Jim Rockford

Nice twist there. You must be a real peach to fly with. Obviously all these suggestions were based on commuting or temporary domicile. BTW, I've seen legacy pilots crawl out of their camper shells on their pickups as well so it cgalkenges everyone.

Margaritaville

Yawn. Most boring and overused slam on APC. You may have flown with me. I'm fun. Or you may hate me and call out. Either way, I couldn't care less. I get paid the same.

Yeah, I remember LAX parking lot 3. Sorry I hit a nerve with the RV thing. I'm sure your trailer is really nice, lol. Probably warm in the winter too. Is dumping that lav as much a chore as it looks?

Beechjet

Has there been any rumors of a MCI base?

Greybush

Latest rumor for next 2 bases:

Appleton, WI (ATW) and another Midwest city that is NOT Belleville, Memphis, or Cleveland.

Should be announced the 10th.

And strong chance of VBD returning in the near future as well.

tom11011

No rumors but I would say it’s completely possible. At this point I could see outstation style basing in 50 cities each with 2 airplanes in the next 10 years.

TransWorld

For those not up to date, MCI is replacing their 3 semi-circular terminals with a conventional single terminal. Should be open by March 2023. On schedule as of July 2021, just past halfway point.

It was great until security cut off the gates from the main concourse. For the longest time PAX had to leave to go to the restroom or get a cup of coffee. Then, go back through security. They looked at many different design alternatives, but just could not get the existing terminals to work.

jshank83

Problem with MCI is they hardly have any flights. There might even be some months with none. Sept/Oct only is 2 flights a week to PGD. Nothing else.


I would be pretty surprised if BLV isn’t one soon. They are in the middle of doubling the size of their terminal (and no other airline is coming to use it). They put in a bid to get a grant from the Feds and it included info on being a base with 7 new destinations (with a timeline). G4 put in a letter of support for it. They didn’t get the grant but I don’t see that changing the plan. They got a different one that moved the terminal completion date up to next year. They also just put in a new flight incentive and advertising package. Just seems like too many things happening for a base not to come soon.

From the document.
“The Airport and its partners have already
started discussions with Allegiant about the
potential to develop a base at MidAmerica
and about the targeted expansion. Because
Allegiant is familiar with the business plan,
the Airport anticipates completing an agreement for additional service by the fall of 2021 The Airport is targeting spring of 2022 as a start date for the first new route launch, with more new routes being rolled out over a period of two years.”

tankerclown23

There’s a lot of Allegiant activity at LCK. I remember rumblings of that as a base for a while. Chances?

flydiamond

Pretty good and probably inevitable in the next few years given departure frequency and destinations, but rumors are just that, rumors. I do think that they're more interested in mid continental bases that fly to both coasts whereas LCK only flies to east coast places (although that could change)... You hear the term "mid continental" a lot on earnings calls etc.

Margaritaville

I've been saying ATW for a while. Coast to coast flights, plus a bunch of pilots who already commute out of there. All the gates we want since it's only served by a few RJs a day.

FNT and RFD also strong contenders. SBN wouldn't surprise me. BLV had a setback but definitely not out of the game. After that, pick any city between the Mississippi and the Rockies that we have a lot of flights to, and flights to both coasts. All are fair game over the next few years. The recent investor conference and town hall showed they are very dedicated to to "mid continent strategy".