Old AmrapinVA

Yes, we all know the current situation. The passenger count is up 17% since 2015, and we've added a healthy number of non-stop flights. I'm so embarrassed! When does it get embarrassing? Euro service to Omaha? Winnipeg? Buffalo? At what point? You realize, we're almost there.

Continental actually wanted to build the hub up in 2007. That's why Paris was added. Then the merger happened and the global economy crashed. I think it was summer of 2009 was when Euro service ended.

Right, we all know about subsidies. Meanwhile most are dropped because the route becomes profitable enough once it's marketed. Yet Cleveland's "strategy" of being a globally connected city is to be cheap and wait for some airline to beg to start service. Of course this would explain the current situation. Good luck!

Yeah, in the past, Hopkins actually had non-stop service to Europe.

And Cleveland is the largest market of all of these. So much for the new director bringing in competent air service development people..... Give him some time. Cleveland Hopkins is definitely heading in the right direction. The "IKEA hole" is growing. You know what else is growing? Hopkins passenger count and non stop flight destinations. Hopkins is growing but let's not forget that Cleveland used to serve 14 million pax and had non-stops to London and Paris. Not many more places Hopkins can route to within the US now that will keep boosting the passenger count. This isn't "Cleveland against the World", this is looking embarrassing amongst peer cities. How many international airlines can Pittsburgh serve before Cleveland gets one?

And Cleveland is the largest market of all of these. So much for the new director bringing in competent air service development people..... Give him some time. Cleveland Hopkins is definitely heading in the right direction. Norwegian has mentioned Buffalo, Memphis and Pittsburgh (again)! Air Lingus has mentioned Pittsburgh (again)! Emirates has talked about Buffalo. BA has talked to Columbus and St. Louis. Meanwhile I never hear any airline outside of the US ever, and I mean ever, talk about Cleveland. It's like it doesn't exist. He's been in the office for a decent while now and Cleveland may be the odd man out on that short list. The "IKEA hole" is growing. The airport is run through the city. To be honest, I don't think the city really cares about international air service. As long as it's making money or paying off the giant debt the status quo is OK.

Like in Cincinnati, Cleveland is going to be chasing international routes until passenger counts are higher. Cleveland stands at 8.5 million passengers for 2016. Cincinnati was 7.3 million passengers for 2016. Nashville was 12.9 million for 2016. For either city to be taken seriously on an international route without major subsidies given either city needs to be above 10 million plus passengers a year. Nashville is a mini-"hub" for Southwest. St. Louis is a bigger "hub" and has closer to 14 million pax and yet nada with the Euro service. That being said, the list of US non-Euro linked larger markets is shrinking east of the Mississippi. I believe it's Cleveland, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Kansas City, Memphis, Indy and Columbus. San Antonio if you don't count Austin. Even Providence and Hartford have non-stops to Europe. Cleveland is moving into embarrassing territory.

I don't think WOW! flies to any of those places. Looks like it's a "Kiwi.com" list. :-D

I always look at airlines actions first. Frontier and recently Southwest have shown a commitment to expand CLE. Those are the two I'm betting on now. JetBlue has been very slow to grow despite all their talk when they first arrived.

Southwest is the logical carrier for Kansas City since they operate a "hub" there of about 100 flights a day. SouthWest at the moment is beating up on Kansas City and holding off on expansion because they want a new terminal. Once KC agrees to terms, maybe CLE will see a flight or two. I agree on Southwest but I'm not holding my breath. We'll see.

We'll see how large Frontier gets at Hopkins with these connection flights. I'm curious to see how they utilize their aircraft staring next spring when their big expansion is coming. The math doesn't work unless a lot of the new flights are going be around 3x weekly as opposed to daily. Also, as mentioned earlier in this thread, KC is a big hole in CLE's route map. Would like to see some carrier start that route, even if it's a non-daily Frontier flight supported by East Coast/Florida connections. The good thing about all this is that it's more momentum for Hopkins. Should keep passenger levels growing for the foreseeable future. If the count keeps growing it's going to be hard for international carriers to ignore Cleveland On that note, Nashville just landed British Airways. Cleveland has an "IKEA hole" of international service. I hope the new director is focused on getting something, anything to Hopkins.

Venturing away from talking about the actual project again.

Parma: The 64th Safest City in the Nation! http://star102cleveland.cbslocal.com/2017/08/03/parma-the-64th-safest-city-in-the-nation/ The article's photo shows downtown Parma in the distance. :laugh: :laugh: :shoot:

It looks like Cleveland and Cincinnati are going to become connection cities for Frontier in the near future: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-02/fearless-frontier-picks-a-fare-fight-with-airline-giants From the article: In the coming months, Frontier plans to offer connections in more than a half-dozen cities, including Austin, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Orlando, spokesman Richard Oliver said.

It looks like Cleveland and Cincinnati are going to become connection cities for Frontier in the near future: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-02/fearless-frontier-picks-a-fare-fight-with-airline-giants From the article: In the coming months, Frontier plans to offer connections in more than a half-dozen cities, including Austin, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Orlando, spokesman Richard Oliver said.

Jarboe talks about construction possibly staring at the end of 2016. Then it's moved to spring. Now we're in August. I don't have an issue with it but I can see how people are skeptical after Pesht and the continuing Nucleus saga. I agree about your Real Estate comment, Hts. You'd commit suicide if you had to do what I did on a daily basis. We come from different worlds so understand that people will see things from a different perspective and doubts will creep in. It doesn't mean they're crazy, it means they need to be explained about the situation. This thread does a good job of this. I'm not really responding to the project here but Ken's dismissal of people who are becoming impatient. I can see where they are coming from.

Is it about being wrapped too tight? I work in deadline driven details oriented industry. On a daily basis our department solves complex problems, many times live over several time zones. Timelines have to be met. It just cracks me up a bit that Stark or whatever developer can put out a timeline and there's no accountability for it. In fact sometimes you get "attacked" on this board for actually questioning why he's missing deadlines he put up. I understand Stark is working on large projects but other industries have large, complex problems too and they actually have to be completed when promised or they lose, at the very least, some credibility. So when someone repeatedly can't keep a deadline others will begin to wonder what's the point of believing him at all. I don't think that's crazy.

Yeah, the jobs data is actually pretty positive. I posted that upthread.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm From the June BLS employment data dump: Of the 51 metropolitan areas with a 2010 Census population of 1 million or more, Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colo., had the lowest unemployment rate in June, 2.5 percent. Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio, had the highest jobless rate among the large areas, 6.4 percent. Forty-three large areas had over-the-year unemployment rate decreases and eight had increases. The largest rate decrease occurred in Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, Mich. (-2.0 percentage points). The largest over-the-year rate increase was in Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio (+0.7 percentage point).

I still think a majority of the council will pass the TIF. EDIT: My bad for bringing up the Kid Mayor and Forbes. Keeping it civil and on the project.

In fairness, I bet you will find similar opposition when meetings shift to largely African American neighborhoods from the same age demographic. I've learned that opposition to change grows with age regardless of race or sex. I bet Michelle won't tweet it out though.

Did Cleveland annex Beachwood?

Nashville is creating jobs at one of the fastest rates in the country. Cleveland is closer to the opposite end of the spectrum. Jobs = More People = More Cranes. It's not much more complex than that.

I agree about Tom. He's asking for something horrific to happen at his age. I think the Cult of Bill B. surrounds the Pats organization and is in Brady's head. Can't say I blame him for believing in it after the last Super Bowl. The only major sport that can really transcend the age 40 barrier effectively is baseball even though there are outliers in every sport like Gordie Howe.

^^ I think concussion news would be taken more seriously if it weren't being reported between spots about the anticipation of Mayweather-McGregor.