City-County merger talk--is it just talk?

[STLviaMSP]

^That is a real loss, to lose basically the entire physical and social setting of your childhood. I am sorry. The airport expansion was a messy thing.

[silibran]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

Don't forget the 1500 homes they removed, and the lifetime worth of memories they destroyed to cater to an airline who armed the ejection seat before construction even began.

Went to the local school carnival with my wife and daughter the other day, it was at my wife's old grade school which of course was fun and enjoyable...then i felt pretty depressed when I remembered that all of those memories of fall festivals in my old neighborhood would never be shared w/ my kiddo. THANK YOU STL AIRPORT COMMISSION!

You lived in Carrollton? The two homes we lived in there are totally gone. My kids could not show their spouses where they lived when they were young. That was a nice place to live. It really is too bad.

[flynavyj]

yeh, i'm pretty sure that every home in Carrolton is now gone. There were a few homes left a couple years back, and some "wildlife" living in them (there was a great blog that documented a family of goats living in the basement of a Carrolton West home). It was a great place to grow up, good families, well kept homes, great community pool and lots of parks, with lots of family owned small businesses.

[silibran]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

yeh, i'm pretty sure that every home in Carrolton is now gone. There were a few homes left a couple years back, and some "wildlife" living in them (there was a great blog that documented a family of goats living in the basement of a Carrolton West home). It was a great place to grow up, good families, well kept homes, great community pool and lots of parks, with lots of family owned small businesses.

Yes, they are all gone. We last visited in 2008 or so. Located the site of our second house there. Found a couple of trees we had planted. But everything else was obliterated. I believe then there was a house or two still standing. But by now, all have to be gone.

Also gone is the thriving little commercial strip at Bonfils and Natural Bridge. The structures are there but the stores are gone. Telscher Hardware, Schnucks (formerly Jay Bee), Suburban Pharmacy, IGA--all gone. But some of those went away before the buyout.

I wonder which Carrollton West house had the goats?

[flynavyj]

Not sure, the last few homes were located in Carrollton West, and a few were in pretty bad shape (to say the least). The vandals and teenagers were causing trouble over there, spray painting and knocking out walls, one of the homes suffered a fire at some point, and soon after I noticed that the airport finally knocked the last few down.

We went by our old home which we moved out of in '94 after it was purchased, but before they knocked it down (was probably the mid 2000's or so) and retrieved our door plaque which we had installed a few before selling the home. I've gone back since all the other homes were torn down, and did some exploring.

I was able to find the lots where my old home was, and my grandmother's home. I was amazed at just how small the lots were, they never seemed that small when the homes were in place, but after the homes were gone, you could nearly spit from the front yard to the back yard.

[silibran]

Yes to the small yards! I was also surprised by how small they were. We had a decent back yard though.

We moved in 1986, about 18 months before they announced the buyout.

[flyingcat2k]

Originally Posted by jskirwin

I just went through a month ago. It's definitely a shadow of what it was in its heyday, but the same could be said about the entire air industry right now. I think the industry is going to change, perhaps in reaction to the merger between American and US Air, and a facility of high quality like Lambert won't go to waste forever.

In the meantime we should be avoiding making it another hub - putting our eggs in one basket. We tried that with TWA and things didn't work very well. Encourage smaller airlines, especially those flying between secondary airports, to come instead of handing out taxpayer funds like candy to a big company to come, only to pull up stakes or go bankrupt a few years later.

I live in another former hub city, Tulsa, although it lost hub status in 1970s when Rep. Wright came up with DFW. To be honest, we were going to lose it anyways but at least Tulsans have one individual to point to. Once you lose your hub status, an airport never really regains it. Look at Pittsburgh now under US Airways and when it used to be Allegheny Air. The merger with America West reduced flights even though it is a MUCH BETTER airport than Philly. Why? I believe it was based on the emotion rather than actual dollars. Philly sounds important, and it is, but the bigger economic machine is back in Pittsburgh.

I agree you don't want to be a hub again but who says the international terminal has to be dominated by a single airline alliance? The Alliances obviously but what if each got incentives to fly to Lambert? Sky Team (Delta is the US member) certainly can't be thrilled that every flight to the States has to be shoved through Atlanta or JFK. The One World (American) alliance has DFW and Chicago so it will have to be incentivized just like Star Alliance (United) to get away from Houston and Chicago.

[billiken]

Originally Posted by flyingcat2k

I agree you don't want to be a hub again but who says the international terminal has to be dominated by a single airline alliance? The Alliances obviously but what if each got incentives to fly to Lambert? Sky Team (Delta is the US member) certainly can't be thrilled that every flight to the States has to be shoved through Atlanta or JFK. The One World (American) alliance has DFW and Chicago so it will have to be incentivized just like Star Alliance (United) to get away from Houston and Chicago.

This doesn't really make sense to me (or its possible I don't understand what you're saying). I think Delta is actually very happy that most Sky Team flights land in ATL, JFK, etc. All the alliances use a hub and spoke model and there would be no reason to have international flights coming into a non-hub STL airport. The business travelers paying the big $$ for business/first class prefer to fly direct, or need easy connections. The reason all international flights are shoved through ATL, JFK, DFW, ORD, SFO, LAX etc is because they are hubs with tons of connections or are often common final destinations. United is heavily advertising right now that they have the most daily flights out of New York, Chicago, etc. No reasonable amount of incentives would get big international alliance flights here without actually becoming a hub.

Then there's places like Vegas that attract people from all over the world, but aren't necessarily hubs. I love STL, but it's not really an international hotpot that people are trying to visit.