CMH_Downtown

Fantastic news. The increased collaboration with OSU will hopefully bring even more interest and expansion to the university's aviation program, which has only recently really begun to spread its wings. The FlightSafety campus as well will bring in much new business and travel into the city. Kudos to Gov. Strickland, Mayor Coleman and all involved in getting NetJets to realize the incredible asset they have in their current operations in Central Ohio. For those interested, the official release can be found here: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080312/20080312006141.html?.v=1 Some excerpts: First, the company will construct an over $200 million world-class campus in order to draw the best and brightest talent from across the nation and help initiate a growing aeronautical cluster at Port Columbus International Airport. Second, NetJets will embark on an unprecedented partnership with The Ohio State University to attract college graduates, solve real world business problems and develop existing talent in Ohio. Third, the company has decided to take a leadership role in Ohio, including support for community and environmental initiatives. Over the coming years, NetJets and FlightSafety will grow from a campus of approximately 19 acres to potentially over 120 acres, investing over $200 million, while retaining 2,022 positions in central Ohio and adding at least 810 high-wage jobs. FlightSafety will more than double the number of its existing simulators, creating its largest concentration of simulators in the country and attracting large numbers of pilots on a daily basis from outside Ohio for training. These simulators will support NetJets’ commitment to have the best-trained flight crews in the world while also helping to train other national aviation companies’ personnel.

*Ducks into Constantino's and cowers behind a case of Neopolitan.*

Ha-Ha, MayDay in all his velvety goodness... Vanilla, no sugar added, and since 1914...sounds pretty accurate.

I think Brewmaster was getting at Ohio's history of being a union stronghold and the effects it's had on business and development, but that's an whole other discussions in and of itself. You're right that airline pilot unions are certainly not limited it Ohio, but in this case it speaks volumes about how Skybus' workers feel about their company. I've heard quite a few stories from the flight attendant line, and they're not good either. But not to worry, as long as we can have $10 airfares, apparently nothing else matters.

Short North Planning for the next 25 years Tuesday, March 11, 2008 5:39 AM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH The Short North Business Association recently celebrated its 25th anniversary and unveiled a long list of plans to ensure that the next 25 years see continued growth and even more foot traffic along High Street from the Greater Columbus Convention Center to 5th Avenue. The plan includes connecting the Short North with Ohio State's South Campus Gateway, getting more conventioneers to take the short walk north, attracting out-of-state visitors who see the district as a destination and aggressively recruiting businesses to move in and build on the base already in place. The association will work with the convention center and Experience Columbus to expand the base of visitors. In the future, groups of conventioneers will be able to head to the Short North for a wine tasting, fashion show or private art show, Angelo said. Information kiosks are planned outside the convention center to lead people to the Short North. Already, there are signs -- and all those magazine articles -- that point to increased out-of-town visitors. "People are coming to the Gallery Hop and say they are from Dayton, from Toledo and Cleveland and even further, from Detroit," Lindsay said. "They said they read about it and planned their weekend around the Gallery Hop. "That's what we need, and we need even more of it." Read more at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/03/11/short_north.ART_ART_03-11-08_C10_849JQHV.html?sid=101

Four diamonds for M Cameron Mitchell's marquee Downtown restaurant, M, 2 Miranova Place, is happy to claim a four-diamond rating from AAA. M joins Handke's Cuisine, 520 S. Front St. in the Brewery District, and the Refectory Restaurant & Bistro, 1092 Bethel Rd. on the Northwest Side, as Columbus' only four-diamond restaurants. AAA began giving diamond ratings in 1977, and the restaurant ratings cover presentation, ingredients, preparation, decor and ambience and a slew of service-related areas. But the ratings boil down to four terms: skill, creativity, attention to detail and comfort.

Coffee shop owner aiding in revival of historic King-Lincoln district Business First of Columbus - by Dan Eaton Business First Charity Martin-Via hopes her new coffee shop becomes not only a destination for a cup of joe, but also a shot for development along a stretch of Long Street on Columbus' Near East Side. Urban-Spirit Coffee Shop Ltd. opened last month at 893 Long St. in the restored Alpha Building, which once was home to the first black-owned hospital in the city. Martin-Via, a former city employee, had been working on the shop since the fall. Columbus Compact Corp. and the Economic and Community Development Institute helped her get the space in place with training and financial support. The coffee shop is east of Interstate 71 in the King-Lincoln district. The 800-square-foot spot includes a gallery where artwork will be rotated. The shop also will host live jazz performances. Read more at http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2008/03/10/story8.html?b=1205121600^1601830

Looks like even the pilots have had enough... Most of Skybus' pilots want a union Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:04 AM By Marla Matzer Rose THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/03/11/skybus_union.ART_ART_03-11-08_C10_849JQD9.html?sid=101 The pilots for Skybus Airlines are attempting to unionize, with more than 80 percent favoring a vote by next month to join the Teamsters. The move comes as all airlines are struggling with soaring fuel prices, and it could pose another threat to the airline's goal of keeping its costs far below industry standards. Labor and fuel are by far the largest expenses for an airline.

January is a historically slow month for all airlines. For example, last year Southwest had 121,018 in December and then 114,748 in January. The same trend can be seen for all airlines. Southwest and Skybus might not compete head-to-head on routes, but they do compete head-to-head largely on the same consumer base, the vacation/discretionary traveler. With the economy being the way it is, the family of 4 that may have wanted to go to Disney World via Southwest is now going to St. Augustine via Skybus. Or the newlyweds planning to go to Vegas via Southwest are now going to Burbank via Skybus. In fact, if you look at the January numbers, the percentage drop among the mainstay airlines is quite alarming. While January is typically a slow month, it has definitely been compounded by Skybus' existance. Actually, Southwest has added frequencies from Columbus year over year, and will add a 30th flight from CMH in May when they add a 3rd daily LAS flight.

Ha-ha! You're giving Skybus too much credit! Columbus experienced extremely dense fog during the mid-morning. The visibility was so bad that several inbound aircraft were put into holding patterns just outside of Columbus, all of which ended up diverting to other airport. The Skybus plane that arrived in CVG was SKB 42, a flight from Richmond, VA. In addition, a flight from Portsmouth, NH diverted to, of all places, Parkersburg, WV. Needless to say, since they still have no flexibility in their schedule, their operation was messed up. They ended up canceling their San Diego roundtrip and other flights have been posting 3+ hour delays. Definitely not a pretty day for the orange butterfly.

Apparently they were doing well enough to keep going, since it's just now being discontinued. PBI should've been started a long time ago as a daily year-round flight. But again, it's not going to happen with SX in the picture. Southwest has stepped up service, just incrementally. At the time of the hub pulldown, WN had 16 daily flights from CMH. As of this spring, that number will be nearly double at 30. In addition, other airlines stepped up service quite a bit after the announcement of the hub closure. You know I'm going to disagree with that. Columbus may not be as important of a market as many other cities, but it is still important nonetheless. The fact that there are 2 large hubs at either end of the state is largely inconsequential, as cities in similar situations that are roughly as large as Columbus are doing just fine, if not increasing airline service. Indianapolis, despite being surrounded by ORD/MDW, DTW, CVG, and STL is breaking passenger records. Milwaukee is just up the road from Chicago, with MSP a quick flight away, but has been able to hold its own and gain passengers at a steady pace. Raleigh-Durham has megahubs in CLT and ATL to compete with, but has seen an explosion in new and increased service over the past few years. Austin lies in the shadow of DFW/DAL and IAH/HOU and also has to compete with nearby SAT, but has been attaining new service year over year. The fact of the matter is, the Columbus market was making steady gains just like many of the aforementioned airports. However now with Skybus wreaking havoc on the market, we're seeing many of the gains the airport has worked so hard to attain fade away. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the sooner this cancer is expelled from Columbus, the better.

My experience is mostly with network carriers operating flights to hubs from Columbus. I don't know what kind of fares the airlines that fly point-to-point routes from Columbus are seeing, though I can make rough estimates based on what I know about the market and the airline flying the route. Without divuldging too much propriety information or going into insane amounts of detail, I would say the amount of F, C, and full Y fares out of Columbus are at a level where the airport should be able to support better service. The problem is, when the rest of your potential income is flying on another carrier, i.e. the budget fares that a carrier might not make as much money on, those high yield fares themselves still might not be enough to make a route work, which is what I think we're seeing with the discontinuation of service from CMH to MCI and FLL. As far as Florida and Vegas are concerned, they are popular routes, but the yields are generally low since the majority of the passengers on these flights are very price conscious. That's why you see low fare carriers on the majority of these routes, as they can offer the lowest fare and make money off of them. The network carriers, while their costs are higher, can justify flying some low yield routes if the market conditions are right. For example, Delta might carry a lot of low yield, Priceline traffic to Ft. Lauderdale, but since both South Florida and Columbus are significant Delta markets (though in Columbus' case, was), Delta could probably command a higher fare than say, Southwest, due to the loyalty of fliers in both markets who only fly Delta and are willing to pay a higher fare to do so. In addition, there is also a slight amount of high yield business traffic that Delta could cultivate as well. These latter two market segments keep the route profitable, but the first is also necessary to keep the route aloft. With Skybus directly competing in the market with a glut of seat priced below standard market prices, you have a large chunk of your potential passenger base now siphoned off. I think this is what is causing the breakdown in airline service by regular air carriers in Columbus.

O&D is origin and DESTINATION traffic, and it is measured by the average number of people traveling from and to a city pair per day. Load factor by itself is generally a poor measure of the potential success of a route. For example, a flight from Columbus to Hartford on a 50-seat jet might only have 10 people on it every day. But if those 10 are mostly corporate travelers for insurance companies paying top dollar for their seat, then the route pays for itself. On the other hand, a flight from Columbus to Orlando might be full every day, but if the airline is only attracting people paying Priceline ticket prices or are making low-yield connections to other cites, the flight is loosing money hand-over-fist. In many cases, there are even more factors than just load factor and yield to take into account. You are most certainly correct, and I see it every day. The demand is here, however when you have a subsidized company pricing out the competition on marginal routes, the competition is going to go away. And, as the Dispatch actually pointed out, the competing carriers are the ones that fuel business and commerce in this city, not Skybus. We're on a quick downward spiral here, and if Skybus doesn't go away, Columbus is going to be hurting big time, as the only options we'll have on network carriers will be limited access to select hubs and likely on nothing but regional jets. The worst part is, the city and state are financing the degredation of air service in their own city. It's a shame.

Midwest Connect, Delta drop flights from Columbus; Skybus was factor, they say Monday, February 18, 2008 6:55 PM By Marla Matzer Rose THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Two airlines have trimmed service at Port Columbus, and both say Skybus Airlines played a role in their decisions. Midwest Connect will discontinue its twice-daily flight to Kansas City on April 6, while Delta Air Lines is set to end nonstop service to Fort Lauderdale on March 31. Both cities are served by local startup Skybus, which will be the only airline flying those routes nonstop after early April. http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/02/18/skybus_drop.html

Actually, the current convention center is pleanty big as it is. In addition, there are plans going through to expand it with the expansion and reconfiguration of Battelle Hall (the "original" convention center). As has been mentioned, the problem moreso is the fact that there aren't enough full service hotel rooms in the area to cater to big-time events. I think a better solution would be to connect the hotels further south in the actual business district (i.e. The Rennaisance, Hyatt on Capitol Square, and the Westin Great Southern) via light rail or streetcar with the convention center.

I...want...DEWEY'S!

I said before their launch that an attempt at international service would be fraught with regulatory hurdles... Granted, at the time, Canada had been mentioned rather than Mexico or the Bahamas, but the jist is the same. If the head haunchos at Skybus thought the process of securing international flying would be similar as starting service to Chicopee, MA; they were sadly mistaken. On a side note, it looks like today was another stellar day for Skybus. It appears another aircraft went on mechanical this morning. So far, 1 flight each to and from Greensboro, Stewart/Newburgh, and Punta Gorda are all cancelled. Their morning Punta Gorda flight also experienced trouble, finally leaving Columbus 4 hours later than scheduled. That aircraft still has 7 segment left to complete, which will all now be running 4 hours late, unless they cancel 2 segments to return the aircraft to an ontime schedule. In addition, their morning flight to St. Augustine diverted to Jacksonville, making it 3 hours late. That plane still has 5 segments it has to complete, which will all also be running 3 hours late, unless they cancel 2 more segments to return the plane to an ontime schedule.

Hopefully this spurs some momentum in getting a new hotel built or expanding an existing hotel. I would love to see the Yankee Trader building propsal come to fruition, as well as the planned expansion of the Hyatt. I would rather the parcel with the railroad tracks underneath in front of Nationwide Arena remain vacant until a transit plan is developed, that way a multimodal transit center can be built there, and then possibly a hotel on top of it.

I'm pretty sure he meant 107.5 FM.

OSU arts center in Lazarus building set for February opening Business First of Columbus Ohio State University's art space in downtown Columbus' renovated Lazarus building is set to open its doors next month. The university said the 10,000-square-foot OSU Urban Arts Space on the ground floor of the former department store will open to the public with two exhibits beginning Feb. 5. Plans for the space - an outlet for student and faculty exhibitions and performances - have been in the works since fall 2005 when the Columbus Downtown Development Corp. outlined plans to open the center in the building. The corporation received the Lazarus department store building as a donation after Federated Department Stores Inc. closed in 2002. Following renovations that began in December 2004, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency moved in as initial tenants, while several mostly public development offices are set to occupy about 700,000 square feet early this year. City officials have said the building's third phase, which entails recruiting tenants for 50,000 square feet of retail space, is set to begin in mid-2008. Read more at http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/stories/2008/01/21/daily16.html?jst=b_ln_hl

The short story is that Rickenbacker used to be owned and operated by a separate governing authority. In an effort to increase funding and become more self reliant, the authority decided to construct a passenger terminal. The city and the then Columbus Airport Authority saw the plan as a conflict of interest, and developed plans to merge the Rickenbacker Port Authority and the Columbus Airport Authority. However the Rickenbacker leadership already approved and began construction of the terminal before the merger was approved and took place. Now the CRAA markets it mainly as a charter terminal. Empty and underutilized square footage? I would beg to differ. There are 8 gates in the 3-concourse terminal that go unleased, however of those 8, 5 of them are used on a fee-per-usage basis, that is to say that airlines use them, but don't lease them outright. As far as the terminal's square footage, the airport has also converted a lot of space into retail and concession use, adding a Starbucks in each concourse, a massage bar, a beverage bar, a natural food market, 2 CNBC News stores, and several other renovations and expansions on the way. All in all, the terminal situation at CMH is pretty good.

In additon, AeroMexico began weekly nonstop service from Cancun to Columbus this evening. The plane stays over night in CMH and departs for Cancun every Sunday morning. Also, Air Canada will bring back its 4th daily departure earlier than scheduled this year, tentatively starting around mid-April. It's possible the additional flight might become permenant this year.

Rickenbacker airport Tour group wants to fly directly to Ireland Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:02 AM By Marla Matzer Rose THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Direct flights to Shannon, Ireland, from Columbus' Rickenbacker Airport are in the works for this summer. A Maryland tour operator is working to offer the so-called Shamrock Express flights. Roundtrip tickets would be an estimated $799, and packages including air and weeklong bus tours of Ireland would be about $1,399 per person. Kenny Tours, an 18-year-old company based in Salisbury, Md., is awaiting the U.S. Department of Transportation's OK to operate the flights from June 27 through Sept. 1, a company representative said yesterday. Full story at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/01/19/LCK_IRELAND.ART_ART_01-19-08_C12_LU93O8K.html?sid=101

Boutique hotel suggested Talk of 155-room inn near convention center riles backers who want a full-service property Saturday, January 12, 2008 6:48 AM By Mike Pramik and Marla Matzer Rose THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH A funky novelty store predating the Greater Columbus Convention Center and today's trendy Short North may play a key part in the future of both. The owners of Yankee Trader have enlisted a real-estate broker to seek a buyer who will convert their aging brick building at 463 N. High St. into an upscale hotel. The downside: The potential development could hurt plans for a larger, convention-style hotel being considered a block away on property controlled by the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority, local officials said this week. Yankee Trader co-owner Lynette Howard said she's not planning to close the quirky store, known for Halloween costumes, rubber eyeballs and plastic rats. But she says she might move. "I would never sell the business," she said. "If the price were right, I might sell the building." Read more at http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2008/01/12/Downtown_hotels.ART_ART_01-12-08_C10_3G91L81.html?sid=101

My thought exactly. It'll fit well with the rest of the brutalism downtown...lol.