AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

dfdubflyer wrote:

Ditto. I had lunch with Don Carty a few years ago around the time of the bankruptcy/merger and he told me he feels that shutting the Nashville hub was one of American's greatest mistakes and something he and Crandall very much regretted.

His opinion was that if they had kept BNA in the system they would have had a southeastern hub to allow them to better compete with DL/US. He said basically that they were right on the long-term prospects of Nashville and just got a little spooked too quickly and he said their mistake was doing Raleigh at the same time. He said he felt fine about nixing Saint Louis.

But would they have kept BNA after inheriting CLT after the US merger? CLT is a bigger market and better positioned for a n/s hub.

And why does he regret closing BNA over RDU?

That's making an assumption AA would have merged with US. There are a zillion scenarios that could be made had airlines not gotten so big with little competition. Had CO, NW, and US stayed around, the U.S. airline business would look very different. This is why I'm so anti-merger.

What we saw (the AA/US Airways merger) likely would have still played out even if AA had a BNA hub, however, the question would have been whether to keep the BNA or CLT hub. Unfortunately, I think CLT would have won out because it is better situated for east coast n/s traffic and it likely would have been a bigger hub than BNA (even if the BNA hub had continued, do you honestly think it would have grown to 400+ flights a day with several nonstop flights to Europe? I have my doubts).

I am torn on the mergers. On one had, they have brought a lot of stability to an otherwise extremely volatile industry (we'll see if that lasts come next economic downturn), but on the other hand, it has lead to less competition and shielding of bad airlines (United) that might otherwise have gone out of business (or at least would be on the ropes by now) had the mergers not happened.

southwest1675 wrote:

I have a pretty good AA BNA hub era photo collection. Definitely different times in the industry, and city. When I fly into CLT, reminds me what BNA could have been.

Could you show us some of those photos sometime? I'd interested to see that. The Tennessean did a "Nashville airport over the years" article a few years back that showed pictures of the airport from its inception to the present day (as of a few years ago). Some photos of the AA hub appear, but nothing substantial.

https://www.tennessean.com/picture-gallery/news/local/davidson%20/2014/07/21/nashville-airport-over-the-years/12946767/

southwest1675 wrote:

I have a pretty good AA BNA hub era photo collection. Definitely different times in the industry, and city. When I fly into CLT, reminds me what BNA could have been.

Any way you could share some of those pictures? There are a paucity of photos on the internet of the AA BNA hub. I have only found a handful through the years.

ADrum23 wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

But would they have kept BNA after inheriting CLT after the US merger? CLT is a bigger market and better positioned for a n/s hub.

And why does he regret closing BNA over RDU?

That's making an assumption AA would have merged with US. There are a zillion scenarios that could be made had airlines not gotten so big with little competition. Had CO, NW, and US stayed around, the U.S. airline business would look very different. This is why I'm so anti-merger.

What we saw (the AA/US Airways merger) likely would have still played out even if AA had a BNA hub, however, the question would have been whether to keep the BNA or CLT hub. Unfortunately, I think CLT would have won out because it is better situated for east coast n/s traffic and it likely would have been a bigger hub than BNA (even if the BNA hub had continued, do you honestly think it would have grown to 400+ flights a day with several nonstop flights to Europe? I have my doubts).

I am torn on the mergers. On one had, they have brought a lot of stability to an otherwise extremely volatile industry (we'll see if that lasts come next economic downturn), but on the other hand, it has lead to less competition and shielding of bad airlines (United) that might otherwise have gone out of business (or at least would be on the ropes by now) had the mergers not happened.

Yeah so like AAvgeek744 said (and again it was a polite lunch so I wasn't pushing him too hard) but he believed that ultimately the "cornerstones" left things a little hollow for connections within the ORD, DFW, NYC, MIA square. More connecting traffic through BNA could have potentially shored them up in the east-central and made an Airways merger less appealing blah blah blah. He could have just been telling me BNA over RDU because I told him I was a Nashville native... who knows! I chose to latch on to it because it validated my beliefs of course.

dfdubflyer wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

That's making an assumption AA would have merged with US. There are a zillion scenarios that could be made had airlines not gotten so big with little competition. Had CO, NW, and US stayed around, the U.S. airline business would look very different. This is why I'm so anti-merger.

What we saw (the AA/US Airways merger) likely would have still played out even if AA had a BNA hub, however, the question would have been whether to keep the BNA or CLT hub. Unfortunately, I think CLT would have won out because it is better situated for east coast n/s traffic and it likely would have been a bigger hub than BNA (even if the BNA hub had continued, do you honestly think it would have grown to 400+ flights a day with several nonstop flights to Europe? I have my doubts).

I am torn on the mergers. On one had, they have brought a lot of stability to an otherwise extremely volatile industry (we'll see if that lasts come next economic downturn), but on the other hand, it has lead to less competition and shielding of bad airlines (United) that might otherwise have gone out of business (or at least would be on the ropes by now) had the mergers not happened.

Yeah so like AAvgeek744 said (and again it was a polite lunch so I wasn't pushing him too hard) but he believed that ultimately the "cornerstones" left things a little hollow for connections within the ORD, DFW, NYC, MIA square. More connecting traffic through BNA could have potentially shored them up in the east-central and made an Airways merger less appealing blah blah blah. He could have just been telling me BNA over RDU because I told him I was a Nashville native... who knows! I chose to latch on to it because it validated my beliefs of course.

UA and US Airways would have been better merger partners IMO.

Anyway, I certainly wish AA kept the BNA hub, it would have made Nashville even more appealing for businesses. But I guess we will just have to settle for being a WN focus city.

I do wonder how BNA would look today if it retained its AA hub. It seems as if the existing BNA terminal would be hard pressed to find space for all the gates it would have required.

TYSflyer wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

I have a pretty good AA BNA hub era photo collection. Definitely different times in the industry, and city. When I fly into CLT, reminds me what BNA could have been.

Any way you could share some of those pictures? There are a paucity of photos on the internet of the AA BNA hub. I have only found a handful through the years.

I'll share some soon! Here's a DC-10 at C11 around 88/89

https://imgur.com/a/ktZXv

This may seem like an obvious answer to some of you a.net old-timers, but does anyone know how you can get detailed flight data for BNA? I’m talking about PDEW and load factors for individual routes and flights, broken down by airline, how many pax go daily to cities unserved by direct flights, etc. Anything y’all could offer would be well appreciated.

pdt2f wrote:

This may seem like an obvious answer to some of you a.net old-timers, but does anyone know how you can get detailed flight data for BNA? I’m talking about PDEW and load factors for individual routes and flights, broken down by airline, how many pax go daily to cities unserved by direct flights, etc. Anything y’all could offer would be well appreciated.

https://www.transportation.gov/policy/a ... are-report
Table 6, this will give you PDEW (divide by 2), average fare, market share

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_SelectFields.asp
Air Carriers : T-100 Domestic Segment (U.S. Carriers)
Load Factors per route

http://www.aviationdb.com/Aviation/F4SD ... htm#SUBMIT
Also Load Factors per route

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_SelectFields.asp
This is where you can find info, on how many people are connecting on each route and how many people are flying nonstop, and at what cost.

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_SelectFields.asp
FarePerMile and ItinFare from your selected airport

DM me if you have any questions

AS added a 2nd SEA-BNA flight, this time a red eye from SEA and early morning BNA departure.

flymco753 wrote:

AS added a 2nd SEA-BNA flight, this time a red eye from SEA and early morning BNA departure.

see posts #214, #216, #219

Midwestindy wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

AS added a 2nd SEA-BNA flight, this time a red eye from SEA and early morning BNA departure.

see posts #214, #216, #219

Wow, I'm late to the game!

I think the thing we commonly overlook is the tourist factor here. When comparing BNA and RDU, there's really no comparison. RDU doesn't have the tourist factor that helps fill seats that aren't generally sold to business folks. On an aside, the convention market here is huge. It's a national convention city and only growing in demand and profile. That's another reason why the hub would work here now. AA was a bit early to the game, but quick to pull the trigger. BTW, CLT isn't much of a tourist destination either, but it's easy to connect through.

Midwestindy wrote:

pdt2f wrote:

This may seem like an obvious answer to some of you a.net old-timers, but does anyone know how you can get detailed flight data for BNA? I’m talking about PDEW and load factors for individual routes and flights, broken down by airline, how many pax go daily to cities unserved by direct flights, etc. Anything y’all could offer would be well appreciated.

https://www.transportation.gov/policy/a ... are-report
Table 6, this will give you PDEW (divide by 2), average fare, market share

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_SelectFields.asp
Air Carriers : T-100 Domestic Segment (U.S. Carriers)
Load Factors per route

http://www.aviationdb.com/Aviation/F4SD ... htm#SUBMIT
Also Load Factors per route

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_SelectFields.asp
This is where you can find info, on how many people are connecting on each route and how many people are flying nonstop, and at what cost.

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/DL_SelectFields.asp
FarePerMile and ItinFare from your selected airport

DM me if you have any questions

This is excellent, thank you!

Lexy wrote:

I think the thing we commonly overlook is the tourist factor here. When comparing BNA and RDU, there's really no comparison. RDU doesn't have the tourist factor that helps fill seats that aren't generally sold to business folks. On an aside, the convention market here is huge. It's a national convention city and only growing in demand and profile. That's another reason why the hub would work here now. AA was a bit early to the game, but quick to pull the trigger. BTW, CLT isn't much of a tourist destination either, but it's easy to connect through.

Hmmmm.. So I checked, and according to The Tennesseean, Nashville has 14.5Mil visitors in 2016.... Now, just looking at Durham, NC... according to their site, they had 15.4Mil visitors by themselves... Raleigh and Wake County, according to this site, had another 15.6Mil visitors.. and Chapel Hill, I can’t even find but would gather another 10Mil at least.. so just for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary.. that’s 40Mil people... soooooo.. how does Nashville have more visitors? Or maybe I got Nashville numbers wrong?

ADrum23 wrote:

I wonder why AS added another BNA-SEA flight? How are the load factors there?

I hope they add PDX soon.

Around 90% or more during last summer, for WN, AS, and DL’s flights. I think AS’s was like 96% last June.

I wonder why AS added another BNA-SEA flight? How are the load factors there?

I hope they add PDX soon.

ERJ170 wrote:

Lexy wrote:

I think the thing we commonly overlook is the tourist factor here. When comparing BNA and RDU, there's really no comparison. RDU doesn't have the tourist factor that helps fill seats that aren't generally sold to business folks. On an aside, the convention market here is huge. It's a national convention city and only growing in demand and profile. That's another reason why the hub would work here now. AA was a bit early to the game, but quick to pull the trigger. BTW, CLT isn't much of a tourist destination either, but it's easy to connect through.

Hmmmm.. So I checked, and according to The Tennesseean, Nashville has 14.5Mil visitors in 2016.... Now, just looking at Durham, NC... according to their site, they had 15.4Mil visitors by themselves... Raleigh and Wake County, according to this site, had another 15.6Mil visitors.. and Chapel Hill, I can’t even find but would gather another 10Mil at least.. so just for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary.. that’s 40Mil people... soooooo.. how does Nashville have more visitors? Or maybe I got Nashville numbers wrong?

Just from an outsiders perspective, I would say RDU has a sizeably larger business presence than BNA. The research triangle has major operations for Cisco, IBM, and GSK, which all are some of the biggest air travel spenders in the US. Plus countless other major corporations have outposts there....
http://www.businesstravelnews.com/Corpo ... l-100/2017

Both are more regional tourist destinations rather than national tourist destinations so tourism wouldn't fuel that much air travel year round, however, BNA is gaining more national attention so that could change...

ADrum23 wrote:

dfdubflyer wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

What we saw (the AA/US Airways merger) likely would have still played out even if AA had a BNA hub, however, the question would have been whether to keep the BNA or CLT hub. Unfortunately, I think CLT would have won out because it is better situated for east coast n/s traffic and it likely would have been a bigger hub than BNA (even if the BNA hub had continued, do you honestly think it would have grown to 400+ flights a day with several nonstop flights to Europe? I have my doubts).

I am torn on the mergers. On one had, they have brought a lot of stability to an otherwise extremely volatile industry (we'll see if that lasts come next economic downturn), but on the other hand, it has lead to less competition and shielding of bad airlines (United) that might otherwise have gone out of business (or at least would be on the ropes by now) had the mergers not happened.

Yeah so like AAvgeek744 said (and again it was a polite lunch so I wasn't pushing him too hard) but he believed that ultimately the "cornerstones" left things a little hollow for connections within the ORD, DFW, NYC, MIA square. More connecting traffic through BNA could have potentially shored them up in the east-central and made an Airways merger less appealing blah blah blah. He could have just been telling me BNA over RDU because I told him I was a Nashville native... who knows! I chose to latch on to it because it validated my beliefs of course.

UA and US Airways would have been better merger partners IMO.

Anyway, I certainly wish AA kept the BNA hub, it would have made Nashville even more appealing for businesses. But I guess we will just have to settle for being a WN focus city.

I do wonder how BNA would look today if it retained its AA hub. It seems as if the existing BNA terminal would be hard pressed to find space for all the gates it would have required.

Filed in my wild avgeek dream world is Braniff surviving, keeping the various ultra colors, and hubbing in BNA. DFW was so awesome back before they died.

Midwestindy wrote:

ERJ170 wrote:

Lexy wrote:

I think the thing we commonly overlook is the tourist factor here. When comparing BNA and RDU, there's really no comparison. RDU doesn't have the tourist factor that helps fill seats that aren't generally sold to business folks. On an aside, the convention market here is huge. It's a national convention city and only growing in demand and profile. That's another reason why the hub would work here now. AA was a bit early to the game, but quick to pull the trigger. BTW, CLT isn't much of a tourist destination either, but it's easy to connect through.

Hmmmm.. So I checked, and according to The Tennesseean, Nashville has 14.5Mil visitors in 2016.... Now, just looking at Durham, NC... according to their site, they had 15.4Mil visitors by themselves... Raleigh and Wake County, according to this site, had another 15.6Mil visitors.. and Chapel Hill, I can’t even find but would gather another 10Mil at least.. so just for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary.. that’s 40Mil people... soooooo.. how does Nashville have more visitors? Or maybe I got Nashville numbers wrong?

Just from an outsiders perspective, I would say RDU has a sizeably larger business presence than BNA. The research triangle has major operations for Cisco, IBM, and GSK, which all are some of the biggest air travel spenders in the US. ...

I was interested by this — did a quick Google and per the BEA the Nashville and the RDU gross metropolitan products are almost identical at 125B.

dfdubflyer wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

ERJ170 wrote:

Hmmmm.. So I checked, and according to The Tennesseean, Nashville has 14.5Mil visitors in 2016.... Now, just looking at Durham, NC... according to their site, they had 15.4Mil visitors by themselves... Raleigh and Wake County, according to this site, had another 15.6Mil visitors.. and Chapel Hill, I can’t even find but would gather another 10Mil at least.. so just for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary.. that’s 40Mil people... soooooo.. how does Nashville have more visitors? Or maybe I got Nashville numbers wrong?

Just from an outsiders perspective, I would say RDU has a sizeably larger business presence than BNA. The research triangle has major operations for Cisco, IBM, and GSK, which all are some of the biggest air travel spenders in the US. ...

I was interested by this — did a quick Google and per the BEA the Nashville and the RDU gross metropolitan products are almost identical at 125B.

IMO, GMP is too broad of a metric to use, especially since it accounts for many industries that don't affect air travel. I'm pretty sure Nashville has a larger Healthcare and Insurance industry, but Raleigh is in the same boat as Austin, Denver, San Diego, and the like in terms of having a large contingent of higher-ed companies stationed there. These higher-ed companies, like the ones I mentioned above (IBM, Cisco, and GSK) do a lot of air travel. For example, IBM spent the second most in the US last year at around $500 million on US air travel and have around 8,000 employees in the Triangle.

ERJ170 wrote:

Hmmmm.. So I checked, and according to The Tennesseean, Nashville has 14.5Mil visitors in 2016.... Now, just looking at Durham, NC... according to their site, they had 15.4Mil visitors by themselves... Raleigh and Wake County, according to this site, had another 15.6Mil visitors.. and Chapel Hill, I can’t even find but would gather another 10Mil at least.. so just for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary.. that’s 40Mil people... soooooo.. how does Nashville have more visitors? Or maybe I got Nashville numbers wrong?

Those visitor numbers are likely wildly inaccurate. There's no real objective way to measure "visitors" to the city. Instead, I think it is better to look at tangible, measurable metrics. I had previously put together some numbers for metro areas, so had some of this data already. The number of hotel rooms in an MSA is a very easily measured metric that will give us a feel for the size of the tourism and travel industry. Combining this number with average occupancy rates gives us even more information.

Here the data (some is a couple years old, but it gives a good idea):

Number of hotel rooms:
Nashville MSA: 41,500 at of 2017
Raleigh-Cary MSA: 18,000 as of 2015
Durham MSA: 10,000 as of 2015

Room nights (how many rooms were used in a year):
Nashville MSA - ~11.4 million in 2017
Raleigh-Cary MSA - 4.37 million in 2015
Durham MSA - 2.43 million in 2015

The take home point is that Nashville has an over-sized hospitality industry compared to its peers (I have the data on other cities for comparison if you would like). It just eclipsed New Orleans in total hotel rooms and has more hotel rooms than cities significantly larger. For example, Nashville has roughly the same number of rooms as the Denver MSA which is ~1,000,000 people larger and has a significant tourism industry itself. While not every visitor is a "tourist" and not every visitor uses the airport, it does support a significant amount of the air service that Nashville has.

dfdubflyer wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

ERJ170 wrote:

Hmmmm.. So I checked, and according to The Tennesseean, Nashville has 14.5Mil visitors in 2016.... Now, just looking at Durham, NC... according to their site, they had 15.4Mil visitors by themselves... Raleigh and Wake County, according to this site, had another 15.6Mil visitors.. and Chapel Hill, I can’t even find but would gather another 10Mil at least.. so just for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary.. that’s 40Mil people... soooooo.. how does Nashville have more visitors? Or maybe I got Nashville numbers wrong?

Just from an outsiders perspective, I would say RDU has a sizeably larger business presence than BNA. The research triangle has major operations for Cisco, IBM, and GSK, which all are some of the biggest air travel spenders in the US. ...

I was interested by this — did a quick Google and per the BEA the Nashville and the RDU gross metropolitan products are almost identical at 125B.

While I agree that Nashville is a much bigger tourist destination than The Triangle, 2017 numbers suggest that the Raleigh and the Durham GMP numbers are 11% higher than the The Nashville GMP. Although the cities of Raleigh and Durham share a border, there is an anomaly is the way the government classifies metros, due to the massive work area of RTP being located between the two.

Midwestindy wrote:

dfdubflyer wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Just from an outsiders perspective, I would say RDU has a sizeably larger business presence than BNA. The research triangle has major operations for Cisco, IBM, and GSK, which all are some of the biggest air travel spenders in the US. ...

I was interested by this — did a quick Google and per the BEA the Nashville and the RDU gross metropolitan products are almost identical at 125B.

IMO, GMP is too broad of a metric to use, especially since it accounts for many industries that don't affect air travel. I'm pretty sure Nashville has a larger Healthcare and Insurance industry, but Raleigh is in the same boat as Austin, Denver, San Diego, and the like in terms of having a large contingent of higher-ed companies stationed there. These higher-ed companies, like the ones I mentioned above (IBM, Cisco, and GSK) do a lot of air travel. For example, IBM spent the second most in the US last year at around $500 million on US air travel and have around 8,000 employees in the Triangle.

I'm not sure the pissing contest between the two makes a whole lot of sense regardless of what metric you use. BNA and RDU have very different demand patterns because of their vastly different economic strengths, different tourist draws, and to some extent geographic/cultural differences that are perhaps not as apparent on the map as they are to people who have spent time both places. Nashville's auto industry is significant and the Triangle has very little automotive business. BNA-DTW is twice as large a market as RDU-DTW. The Triangle's biotech strength means that it isn't surprising that RDU-BOS is larger than BNA-BOS, though that difference - only about 15 percent - is much smaller than I would have guessed before looking at the numbers.

Revisiting the question of whether AA would consider adding a PHX flight, WN’s route to PHX runs over 90% full most months, up to 95% during busy months and down to around 87% in slow months. That seems to show great demand, especially since WN runs 3 flights a day during most (if not all) of the year. A PHX flight could reduce some traffic at DFW for connecting pax while stealing some O&D traffic from WN. I’m not too concerned about the route, WN’s obviously got it covered, but I’m typically in favor of anything that lowers prices at BNA

pdt2f wrote:

Revisiting the question of whether AA would consider adding a PHX flight, WN’s route to PHX runs over 90% full most months, up to 95% during busy months and down to around 87% in slow months. That seems to show great demand, especially since WN runs 3 flights a day during most (if not all) of the year. A PHX flight could reduce some traffic at DFW for connecting pax while stealing some O&D traffic from WN. I’m not too concerned about the route, WN’s obviously got it covered, but I’m typically in favor of anything that lowers prices at BNA

I’d love to see AA add PHX. Probably 1x daily

southwest1675 wrote:

pdt2f wrote:

Revisiting the question of whether AA would consider adding a PHX flight, WN’s route to PHX runs over 90% full most months, up to 95% during busy months and down to around 87% in slow months. That seems to show great demand, especially since WN runs 3 flights a day during most (if not all) of the year. A PHX flight could reduce some traffic at DFW for connecting pax while stealing some O&D traffic from WN. I’m not too concerned about the route, WN’s obviously got it covered, but I’m typically in favor of anything that lowers prices at BNA

I’d love to see AA add PHX. Probably 1x daily

They could start out with an E75 or CR9. See if the flight can siphon off pax from WN.

Does anyone know where you can find information on the airline market share at BNA? I cannot seem to find it on the website.

ADrum23 wrote:

Does anyone know where you can find information on the airline market share at BNA? I cannot seem to find it on the website.

This shows only the top 5, with other stuff. I don not place much emphasis on Wikipedia, but it's all I could find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_International_Airport#Airline_market_share

ADrum23 wrote:

Does anyone know where you can find information on the airline market share at BNA? I cannot seem to find it on the website.

Using the “aviationdb.com” link provided by Midwestindy above, you could go month by month looking for total passengers from BNA on all routes. It gives the amount of pax flown so it would just be figuring out the percentages for each airline at that point. I think that would work.

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

Does anyone know where you can find information on the airline market share at BNA? I cannot seem to find it on the website.

This shows only the top 5, with other stuff. I don not place much emphasis on Wikipedia, but it's all I could find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_International_Airport#Airline_market_share

That information is why I asked the question. That information may not be accurate, according to the BNA Vision EIS (that claims American is still the second largest at 20 something percent and Delta is at 15 something percent).

ADrum23 wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

Does anyone know where you can find information on the airline market share at BNA? I cannot seem to find it on the website.

This shows only the top 5, with other stuff. I don not place much emphasis on Wikipedia, but it's all I could find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_International_Airport#Airline_market_share

That information is why I asked the question. That information may not be accurate, according to the BNA Vision EIS (that claims American is still the second largest at 20 something percent and Delta is at 15 something percent).

That data is correct, it is straight from the USDOT as sourced on wiki
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports. ... rier=FACTS

However, AA still may be second largest because the USDOT data seperates regional and mainline carriers. So it is hard to tell from that data, which carrier is bigger

Midwestindy wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

This shows only the top 5, with other stuff. I don not place much emphasis on Wikipedia, but it's all I could find.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_International_Airport#Airline_market_share

That information is why I asked the question. That information may not be accurate, according to the BNA Vision EIS (that claims American is still the second largest at 20 something percent and Delta is at 15 something percent).

That data is correct, it is straight from the USDOT as sourced on wiki
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports. ... rier=FACTS

However, AA still may be second largest because the USDOT data seperates regional and mainline carriers. So it is hard to tell from that data, which carrier is bigger

That is probably it then. I believe DL flies more mainline out of BNA than AA, so that would explain the higher numbers.

AAvgeek744 wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

AA’s BNA hub was really interesting. It wouldn’t have lasted regardless I’m sure. Supposedly they closed it because lack of local passengers, and early 90s recession. I’m sure it didn’t help RDU was next door, and had MIA down south. I saw an interview years ago with Bob Crandall saying dehubbing Nashville was one of the worst things AA ever did domestically.

I lived in Dallas during the BNA hub days. When I'd fly into BNA, the concourse was always crowded but that obviously didn't mean it was profitable. As you state RDU didn't help.

BNA and RDU had approximately zero overlap on AA. Ditto for MIA. AA did not serve any destinations in the US outside the eastern time zone from RDU except for flights to their BNA, DFW, and ORD hubs. Outside of of FL, ATL and large NE cities, the only cities in common were DTW and CLE and just a very few small cities flow by AAE in the pre-RJ era. IIRC AA did not route connections from the NE to Florida and ATL via BNA, not sure about DTW and CLE.

ADrum23 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

That information is why I asked the question. That information may not be accurate, according to the BNA Vision EIS (that claims American is still the second largest at 20 something percent and Delta is at 15 something percent).

That data is correct, it is straight from the USDOT as sourced on wiki
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports. ... rier=FACTS

However, AA still may be second largest because the USDOT data seperates regional and mainline carriers. So it is hard to tell from that data, which carrier is bigger

That is probably it then. I believe DL flies more mainline out of BNA than AA, so that would explain the higher numbers.

I think DL has ceased using 50-seaters at BNA. CVG has been a CR9. Not sure what goes to DTW and MSP (DTW gets some mainline, don't think MSP does).. ATL is all mainline. SLC is mainline during winter. SEA, LAX also. That leaves the E jets and CR7/9 for the NY flights, RDU, BOS.

afcjets wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

AA’s BNA hub was really interesting. It wouldn’t have lasted regardless I’m sure. Supposedly they closed it because lack of local passengers, and early 90s recession. I’m sure it didn’t help RDU was next door, and had MIA down south. I saw an interview years ago with Bob Crandall saying dehubbing Nashville was one of the worst things AA ever did domestically.

I lived in Dallas during the BNA hub days. When I'd fly into BNA, the concourse was always crowded but that obviously didn't mean it was profitable. As you state RDU didn't help.

BNA and RDU had approximately zero overlap on AA. Ditto for MIA. AA did not serve any destinations in the US outside the eastern time zone from RDU except for flights to their BNA, DFW, and ORD hubs. Outside of of FL, ATL and large NE cities, the only cities in common were DTW and CLE and just a very few small cities flow by AAE in the pre-RJ era. IIRC AA did not route connections from the NE to Florida and ATL via BNA, not sure about DTW and CLE.

Somewhere I have an article from ATW which states AA realized having two hubs so close with a smaller O&D population they changed BNA to an omni-directional hub, meaning some eastbound banks took off the same time as some westbound banks. They only had 6 banks, three in each direction. I'd flown in from Dallas several times between banks and mine was the only flight on the concourse. I understand that's how banks worked but they could've added 2 more. Since they were late to the RJ game, those would have made fleet utilization better.

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

That data is correct, it is straight from the USDOT as sourced on wiki
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports. ... rier=FACTS

However, AA still may be second largest because the USDOT data seperates regional and mainline carriers. So it is hard to tell from that data, which carrier is bigger

That is probably it then. I believe DL flies more mainline out of BNA than AA, so that would explain the higher numbers.

I think DL has ceased using 50-seaters at BNA. CVG has been a CR9. Not sure what goes to DTW and MSP (DTW gets some mainline, don't think MSP does).. ATL is all mainline. SLC is mainline during winter. SEA, LAX also. That leaves the E jets and CR7/9 for the NY flights, RDU, BOS.

There is a mid afternoon A319 on MSP-BNA typically, otherwise CR9's are usually found.

tys777 wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

That is probably it then. I believe DL flies more mainline out of BNA than AA, so that would explain the higher numbers.

I think DL has ceased using 50-seaters at BNA. CVG has been a CR9. Not sure what goes to DTW and MSP (DTW gets some mainline, don't think MSP does).. ATL is all mainline. SLC is mainline during winter. SEA, LAX also. That leaves the E jets and CR7/9 for the NY flights, RDU, BOS.

There is a mid afternoon A319 on MSP-BNA typically, otherwise CR9's are usually found.

Cool, thanks for the fyi.

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

That data is correct, it is straight from the USDOT as sourced on wiki
https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports. ... rier=FACTS

However, AA still may be second largest because the USDOT data seperates regional and mainline carriers. So it is hard to tell from that data, which carrier is bigger

That is probably it then. I believe DL flies more mainline out of BNA than AA, so that would explain the higher numbers.

I think DL has ceased using 50-seaters at BNA. CVG has been a CR9. Not sure what goes to DTW and MSP (DTW gets some mainline, don't think MSP does).. ATL is all mainline. SLC is mainline during winter. SEA, LAX also. That leaves the E jets and CR7/9 for the NY flights, RDU, BOS.

DTW is almost entirely MD-88’s and 717’s, when it’s not it’s a CRJ-900. MSP has occasional 717 service but mostly 900’s. 900’s and 700’s almost exclusively for NYC airports, RDU, and BOS, as far as I can tell.

I’d like to see DL get into larger aircraft on BNA-DTW, occasionally there’s a 739 or 757 but to see that regularly would be great.

flymco753 wrote:

I’d like to see DL get into larger aircraft on BNA-DTW, occasionally there’s a 739 or 757 but to see that regularly would be great.

I doubt DL will put anything larger than a 737 on a regular basis at BNA until Concourse B is modified to better accommodate larger aircraft

ADrum23 wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

I’d like to see DL get into larger aircraft on BNA-DTW, occasionally there’s a 739 or 757 but to see that regularly would be great.

I doubt DL will put anything larger than a 737 on a regular basis at BNA until Concourse B is modified to better accommodate larger aircraft

Will the apron expansion help with that, or is it primarily an issue with the gates/concourse itself?

pdt2f wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

I’d like to see DL get into larger aircraft on BNA-DTW, occasionally there’s a 739 or 757 but to see that regularly would be great.

I doubt DL will put anything larger than a 737 on a regular basis at BNA until Concourse B is modified to better accommodate larger aircraft

Will the apron expansion help with that, or is it primarily an issue with the gates/concourse itself?

No, it is an issue with the physical concourse itself. Here is a quote from the BNA Vision environmental assessment

Concourse B also requires modifications to accommodate larger aircraft. Larger passenger loads require larger hold rooms and the existing gate configurations at Concourse B are undersized to appropriately accommodate passengers and equipment associated with these aircraft. MNAA would also modify Concourse B in conjunction with the construction of Concourse T, since three gates (B1, B2, and B4) would be removed to accommodate Concourse T.

http://bnavisionnashville.com/site/web/assets/2017/01/BNA-Vision-Draft-Enviromental-Assessment-for-Public-Review-and-Comment.pdf

ADrum23 wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

I’d like to see DL get into larger aircraft on BNA-DTW, occasionally there’s a 739 or 757 but to see that regularly would be great.

I doubt DL will put anything larger than a 737 on a regular basis at BNA until Concourse B is modified to better accommodate larger aircraft

They occasionally bring in a 757 from ATL. For awhile they flew quite a variety of a/c. Now it seems all mad dogs.

ADrum23 wrote:

pdt2f wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

I doubt DL will put anything larger than a 737 on a regular basis at BNA until Concourse B is modified to better accommodate larger aircraft

Will the apron expansion help with that, or is it primarily an issue with the gates/concourse itself?

No, it is an issue with the physical concourse itself. Here is a quote from the BNA Vision environmental assessment

Concourse B also requires modifications to accommodate larger aircraft. Larger passenger loads require larger hold rooms and the existing gate configurations at Concourse B are undersized to appropriately accommodate passengers and equipment associated with these aircraft. MNAA would also modify Concourse B in conjunction with the construction of Concourse T, since three gates (B1, B2, and B4) would be removed to accommodate Concourse T.

http://bnavisionnashville.com/site/web/assets/2017/01/BNA-Vision-Draft-Enviromental-Assessment-for-Public-Review-and-Comment.pdf

That is one long-ass document to scroll through. I'n not a fan of the T concourse idea. They need to look at expanding A now.. Assuming the permanent IAB gates can be used for domestic flights as needed, MNAA is going to have to revisit this model sooner than they think. I always thought a parallel concourse across from the southwest facing C (where airfreight is now) had potential. Using moving walkways, it would be a quick access. T look like they just threw it in there at the last moment.

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

flymco753 wrote:

I’d like to see DL get into larger aircraft on BNA-DTW, occasionally there’s a 739 or 757 but to see that regularly would be great.

I doubt DL will put anything larger than a 737 on a regular basis at BNA until Concourse B is modified to better accommodate larger aircraft

They occasionally bring in a 757 from ATL. For awhile they flew quite a variety of a/c. Now it seems all mad dogs.

I noticed that too. Used to be they would bring in 737s, 739s, a320s, and 752s, but then they went to solely md’s. It was around the time they added BOS, RDU, and SEA, so I’m assuming they just didn’t need the extra capacity.

From what I understand BNA-LGA will be one of the first CS-100 routes along with LGA-DFW.

They can easily fill the plane with ~120 seats profitably. There is more demand on this route than just CR-700/900 & ER-175 aircraft. That being said MD-88 is out as DL no longer flies them from LGA due to noise restrictions. I guess 717 could work but CS-100 would be much more profitable due to operating costs.

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

pdt2f wrote:

Will the apron expansion help with that, or is it primarily an issue with the gates/concourse itself?

No, it is an issue with the physical concourse itself. Here is a quote from the BNA Vision environmental assessment

Concourse B also requires modifications to accommodate larger aircraft. Larger passenger loads require larger hold rooms and the existing gate configurations at Concourse B are undersized to appropriately accommodate passengers and equipment associated with these aircraft. MNAA would also modify Concourse B in conjunction with the construction of Concourse T, since three gates (B1, B2, and B4) would be removed to accommodate Concourse T.

http://bnavisionnashville.com/site/web/assets/2017/01/BNA-Vision-Draft-Enviromental-Assessment-for-Public-Review-and-Comment.pdf

That is one long-ass document to scroll through. I'm not a fan of the T concourse idea. They need to look at expanding A now.. Assuming the permanent IAB gates can be used for domestic flights as needed, MNAA is going to have to revisit this model sooner than they think. I always thought a parallel concourse across from the southwest facing C (where airfreight is now) had potential. Using moving walkways, it would be a quick access. T look like they just threw it in there at the last moment.

The Concourse T idea is not ideal, but I can see why they did it. It frees up space for A and B to be expanded in the future. I agree they'll need to plan for more expansion after BNA Vision (which was really designed on the conservative side if you ask me), barring a downturn in the economy.

Rather than expanding A, I'd build a 10-15 gate extension of Concourse B, turning it into an L shaped Concourse like C. After that, I feel that would max out the current terminal and they'd need to start planning a Terminal 2 if additional gates were needed beyond that.

In addition to more gates, BNA needs to extend one of its N/S runways to 10,000-11,000 feet to better accommodate larger aircraft. The only 10,000+ foot runway is the 13/31 crosswind (at just over 11,000 feet), not always ideal for taking off and landing. The last master plan called for doing just that to 2L/20R (extending it to 11,000 feet), but nothing has been released since then. They need to get going on that soon.

gsg013 wrote:

From what I understand BNA-LGA will be one of the first CS-100 routes along with LGA-DFW.

They can easily fill the plane with ~120 seats profitably. There is more demand on this route than just CR-700/900 & ER-175 aircraft. That being said MD-88 is out as DL no longer flies them from LGA due to noise restrictions. I guess 717 could work but CS-100 would be much more profitable due to operating costs.

I hope that is true. I'd love to see DL add mainline from BNA to either LGA/JFK (or both). The CS100 can't get here soon enough!

@iahcsr I am not sure that BNA needs to lengthen the runways just yet to get up to 11,000 feet. Seems a bit excessive as the 787 only requires ~ 9000 feet at MTOW and 777s can get off shorter runways.

BA flys the 777 into PLS on just a ~9000 foot runway.

ADrum23 wrote:

AAvgeek744 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

No, it is an issue with the physical concourse itself. Here is a quote from the BNA Vision environmental assessment

Concourse B also requires modifications to accommodate larger aircraft. Larger passenger loads require larger hold rooms and the existing gate configurations at Concourse B are undersized to appropriately accommodate passengers and equipment associated with these aircraft. MNAA would also modify Concourse B in conjunction with the construction of Concourse T, since three gates (B1, B2, and B4) would be removed to accommodate Concourse T.

http://bnavisionnashville.com/site/web/assets/2017/01/BNA-Vision-Draft-Enviromental-Assessment-for-Public-Review-and-Comment.pdf

That is one long-ass document to scroll through. I'm not a fan of the T concourse idea. They need to look at expanding A now.. Assuming the permanent IAB gates can be used for domestic flights as needed, MNAA is going to have to revisit this model sooner than they think. I always thought a parallel concourse across from the southwest facing C (where airfreight is now) had potential. Using moving walkways, it would be a quick access. T look like they just threw it in there at the last moment.

The Concourse T idea is not ideal, but I can see why they did it. It frees up space for A and B to be expanded in the future. I agree they'll need to plan for more expansion after BNA Vision (which was really designed on the conservative side if you ask me), barring a downturn in the economy.

Rather than expanding A, I'd build a 10-15 gate extension of Concourse B, turning it into an L shaped Concourse like C. After that, I feel that would max out the current terminal and they'd need to start planning a Terminal 2 if additional gates were needed beyond that.

In addition to more gates, BNA needs to extend one of its N/S runways to 10,000-11,000 feet to better accommodate larger aircraft. The only 10,000+ foot runway is the 13/31 crosswind (at just over 11,000 feet), not always ideal for taking off and landing. The last master plan called for doing just that to 2L/20R (extending it to 11,000 feet), but nothing has been released since then. They need to get going on that soon.

Not a lot of room to expand the 02/20's. The center runway has room to the south as does 2R/20L. Either way, the NIMBY's will make their voices heard if that is attempted.