How Many Gates Are Unused at KCI? (Memphis, Cleveland: construction, taxes)

[jaxontwinz]

I know there are a lot of unused gates at the airport, but just how many? Could some airlines take those slots and expand service? KCI I'm sure has the most unused/empty space for any airport in the country. Just looking for numbers.

[xenokc]

STL and Cincy actually suffered the most recently.... STL used to be ranked top 10 but is now ranked 31st, KCI went from about 30th to 32nd. Cincy was top 20 but is now ranked 50th after airline consolidation. Memphis was also a semi hub and is now ranked lower than KCI. Metros of similar size (Indy, Columbus, Cincy, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Antonio)... their airports are ranked lower than KCI.

KCI peaked at 12M passengers a year.. it's at about 10M now and starting to improve but it's up to airlines to bring the flights. Is hardly one of the most unused and nearly all airports took a 15-20% hit (or much more) from peak.

It's about the number of flights that a carrier brings to an airport. Airline consolidation is killing flights... the top 10-15 major hubs are grabbing the flights they can and pretty much all others are shrinking - or at least lower than past peaks.

You just can't market cheap gates anymore to the carriers. Might still have some influence but not like it used to.

RITA | BTS | Transtats

[kcmo]

While KCI is not a slow airport by any means for the size of the metro, (as xenokc says, it's in top 35), it just seems like a dead airport for many reasons I have already listed in another thread. Why did you start a new thread about KCI anyway, should have kept the other one active.

But to answer your question about the gates being used. Over 1/3 of the gates at KCI are not being used. That's not really saying that KC is a bad market as much as MCI was simply overbuilt. It was overbuilt to become a major mid america hub and now post 9-11 it has become nearly imposible to ever use all those gates because the "drive to your gate" design is now obsolete and they never really worked well for connecting flights pre 9-11. It's wierd that KCI has a huge amount of gates, yet it is generally thought of as one of the smallest airports in the country by travelers. The setup of KCI really throws off what's really going on there.

The existing airport has 90 gates, but the proposed single terminal only has 59 gates (expandable to 93 at least 20 years out).

Although most area residents don't want a new terminal, I find the main reasons for that is simply ignorance and fear of the unknown. Modern terminals at airports similar in size to KC are very nice, user friendly, have short lines and walks, easy to use etc yet they have all the amenities that KCI doesn't have (concourses on secure airfield side with food, restrooms, more places to sit and shopping options and all gates accessible from secure the concourse.) Much of the cost of a new terminal would also be funded by the terminal itself via new revenue sources that KCI currently doesn't have, probably slightly higher airline fees but mostly federal money.

Just like Light Rail, KC is basically saying no thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money that could be injected into the local economy and watches it go to other cities when the federal government has already said it would front most of the cost because maintaining security at so many checkpoints at KCI is very very expensive. It would actually save the government some money in the long run to pay for most of the terminal.

But again, the people don't want it and it would require some type of bond issue to front the city portion of the terminal (even though it would be funded by KCI, not taxes). The 250-300 million the city (aviation dept) spent on renovating the terminals would have been all city needed to come up with to build a new 1.2 billion dollar terminal.

KCI and the federal government want a new terminal and I think KC residents will like it when it's built. For that reason, I look for a new terminal at KCI to at least be under construction in the next 10 years.

I'm not sure what they would do with the existing terminals. It would be cool if they could figure out some way to turn them into something else aviation related to give KCI a unique aviation industry that no other airport offers rather than just tear them down. I just don't know what. Office space? Cargo distrubution centers? General aviation and charters? (which would compete with downtown airport, probably not good). I don't know.

Here is the link to the official KCI master plan.

http://www.airportsites.net/masterpl...mary8-5x11.pdf

[xenokc]

It 'feels' dead because of the way it was designed, to keep you to close your flight/luggage and exit and away from other flight traffic. No doubt that design tends to less pedestrian traffic flow and makes the airport feel small. It was also designed before security gates existed so the end result is a poor design - for a hub.

90 gates are really too many for a non-hub airport. It wanted to be a hub airport but since security gates came afterwards, it really ruined the airport design for a hub.

[jaxontwinz]

Originally Posted by kcmo

While KCI is not a slow airport by any means for the size of the metro, (as xenokc says, it's in top 35), it just seems like a dead airport for many reasons I have already listed in another thread. Why did you start a new thread about KCI anyway, should have kept the other one active.

But to answer your question about the gates being used. Over 1/3 of the gates at KCI are not being used. That's not really saying that KC is a bad market as much as MCI was simply overbuilt. It was overbuilt to become a major mid america hub and now post 9-11 it has become nearly imposible to ever use all those gates because the "drive to your gate" design is now obsolete and they never really worked well for connecting flights pre 9-11. It's wierd that KCI has a huge amount of gates, yet it is generally thought of as one of the smallest airports in the country by travelers. The setup of KCI really throws off what's really going on there.

The existing airport has 90 gates, but the proposed single terminal only has 59 gates (expandable to 93 at least 20 years out).

Although most area residents don't want a new terminal, I find the main reasons for that is simply ignorance and fear of the unknown. Modern terminals at airports similar in size to KC are very nice, user friendly, have short lines and walks, easy to use etc yet they have all the amenities that KCI doesn't have (concourses on secure airfield side with food, restrooms, more places to sit and shopping options and all gates accessible from secure the concourse.) Much of the cost of a new terminal would also be funded by the terminal itself via new revenue sources that KCI currently doesn't have, probably slightly higher airline fees but mostly federal money.

Just like Light Rail, KC is basically saying no thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money that could be injected into the local economy and watches it go to other cities when the federal government has already said it would front most of the cost because maintaining security at so many checkpoints at KCI is very very expensive. It would actually save the government some money in the long run to pay for most of the terminal.

But again, the people don't want it and it would require some type of bond issue to front the city portion of the terminal (even though it would be funded by KCI, not taxes). The 250-300 million the city (aviation dept) spent on renovating the terminals would have been all city needed to come up with to build a new 1.2 billion dollar terminal.

KCI and the federal government want a new terminal and I think KC residents will like it when it's built. For that reason, I look for a new terminal at KCI to at least be under construction in the next 10 years.

I'm not sure what they would do with the existing terminals. It would be cool if they could figure out some way to turn them into something else aviation related to give KCI a unique aviation industry that no other airport offers rather than just tear them down. I just don't know what. Office space? Cargo distrubution centers? General aviation and charters? (which would compete with downtown airport, probably not good). I don't know.

Here is the link to the official KCI master plan.

http://www.airportsites.net/masterpl...mary8-5x11.pdf

Your right i should have kept the other thread going, I'm new to this oh well. I completely agree that the new terminal needs to be built soon, like you said. The master plan calls for it to be built between 2016-2020. I say construction should start in 2012, work ahead of time.

[azdr0710]

the "drive to your gate" concept was ingenious, I'm sure, during late 1960s terminal planning for KCI.....

but who could've guessed about airline deregulation, TWA leaving for STL, Sept. 11, and airline consolidation?....

they're still good-looking buildings, though.....

[xenokc]

it was the security gates that eventually killed the design. probably was a great airport until the security gates came a few years after opening.

there was no indication at the time of design that we'd be soon living in an age of pandering to fear.

[Minnhawk05]

I noticed the lack of traffic here as well. I was messing around on google maps too and noticed the airport only had like 6 - 8 planes there. I am a bit concerned about lack of service (from Minneapolis, MSP airport seems to always be busy and have tons of flights) because I may be traveling every week for my job.

[jaxontwinz]

Originally Posted by Minnhawk05

I noticed the lack of traffic here as well. I was messing around on google maps too and noticed the airport only had like 6 - 8 planes there. I am a bit concerned about lack of service (from Minneapolis, MSP airport seems to always be busy and have tons of flights) because I may be traveling every week for my job.

Well there are 6 daily Delta filghts to and from. And there are also 2 Frontier Airline flights to and from daily. Your business will probably pay for you. But the MSP-KCI route on Frontier is $49 each way, which is the best deal out there.