are looking a bit rough.

The re-inaugural only has about a dozen seats booked in each class, and it's barely 2wks away.

Granted, there hasn't been much advertisement of its return, save for the odd tweet or article here or there. So hopefully, once it's back in the news, loads and yields will quickly rise. Through brought it back, so they must be pretty confident in it.

LAX772LR wrote:

BA's loads are looking a bit rough.

Then again, LHR-BNA (on the same day) is at essentially the same in both the J and W cabins on the eastbound, and even worse in Y, on its re-inaugural. Westbound is doing a good bit better in J, but still pretty terrible in W/Y.

BWI has already been in operation, but it's a 788, so I guess fair to compare:
On the same date as the MSY/BNA re-inaugurals, LHR-BWI only has 2 more pax in J, even less than MSY/BNA do in W, and slightly more in Y.

So at least it's not just one.

Not really surprising since its the slow period between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks.

MX to launch weekly MSY-PBI, on February 19 of next year.

Nice to see them adding a route after the recent cuts.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Nice to see them adding a route after the recent cuts.

And at least these are Saturday weeklies, makes far more sense than "twice a week on Tuesday and Friday" like some of their past stuff... who the heck is going to know that it's even offered?

It's so tough trying to figure this airline out.

LAX772LR wrote:

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Nice to see them adding a route after the recent cuts.

And at least these are Saturday weeklies, makes far more sense than "twice a week on Tuesday and Friday" like some of their past stuff... who the heck is going to know that it's even offered?

It's so tough trying to figure this airline out.

Great to see! Think anyone would try MSY>RSW like Saturday seasonally ?

BA225 ship G-ZBJD is in the air and on her way back to NOLA! So happy to see this flight return!!

bretonrlong wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

NolaMD88fan wrote:

Nice to see them adding a route after the recent cuts.

And at least these are Saturday weeklies, makes far more sense than "twice a week on Tuesday and Friday" like some of their past stuff... who the heck is going to know that it's even offered?

It's so tough trying to figure this airline out.

Great to see! Think anyone would try MSY>RSW like Saturday seasonally ?

Best bet would be either MX or G4 if traffic levels warranted it.

LAX772LR wrote:

BA225 ship G-ZBJD is in the air and on her way back to NOLA! So happy to see this flight return!!

So happy to have BA back. Even at 3x weekly to start, it's nice having that non-stop TATL flight as an option.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

bretonrlong wrote:

LAX772LR wrote:

And at least these are Saturday weeklies, makes far more sense than "twice a week on Tuesday and Friday" like some of their past stuff... who the heck is going to know that it's even offered?

It's so tough trying to figure this airline out.

Great to see! Think anyone would try MSY>RSW like Saturday seasonally ?

Best bet would be either MX or G4 if traffic levels warranted it.

G4 doesn’t fly to RSW; maybe Punta Gorda nearby.

I did not know that. Actually really shocked they don't fly to RSW. Shows how little I know about G4 in general since they aren't a big player at MSY. Guess MX is the best bet if they decide to open a station there.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

So happy to have BA back. Even at 3x weekly to start, it's nice having that non-stop TATL flight as an option.

Can't speak to yields, but MSY's loads over the next month are not too dissimilar to AUS's, who's already seeing a frequency increase. Even though said loads are pretty bad all around, that at least bodes well.

BA is sending a 789 there without selling F (hard product sold as full-fare C), which they'd done many times at MSY... wondering if they'd ever try that on a scheduled basis?

While it's nice to see PBI on the map, the Saturday-only strategy is confounding. Unlike other airlines, you can't connect on the days the nonstop isn't offered and Saturday. I agree RSW would make a lot of sense. I've always wondered why no one has at least tried it since TPA does pretty well and WN/NK don't offer much service west of RSW (meaning a well-timed MSY-RSW could open up some additional connections for them).

I guess there's no word yet on if MSY will be an A220 base for MX, but I have to wonder if we'd see flights to places like PIT, BDL, and ISP if so.

Also, it didn't get much press, but NK announced they are adding a daily PHL flight in February. They previously offered it 4 weekly. Still hoping they'll bring back a few routes such as BNA, MSP, AUS, and RDU.

MSY getting 15 million from the infrastructure bill. My guess is this money will go toward demolition of the old terminal (except for D which can't be demolished for a while). The long range goal AFAIK was to try to develop that area for use a cargo facility.

NolaMD88fan wrote:

The long range goal AFAIK was to try to develop that area for use a cargo facility.

Hopefully international at that... would be great to see the likes of CX, KE, SQ, etc freighters put in a weekly cargo run someday, even if only as an offshoot from somewhere like ANC or DFW. Definitely within their repertoire to do so.

B6 looks likes it’s going 2X daily on MSY-LGA. Interesting. That will make 6 daily nonstops to LGA by B6/WN/DL, plus add in the 4 to JFK by B6/DL, and 5 to EWR by UA/NK. NK actually flies a 321 on the EWR route now.

NYC is well served from the looks of it.

It would be great to get some international cargo ops in. The airport is located in a good position for intermodal operations (rail, river, and road).

WOW, I remember in the early '00s when the only NYC service was a daily LGA by US, a double-daily EWR by CO, and a less-than-daily JFK by TW.

Growth has been amazing!

TS resumed MSY-YUL twice weekly yesterday with A321.

MX is increasing CHS and RIC to 5X weekly in February.

Great to see TS back at MSY, and MX add some frequency on a couple of routes.

SunsetLimited wrote:

TS resumed MSY-YUL twice weekly yesterday with A321.

Any sense of the loads on the return?

Seems such horrible timing.

Taxiway G extension on the north side of RWY 11/29 is moving along nicely based on an aerial photo shared on the local spotters group facebook page. Main impact recently has been the ILS being out of commission on this runway resulting in some cancellations and diversions during fog events. ILS should be back in service next month, and the entire project is expected to be complete in the Spring.

Did Air Transat zero out all but a few dates over Jan, Feb?

Please continue to post your news and your discussion here:

New Orleans Aviation Thread - 2022

Thread will be locked.