MD88PILOT

They may be...but as I wrote in a different post above, the demand has to be on both ends. It can't just be Cleveland revenue. It must flow both ways. PIT has already demonstrated that it can support European flights. The Paris flight is no longer subsidized. WOW is just stepping in to sop up the gravy that present capacity can't handle. If Delta upguages to a 767 would WOW be able to compete?

No truer words have ever been spoken

The problem with International flights in Cleveland and similar size metro's is that the passenger flow is primarily one way. That is to say that that most of the revenue is on the Cleveland end. The statistics say that Cleveland/Europe generates over 300 passenger/day each way. About half that from Columbus. Most are going to Europe and returning. There aren't many Europeans buying tickets to travel to Cleveland. The revenue/yield stream must flow both ways. Now, I've always said that CLE's best bet for transatlantic is United/Star Alliance through Frankfurt. United does still have some domestic feed in CLE for connections and with the gate space that they have, they could easily add capacity for some additional feed. American will move to Concourse C in the spring and take six gates which to me signals some kind of expansion. Six gates could handle 40-50 flights/day. Could that be for domestic feed for a Oneworld Cleveland/Heathrow connection? Concourse D would make for an interesting international arrival/departure/FIS with some premium domestic feed to facilitate international connections. One gate at each end could be modified to accept B767, A330 or B787 equipment. I've read on here the argument for low-cost carrier European service. Keep in mind that such service would be strictly O&D and due to business model, it would have to be nearly full every day that service is provided. As an aside, British Airways will begin A 380 Service to Boston this spring. That says to me that they are planning alot of new AA feed into Boston for oneworld connections as opposed to starting new service. Time will tell.

Actually, when it comes to rumors and sources, it's quite often that everyone is right to a certain degree. My brother is a managing director at an investment bank in NYC. He has helped structure some interesting projects around the world. Projects such as Nucleus go through many phases and financing options, all of which can appear to kill it or save it any one time. Remember FEB 10 years ago? There are so many moving parts in these deals each of which can be an wrench in the works.

So do I. This is one instance where a flat roof works given the design of the building.

Is the JC also City Hall? I haven't lived in CLE for 35 years so I don't quite remember. Why couldn't a new City Hall/JC Complex be combined into a great statement like Toronto?

The hub is NOT coming back, nor is any other hub going to come to Cleveland, but hopefully we can pick up a few destinations. I don't know how scheduling and crew basing work, but I would believe that could be part of the issue for non-hub airports picking up additional destinations. I will say this, one of my acquaintances who is a pilot has said that O'Hare had to pick up all of the regional passenger load from Cleveland and it hasn't been pretty (his words). I hope you are right about JetBlue... they have a great product and I would love to see them enter the CLE-->JFK market. Since United vacated JFK, whatever they would fly there would be an upgrade over the CRJ or ERJ service that is there currently. I think they could do well with a once daily (or greater in the future) E190. JetBlue is such a different product - I think the reason Smisek was reviled is because he nearly completely de-emphasized the customer and focused nearly entirely on the shareholder, which may help your stock in the short term, but is never a basis for long-term strategy in a service based industry like the airlines. Having been surpassed by Delta earlier this week in size only confirms this shortsightedness by Smisek and United Continental as a whole. I agree with you as well that it appears that those that manage Hopkins are unaware of how to maximize the potential of the airport and work with the carriers to provide more destinations and a better product. I do hope that changes in the near future. Nobody is saying a hub will be back, but there is room for another airline to significantly increase service if they want and UAL has no incentive to allow that. FWIW, UAL has not closed its CLE crew base and could easily increase flights by about 50% with little additional fixed costs.

Well the deal is the Lease Agreement and no matter the cost of termination , 11 more years of Lease Payments will cost much more. While there appears to be excess gate capacity, AA is going to move to C from A and Delta is rumoured to be doing the same from B. This will allow F9 and NK to move to B freeing up A for a much needed replacement - which may well include your customs facility. The claims that CAL/UAL lost money for years is contradictory to CAL's statements that CLE was profitable and contrary to statements made at the time of the merger which stated that the hub was profitable. I dont see a hub returning either, but there is definite room for expansion by either UAL or AA. CLE generates dexent yields and loads. It is def in UAL's interest to keep another legacy carrier from expanding too much.

You misunderstand....the termination option would be at united's discretion and not the city's. Ual would pay a termination price and walk away which would be cheaper than 11 more years of lease payments. And im sure that since that lease was written in the 1990's the provisions were probably to cal's advantage. Ual is def sitting on D for a reason...either to stiffel competition or against future expansion....ive heard that they wanted to keep enough gate space to accomodate approx 130 departures/day and appear to be doing just that. 130 isnt much of a loss from the 175 or so when there was a hub

Wasn't concourse D designed for this to happen easily? I thought it was designed for conversion to mainline jets whenever that would be needed. I heard that too but maybe the financial investment isn't worth it. That's fine, it's just that once the United lease is up Cleveland will be footing the bill to keep an abandoned concourse alive. Needs to be dealt with sooner than later, especially with the amount of debt Hopkins has. The people running the airport have stayed silent about this issue. UAL is sitting on "D" for a reason. They could have easily exercised the lease termination provisions of the Lease Agreement and Indenture which govern the Bond issued to finance the Project and been done with it. Just because UAL didn't make a hub work at CLE is no reason why someone else couldn't and UAL knows that. "D" can easily handle to new generation of larger RJ's such as the E170/175, E190/195, CRJ700/900/1000 and others. And as pointed out, with some slight modification, B737 series and A320 Series. "D" also need a connection to the main terminal/ticketing area.

Agree Cleveland will be in an uphill battle during the RNC after people arrive at that bunker. Airports are bus stations...and the only thing that the RNC delegates will care about at the airport is how quickly they get in, retrieve their bags, and get on their way to the hotel....Hopkins is not a show place...all it needs is to be clean and for the most part it is

LOL i can't even begin to count the number of times that has happened to me over the past 30-years at numerous airports. This is very common. And not just late at night but all times of the day.

Also, it appears that UAL will keep a substantial gate presence on Concourse C to allow for about 130 flights/day capacity. I wonder with the recent regime change in Chicago that a rethink of the CLE cuts might be forthcoming

If the city is paying people for that then it's just one more reason the airport should be under some sort of regional control. Want to pump up people? Modernize the airport to actually compete with other similar size metros. I disagree. I DO NOT want the airport under "regional" control. It will end up a bargaining chip like GCRTA and residents and visitors will suffer! Yes the airport needs lots of modernization. IMO, Concourses, A & B should be torn down and rebuilt and add an international terminal. This takes money, dedicated airlines and a leader who thinks of our region and airport as international. We need to take a look at boston. It's big city with no hub but a focus city for many airlines. No it doesn't. Air travel is stressful. It shows that we have a function airport with little or no chaos. However, just like the forum, the picture will be interpreted in many ways. Your comment re Concourses A and B may be prophetic. I have heard rumours and I stress rumours that airlines will be re-located from A to both B&C for the time being and Concourse A demolished. Then a repeat process involving B or at least a re-do of B.

I'll bet you're right... Southwest will be less expensive, and on a better plane. I hope that Southwest considers a direct flight to MCI; I'm fairly certain a 1x daily would do well. Why would UAL drop STL simply because SWA entered the market? A lot of people would pay more to sit on and RJ rather than fly SWA