Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
masonh2479 wrote:It could be to transfer cargo from St. Thomas to San Juan, or it could be that the runway at St. Thomas (7000ft) is not long enough for a 737-800 to fly direct to Minneapolis without weight restrictions. The flight from Minneapolis to St. Thomas does appear to be direct so I would think fuel and runway length.
classicjets wrote:I seem to recall it has more to do with terrain at STT than runway length alone.
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mga707 wrote:Apparently no one on here remembers American Inter-Island, which was the operation that AA set up with CV-440s operated by Antilles Air Boats (an early code-share) while STT's runway was lengthened. This was back in the early '80s, after AA lost a 727-100 at the airport in 1976 in a landing overrun crash, with 37 fatalities. The 727 hit a Shell station adjacent to the airport, which caused most if not all of the fatalities. At that time the runway length was only around 4,650ft. Because of this, AA's STT flights were routed JFK-STT-STX-JFK, with fueling up taking place at St. Croix. Lengthening the runway involved a lot of earth-moving due to a nearby hill that had to be lowered. While this was going on, AA pulled their jets from the airport and used the Convairs to connect passengers from STX to STT. The project meant that the runway length was even shorter while the work was underway, necessitating the Convairs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_ ... Flight_625