Huntsville/Madison Development News (Mobile, Decatur: vacation, firms, dates)

[unlblkrubi]

Originally Posted by JackF

Sweet Pea's restaurant is opening up a 2nd location at the old vacated Captain D's on Governor's Drive, west of the Huntsville Hospital campus. It's an "express" restaurant.

Going to be as terrible and expensive as the one on s Parkway?

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

It does, HSV is way ahead of other locations that are being considered, this is part of that. HSV has been approved as a possible landing site for the mini shuttles.

I read recently that the contractor running the program was here recently puhing HSV as the landing site, but they apparently don't get the final say. Don't know who does. Presumably like the Shuttle, it has alternative landing sites all over the world for safety too. At least initially, there won't be a lot of them used. It'll no doubt depend on the success of the program, and how sales go to fly on it.

When and if they come in here, I'd expect about a zillion people sitting around out there waiting for it to come in. Traffic will be a nightmare but worth it.

[AU HSV]

Chattanooga-based High Point Climbing and Fitness will break ground, scheduled for 3:30 p.m, on its 25,000-square-foot climbing gym at MidCity Huntsville Tuesday, near TopGolf.

[r x f]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

Chattanooga-based High Point Climbing and Fitness will break ground, scheduled for 3:30 p.m, on its 25,000-square-foot climbing gym at MidCity Huntsville Tuesday, near TopGolf.

I went to my niece's birthday at a High Point in Birmingham. They've got a 'kid zone', a climbing wall area, and bouldering area, along with a weight room, aerobic room, and yoga room.

Looks like a good place to go have some fun.

[AU HSV]

Email From Huntsville International Airport


Lets hope it is new service from either Southwest, Frontier, Allegiant, Jet Blue or Spirit
Can't imagine what else it could possible be unless it is a big fare sale which we have had in the past but didn't get this kind of fanfare.


Huntsville International Airport representatives will join community leaders and special guests to make a big reveal tomorrow. This is not an announcement that you want to miss and we are inviting you to be a part of this very big news that will impact the business and leisure traveler in our community.
When:
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
10:00am
Where:
Huntsville International Airport
Ticket Counters- Lower Level Terminal Building
1000 Glenn Hearn Boulevard
Huntsville, AL 35824

[David1502]

It's not going to be Southwest. AirTran was losing money on their flights during their tenure at HSV due to low load factors and shortly after Southwest purchased AirTran, they announced that they were discontinuing service. Also, SW calculates that there are a good number of passengers from the Tennessee Valley who are driving to Nashville to fly on their flights there anyway, so they don't think they are losing all of the potential local business.


JetBlue is possible, but not likely, because they are oriented around New York City and that is not a big market out of HSV. The airport officials have been pushing for service to the New York area, however, United is more likely to add service to their Newark hub, since they have significantly beefed up their service out of HSV by adding a second daily flight to Chicago O'Hare and Denver and added a fight to Houston. There are enough business travelers enrolled in the United frequent flyer program in the HSV area, who would take advantage of service to United's Newark hub.


Frontier is possible, too, however, their main hub is in Denver and United has a bigger hub in Denver, so it seems less likely that they would try to compete head on with United.


Allegiant Air is the most likely as they offer flights two or three days a week to tourist destinations like Orlando and Tampa. They don't have to fill up planes seven days a week to be profitable in a market. They have been successful in similar size markets like Chattanooga. They recently announced service out of Nashville to Orlando, Tampa and Destin as well as other cities. Because their flights are not daily, they have limited appeal to business travelers, and they count on leisure travelers to fill up their planes. This is probably a smart strategy for low fare service out of HSV. AirTran tried to appeal to business travelers and was unsuccessful because of the strong loyalty to Delta. Focusing strictly on the leisure travelers, like Allegiant does, may be a better strategy for low fare service out of HSV.

[cooldiver]

Originally Posted by David1502

It's not going to be Southwest. AirTran was losing money on their flights during their tenure at HSV due to low load factors and shortly after Southwest purchased AirTran, they announced that they were discontinuing service. Also, SW calculates that there are a good number of passengers from the Tennessee Valley who are driving to Nashville to fly on their flights there anyway, so they don't think they are losing all of the potential local business.

Actually, AirTran loads to Orlando were decent but the loads to Baltimore were horrid. We really needed AirTran to connect us to their hub in Atlanta, but they knew Delta would respond aggressively. If you ever looked at AirTran connections through BWI they were mostly wretched.

AirTran burned through several millions of dollars in airport subsidies.

Originally Posted by David1502

Allegiant Air is the most likely as they offer flights two or three days a week to tourist destinations like Orlando and Tampa. They don't have to fill up planes seven days a week to be profitable in a market. They have been successful in similar size markets like Chattanooga. They recently announced service out of Nashville to Orlando, Tampa and Destin as well as other cities. Because their flights are not daily, they have limited appeal to business travelers, and they count on leisure travelers to fill up their planes. This is probably a smart strategy for low fare service out of HSV. AirTran tried to appeal to business travelers and was unsuccessful because of the strong loyalty to Delta. Focusing strictly on the leisure travelers, like Allegiant does, may be a better strategy for low fare service out of HSV.

Allegiant tried and failed out of Huntsville 2007-2008 with flights to Las Vegas, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale. They got some bad press for stranding passengers here on at least one occasion. They rarely return to a market they have previously dropped.

https://consumerist.com/2008/03/16/p...hem/index.html

Spirit is busily adding destinations, so I would bet a nickel on it being Spirit and that they will start with a couple of routes including Orlando. Spirit would be good - it is still a nickel and dime operation, but they have a new customer service focus. And their aircraft are pretty new, so the dispatch rate should be good.

All of the ULCCs are very impatient, so the airport authority will really have to up its game to get folks on board in a hurry.

[dijkstra]

I seriously doubt it will be Southwest. What I am fairly confident on though is that if it is anybody other than Southwest, they will suck and won't last long. lol

[RocketDawg]

Originally Posted by dijkstra

I seriously doubt it will be Southwest. What I am fairly confident on though is that if it is anybody other than Southwest, they will suck and won't last long. lol

That seems to be the case, but it's always really a tertiary carrier it seems. However, I don't know that Southwest is all that great either. Seems like I've read that it's JetBlue that's rated the highest amongst the cutrate carriers.

Hopefully it'll be Southwest. I saw one of their planes taking off from the airport just a couple of weeks ago (which may very well not be all that unusual). It's possible that they've seen the current and future growth the Huntsville area is having and will continue to have with the Toyota/Mazda plant, Aerojet, and many, many others. It would be nice to keep the local leisure air traffic at home instead of driving all the way to Nashville.

The Huntsville/Decatur/Albertville CSA now has 775,000 and should be well over 800,000 by the 2020 census. Better air service is needed.

Part of the problem is educating the public, even if there's a decent low-fare carrier here. It seems locals always think there's a better deal elsewhere. Used to be, folks swore that you had to go out of town to buy a new car. I knew a guy who spent hours on the phone negotiating car prices, and finally bought one in Chattanooga. He saved about $200 on a $30K car. Engineers earn their frugality reputation, to a ridiculous extent sometimes.

[AU HSV]

Welcome Frontier!
With some great west coast destination connections out of Denver (Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, Minneapolis) and flights to Orlando