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Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Ehhh I would buy into going to DFW for flying direct at a lower airfare. That's totally legit. I'm looking at airfare to go to Lisbon in October and I could pay $400 more to fly from Burlington and make a long connection in Newark or I can fly nonstop for less from nearby Montreal. Makes perfect sense.
ABQ actually does have less competition nearby than OKC, but to your point New Mexico obviously has a tourism draw that generates higher numbers than any airport in Oklahoma could. Some tourists will fly into ABQ and go straight up to Santa Fe bypassing the city for the most part.
Google right now shows a driving time of nearly three hours and almost 200 miles from Oklahoma City to D/FW airport. Are people really gonna spend that amount of time and about $250 in gas each way to save something like a few hundred dollars on airfare in order to avoid a connecting flight?
Oklahoma City has no airport very close by offering flights to exotic locales unavailable from its own airport.
Those are very specific circumstances where people would be willing to drive to an airport other than their own in order to get to a place like Lisbon. Or if someone lived in the middle of nowhere and had to drive to a far off place to get to airport because there was none nearby. But again, by that very nature of being so rural, there wouldn't be very many examples.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,745 posts, read 23,804,636 times
Reputation: 14660
Quote:
Originally Posted by ABQalex
Google right now shows a driving time of nearly three hours and almost 200 miles from Oklahoma City to D/FW airport. Are people really gonna spend that amount of time and about $250 in gas each way to save something like a few hundred dollars on airfare in order to avoid a connecting flight?
Oklahoma City has no airport very close by offering flights to exotic locales unavailable from its own airport.
Those are very specific circumstances where people would be willing to drive to an airport other than their own in order to get to a place like Lisbon. Or if someone lived in the middle of nowhere and had to drive to a far off place to get to airport because there was none nearby. But again, by that very nature of being so rural, there wouldn't be very many examples.
Where are you getting $250 in gas each way? Round trip OKC-DFW would be about one full tank of gas in a part of the country where gas is cheap so it would be a fraction of the amount that you have figured. Would they drive 3 hours to save a $300-$500 per airline ticket and perhaps that amount doubled for couples or multiplied for families? Of course they would. Would they also minimize the risk of delays and cancelled flights by flying direct versus making a connection? I'm certain that many would. Would they drive three hours to avoid long connection times that can also amount to several hours for the airfare tickets they can afford to buy from OKC? Absolutely. You can fly nonstop from DFW to almost anywhere in the world, even Sydney.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 04-02-2019 at 06:47 PM..
Where you getting $250 in gas each way? Round trip OKC-DFW would be about one full tank of gas in a part of the country where gas is cheap so it would be a fraction of the amount that you have figured. Would they drive 3 hours to save a $300-$500 per airline ticket and perhaps that amount doubled for couples or multiplied for families? Of course they would. Would they also minimize the risk of delays and cancelled flights by flying direct versus making a connection? I'm certain that many would. Would they drive three hours to avoid long connection times that can also amount to several hours for the airfare tickets they can afford to buy from OKC? Absolutely. You can fly nonstop from DFW to almost anywhere in the world, even Sydney.
This. I don’t know what is so hard to grasp about people driving from OKC to Dallas for flights. Almost everyone I know that travels internationally drives to Dallas for a direct flight instead of dealing with connections and higher airfare. I can make it to Dallas on a single 10 gallon tank, so anywhere from $18-30 depending on gas prices. When you have 2-4 people traveling with you. Saving $800 on connecting to Dallas via AA, or saving $2000 overall by getting cheap direct flights is a great option. Driving a few hours and saving all that money and potentially an entire day of sitting in an airport waiting for connecting flights is a choice many people in OKC and southern OK make all the time.
How about the local foods in Oklahoma City. What is your red and green chile? What is your sopaipilla? What is your carne adovada? What is your green chile stew? What is your flat enchiladas? What is your green chile cheeseburger, etc.
They just built a Costco...so yes we can . OKC has a massive Stockyards and is known for great steaks and chicken fried steaks. OKC is known worldwide for their burgers, specifically the onion burger. Other things like fried okra and fried pies are staples of Oklahoma. OKC is a unique place geographically and population-wise. It sits at the crossroads of the Midwest, south, and southwest. You can find all the staples of those cuisines throughout the state. You will find plenty of sopapillas here.
Everywhere has unique foods and utilizes local and regional ingredients. Nonesuch just won Bon Apetit’s Best New restaurant in America and they source everything out of the local farmers markets and their own backyard.
Santa Fe's airport alone handles over 200,000 passengers, growing at over 45 percent in 2018 over 2017. It has flights to Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
Durango, CO's airport handles nearly 400,000 passengers a year.
Grand Junction, CO's airport handles nearly 500,000 passengers a year.
Colorado Springs' airport handled 1.7 million passengers in 2018.
Flagstaff's airport handles nearly 100,000 passengers a year.
It's really getting ridiculous the lengths you all are going to try to deny or explain away the fact that Albuquerque could possibly have a busier airport than Oklahoma City. Shall we indeed start counting up general aviation airports to try to come up with the 1 million-plus difference between OKC's airport and the Sunport?
I was trying to just present the reality of the situation between OKC, Tulsa, and DFW, but you can’t seem to grasp that. Whether you believe it or not (you’ve had multiple OK residents attest to the fact that DFW steals plenty of OKC’s would-be passengers) it’s still the reality of the situation.
Come visit OKC, ask around, you’ll quickly find out that many residents here consider driving down to DFW a standard part of their travel plans. Hopefully adding additional terminals, adding more destinations for direct flights, and offering competitive flight prices will reduce the leak to DFW, but it’s a part of the culture that was so used to not being able to go anywhere out of OKC 20 years ago before the city started booming again and got back on track following the downturn of the 70’s-90’s.
This. I don’t know what is so hard to grasp about people driving from OKC to Dallas for flights. Almost everyone I know that travels internationally drives to Dallas for a direct flight instead of dealing with connections and higher airfare. I can make it to Dallas on a single 10 gallon tank, so anywhere from $18-30 depending on gas prices. When you have 2-4 people traveling with you. Saving $800 on connecting to Dallas via AA, or saving $2000 overall by getting cheap direct flights is a great option. Driving a few hours and saving all that money and potentially an entire day of sitting in an airport waiting for connecting flights is a choice many people in OKC and southern OK make all the time.
There are two factors causing Oklahoma City OK International Airport to have low Airline flight passengers counts and numbers.
(1) it's airport will never be a top hub airport like Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. And Albuquerque New Mexico is a bigger hub airport than Oklahoma City Oklahoma , and this will only increase in the future. Albuquerque dominates a area of up to 500 miles from it's CBD....Downtown area!!!!
(2) OKC will never be a top (5 to 10) major tourist destination either like DFW and Houston.
Here's one of my secrets , I love to have layovers and zig zag from one city to another allowing me to take little mini vacations in all the cities and destinations in between my arrival and departure Cities.
My departure City being Oakland or San Francisco California ( from theirs International Airports ) with a layover in Salt Lake City another layover in Las Vegas and another layover in Dallas-Fort Worth then on to my arrival city Tulsa Oklahoma. You can take public transportation from the airport down to theirs downtown CBD or Entertainment Districts and get back in time to make your connection!!!!
On my latest trip out to Tulsa Oklahoma for the months of September/October I had a (7 hour layover in Las Vegas Nevada) and the good thing about that is that it only takes about 30 or 40 minutes to walk to the strip from the Las Vegas airport!!!
Also Albuquerque New Mexico could be another Portland Oregon or Austin Texas but the rate of growth is lagging a little bit too much for that to happen!!!#
Forgive me, my numbers for the price of gas were way off, I did them in my head.
Driving three hours just to get to an airport seems like more hell to me than having a connecting flight, so again, I don't buy it. Again, how many people are actually going to far off lands in a year to require doing all that travel to get cheaper and direct fights from D/FW instead of Oklahoma City. Do you really think that explains the over one million difference between the two airports? Are people from OKC traveling to overseas paces like Sydney that much? Most airport traffic is business-related then seeing family, then domestic travel, then overseas travel. I really don't think the numbers are they to explain away the difference.
I was trying to just present the reality of the situation between OKC, Tulsa, and DFW, but you can’t seem to grasp that. Whether you believe it or not (you’ve had multiple OK residents attest to the fact that DFW steals plenty of OKC’s would-be passengers) it’s still the reality of the situation.
Come visit OKC, ask around, you’ll quickly find out that many residents here consider driving down to DFW a standard part of their travel plans. Hopefully adding additional terminals, adding more destinations for direct flights, and offering competitive flight prices will reduce the leak to DFW, but it’s a part of the culture that was so used to not being able to go anywhere out of OKC 20 years ago before the city started booming again and got back on track following the downturn of the 70’s-90’s.
So people are traveling from OKC to Tulsa to catch a flight in great numbers? You really want us to believe that? You brought up two airports with 100,000 passengers each within an hour of OKC, but I showed that Santa Fe's airport alone handles that amount of traffic. And I gave the other nearby airports that you all were omitting when trying to act like the Sunport is the only option for air travel between Dallas and Phoenix, the southern U.S. border and Denver.
They just built a Costco...so yes we can . OKC has a massive Stockyards and is known for great steaks and chicken fried steaks. OKC is known worldwide for their burgers, specifically the onion burger. Other things like fried okra and fried pies are staples of Oklahoma. OKC is a unique place geographically and population-wise. It sits at the crossroads of the Midwest, south, and southwest. You can find all the staples of those cuisines throughout the state. You will find plenty of sopapillas here.
Everywhere has unique foods and utilizes local and regional ingredients. Nonesuch just won Bon Apetit’s Best New restaurant in America and they source everything out of the local farmers markets and their own backyard.
But it's actually not opening until sometime in May, I want to go to Costco in Oklahoma City now gosh darn it!
Forgive me, I guess I didn't know about the world-famous Oklahoma City burgers and steaks, how could I have missed all that coverage and people talking about them or featuring them in shows or winning nationwide polls.
Good Lord, you all don't want to concede even food?? Nothing in Oklahoma City's supposed homegrown culinary tradition of steaks and burgers can compare to having an entire distinct cuisine.
When I go to Oklahoma City I'd also like you to take me to the places that have sopaipillas, I'll have to see what that's about.
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. OKC has a massive Stockyards and is known for great steaks and chicken fried steaks. OKC is known worldwide for their burgers, specifically the onion burger. Other things like fried okra and fried pies are staples of Oklahoma. OKC is a unique place geographically and population-wise. It sits at the crossroads of the Midwest, south, and southwest. You can find all the staples of those cuisines throughout the state. You will find plenty of sopapillas here. 
