Most untapped market

[Anderson]

Looking over the "top five stations per state" release, Williston has vaulted to the top of the list for ND, and is now the busiest station between MSP and Whitefish, MT. Moreover, given that ridership (per my understanding, at least) is still rising pretty steadily, it seems quite possible that it could become the third-busiest station in "flyover country" (let's be honest, it isn't passing Denver, and ABQ might be a stretch, but getting the 15,000 or so it would need to get past everyone else is at least plausible). With this in mind, I'm wondering if Amtrak might not need to consider adding a coach here (even on some funky schedule to accommodate predictable demand pulses), since Williston is changing out an average of at least a coach per day at this point.

Likewise, if the business is heavily directional (i.e. eastbound or westbound), not addressing this could screw up the ability of folks to book through tickets.

 

[PRR 60]

Looking over the "top five stations per state" release, Williston has vaulted to the top of the list for ND, and is now the busiest station between MSP and Whitefish, MT. Moreover, given that ridership (per my understanding, at least) is still rising pretty steadily, it seems quite possible that it could become the third-busiest station in "flyover country" (let's be honest, it isn't passing Denver, and ABQ might be a stretch, but getting the 15,000 or so it would need to get past everyone else is at least plausible). With this in mind, I'm wondering if Amtrak might not need to consider adding a coach here (even on some funky schedule to accommodate predictable demand pulses), since Williston is changing out an average of at least a coach per day at this point.

Likewise, if the business is heavily directional (i.e. eastbound or westbound), not addressing this could screw up the ability of folks to book through tickets.

Williston traffic is not directional or seasonal. It is driven by the Bakken oil boom, and passengers are coming and going all the time to and from both directions. ISN airport has seen a similar jump in traffic.

 

[Anderson]

Looking over the "top five stations per state" release, Williston has vaulted to the top of the list for ND, and is now the busiest station between MSP and Whitefish, MT. Moreover, given that ridership (per my understanding, at least) is still rising pretty steadily, it seems quite possible that it could become the third-busiest station in "flyover country" (let's be honest, it isn't passing Denver, and ABQ might be a stretch, but getting the 15,000 or so it would need to get past everyone else is at least plausible). With this in mind, I'm wondering if Amtrak might not need to consider adding a coach here (even on some funky schedule to accommodate predictable demand pulses), since Williston is changing out an average of at least a coach per day at this point.

Likewise, if the business is heavily directional (i.e. eastbound or westbound), not addressing this could screw up the ability of folks to book through tickets.

Williston traffic is not directional or seasonal. It is driven by the Bakken oil boom, and passengers are coming and going all the time to and from both directions. ISN airport has seen a similar jump in traffic.

Oh, I know it's driven by the boom. What I wasn't sure of was whether it was, say, overwhelmingly to/from CHI or MSP (or Fargo, for that matter). I know the airport traffic is mostly to/from Denver (where there isn't a train option, to be fair), but I don't know much other than that.

 

[Bus Nut]

What about a Chicago-Florida Auto Train? What if it went to Bradenton-Sarasota where so many Midwestern retirees have settled? The only bad part is it's definitely more than a day given the condition of the tracks south of Missouri. But with good onboard service and autoracks, and initial departure times that are reasonable, that shouldn't matter too much. It wouldn't be as profitable as the NEC one, but that is a long-established service with years of capital investment and a steady customer base.

Obviously you wouldn't leave from Chicago Union Station. Maybe Bloomington, IL? You want to be out of the thickest freight congestion as all the lines converge in Chicago, yet not too far from the big population centers. Luckily Midwesterners are accustomed to long car rides.

In time it might pave the way for a revived Floridian (with normal operation, station stops) of some sort, strengthening both trains and building the market much as the Auto Train and Silvers support each other.

 

[Bus Nut]

This is an excellent post.

If there is to be a discussion on the most untapped travel markets in the US for Amtrak, one place to start should be with the top city/metro region air travel corridors. Here is a Brookings Institute list from 2009 that I found linked to on wikipedia with the top 100 city/metro region pairs. It is not up to date - post-recession likely shuffled the order & numbers - and one should not get picky about the exact rankings. The busier corridors obviously also have a lot of connecting traffic, so it is not a clean city of origin to final destination list, but the list shows useful info to consider for a "untapped" market list for Amtrak.

The untapped markets really should be no more than 500-600 miles apart for a viable corridor service.

Agreed.

1. NYC/Newark to Miami/Fort Lauderdale: the Silvers

What's needed is some serious investment by Florida. It's clear that the public in Florida has wanted this for a very long time (if only to save themselves driving time and hassle) but the "owners" of the state are dead set against it. Incremental improvement has come from the railroads themselves. I think the inauguration of Florida's second commuter rail line (in Orlando) should also push the conversation.

Florida has a lot to gain here but keeps shooting itself in the foot.

2. LA/Long Beach to San Francisco/Oakland: There is a market for the Coast Daylight and the CA HSR.

Agreed. Will be very interested to see how Coast Daylight changes the picture. AIUT, the CD is happening.

3. Atlanta to Miami/Ft Lauderdale: big gap in the Amtrak system.

It looks like Amtrak is going forward with a new station in Atlanta which is sorely needed. Atlanta to even just Jacksonville would be a revelation in regional mobility. That could pretty much happen without GA support on the state level. Crossing fingers.

4. Chicago to NYC/Newark: LSL; Bring back the Three Rivers?

It's longer than optimal but LSL shows us that there certainly is a market. Much will depend on Amtrak getting the capital funding it needs to actually expand the fleet instead of running in place.

5. Atlanta to NYC/Newark: One often maxed out Crescent.

Atlanta station relocation will enable them to add cutoff cars. Hopefully VA and NC developments will ease pressure on this route so it can carry more Atlanta traffic, as is already happening with Lynchburg and Piedmont service.

9. LA/Long Beach to Las Vegas: X-Train and Xpress-West are looking to fill this gap.

Would be nice to see the Xpress-West get the loan package and go forward. I think you've just made the best business case possible for this--top 10 market with zero service, distance factor is just about right.

10. LA/Long Beach to Phoenix: An argument for a LA to Phoenix day train if UP were to cooperate and Arizona was interested.

UP may shake out in a few years; AZ is in the throes of an epic political struggle so wait ten years on that one.

This is a truly fascinating exercise. It also looks like Amtrak is concentrating effort where they ought to be based on the shape of the market. (Guess what wasn't on that list: not a single Gulf Coast city. Sorry guys.) A lot of small markets not on the list that have good service are, indeed, state-supported, which does seem fair when you look at it that way.

I think we as a country are starting to completely rethink the role of the national rail network and that's a good thing. Amtrak isn't going to replace coast to coast flights any time soon but certainly has a role to play in interstate travel that is much more expansive than previously envisioned.

 

[Bus Nut]

Couple of comments:

3. Atlanta to Miami/Ft Lauderdale: big gap in the Amtrak system.

Atlanta-Macon-Jacksonville-onward would do nicely. But Being In Georgia, it won't get state funded in the next 30 years.

Apparently there is no quote escaping on this board. Okay. But I think GA can be engineered around. For example splitting the NYC-ATL Crescent at ATL, sending some cars to NOL as they do now, and some to JAX? This is contingent on Florida getting its act together. This will happen, albeit much slower than it ought to have happened.

8. NYC/Newark to London: ok, difficult to do by train.

Interestingly, this is the route of the last regularly scheduled ocean liner service in the world (on Cunard). I guess it's the most popular route which can't be done by train, among people who don't want to take planes.

So I was curious about this, turns out they only sail infrequently. 7 days on a boat in open ocean apparently is a bit much for most people.

13. Dallas-Houston
Badly needs corridor service.

Yes.

14. Atlanta-Orlando
More justification for filling the Atlanta-Florida service gap.

Here's the thing. Atlanta is a hub, so much of that is people continuing to other flights at Hartfield Airport. It's really a Chicago-Atlanta-Florida gap. You can travel down the East Coast, but you can't get from the Heartland to Disney World. (Not that WDW is the only reason people take this trip, but I have noticed the mouse ears on the plane, okay?) I think that's why Amtrak is so focused on fixing the Atl

17. Denver-LA
Here's an interesting one. Long, but I wonder if it could be coherently served.

Denver, CO needs better service period.

25. NY-DC
Again, Amtrak's doing nearly as well as they can here.

It should hardly be on the airplane city pair list at all. If Amtrak can get the funding to fix the Baltimore tunnel bottleneck and upgrade to constant tension catenary we could see higher speeds on this corridor.

26. Atlanta-LA
Long. And Georgia. Forget it.

Crescent to New Orleans, Sunset Limited to LA.

28. Charlotte - NY
More evidence that the Crescent should be improved.

Looks like corridor service to me. Not the Crescent, more like Piedmont.

30. Atlanta-Chicago
Finally we get to this fairly common request. It would require a massive amount of track improvement crossing mountains, through three or possibly four states which have shown no support for passenger rail. While I see the value in a Chicago-Florida train, notice how many common city pairs come far ahead of this in terms of demand.... Seems like back-burner material.

That's because Atlanta isn't as hot a commodity as it imagines itself to be, and the two Chicago airports aren't major hubs (ie, you don't get bounced through there as often as other airports in the region since it's a huge origin and there are capacity constraints). But go all the way to Florida and suddenly you're looking at a very important market.

It may be that as the HSR map gets built out that it won't be a matter of drawing a straight line on a map because the fastest route won't be the shortest one. IMO. I mean, there are mountains in the way, and they aren't populated by wealthy Schweizers. (Yes, I've watched Modern Marvels, why do you ask?)

 

[Bus Nut]

off the top of my head without doing any research.

#2- Nashville - Atlanta

No chance. Best rail time ever about 6 hours. Probable best time now more like 8 hours. Drive time just over 4 without breaking any speed limits.

Wow, do you own a Maserati and have a special pass from the state police? I wish Nashville-Atlanta was 4 hours. Would have really saved my sanity during a recent family vacation. Wow, wow, wow.

 

[PRR 60]

off the top of my head without doing any research.

#2- Nashville - Atlanta

No chance. Best rail time ever about 6 hours. Probable best time now more like 8 hours. Drive time just over 4 without breaking any speed limits.

Wow, do you own a Maserati and have a special pass from the state police? I wish Nashville-Atlanta was 4 hours. Would have really saved my sanity during a recent family vacation. Wow, wow, wow.

According to Google, Nashvillle to Atanta is 250 miles, 3hr, 45 minutes. No Maserati required. Of course, you also said that the two Chicago airports are not major hubs, so...

 

[jis]

off the top of my head without doing any research.

#2- Nashville - Atlanta

No chance. Best rail time ever about 6 hours. Probable best time now more like 8 hours. Drive time just over 4 without breaking any speed limits.

Wow, do you own a Maserati and have a special pass from the state police? I wish Nashville-Atlanta was 4 hours. Would have really saved my sanity during a recent family vacation. Wow, wow, wow.

According to Google, Nashvillle to Atanta is 250 miles, 3hr, 45 minutes. No Maserati required. Of course, you also said that the two Chicago airports are not major hubs, so...

Yeah, that bit about two Chicago airports not being major hubs threw me a bit. If O'Hare is not a hub, I wonder what is. It is a major hub for two of the largest airlines in the US.
As for Chicago - Florida, the only way that will happen today is via Washington DC. There is next to zero probability of Atlanta getting into the picture there.

 

[June the Coach Rider]

off the top of my head without doing any research.

#2- Nashville - Atlanta

No chance. Best rail time ever about 6 hours. Probable best time now more like 8 hours. Drive time just over 4 without breaking any speed limits.

Wow, do you own a Maserati and have a special pass from the state police? I wish Nashville-Atlanta was 4 hours. Would have really saved my sanity during a recent family vacation. Wow, wow, wow.

According to Google, Nashvillle to Atanta is 250 miles, 3hr, 45 minutes. No Maserati required. Of course, you also said that the two Chicago airports are not major hubs, so...

Mapquest says it takes 4 hours from Nashville to Atlanta.

 

[dlagrua]

Its nice to dream of new routes (and many of us would like to see them) but if Amtrak is not in a position to restart service on an existing route where the trackage already exists; you won't see new routes anytime soon. Amtrak is even struggling to get the planned Roanoke service off the ground.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Couple of comments:

3. Atlanta to Miami/Ft Lauderdale: big gap in the Amtrak system.

Atlanta-Macon-Jacksonville-onward would do nicely. But Being In Georgia, it won't get state funded in the next 30 years.

Apparently there is no quote escaping on this board. Okay. But I think GA can be engineered around. For example splitting the NYC-ATL Crescent at ATL, sending some cars to NOL as they do now, and some to JAX? This is contingent on Florida getting its act together. This will happen, albeit much slower than it ought to have happened.

8. NYC/Newark to London: ok, difficult to do by train.

Interestingly, this is the route of the last regularly scheduled ocean liner service in the world (on Cunard). I guess it's the most popular route which can't be done by train, among people who don't want to take planes.

So I was curious about this, turns out they only sail infrequently. 7 days on a boat in open ocean apparently is a bit much for most people.

13. Dallas-HoustonBadly needs corridor service.

Yes.

14. Atlanta-OrlandoMore justification for filling the Atlanta-Florida service gap.

Here's the thing. Atlanta is a hub, so much of that is people continuing to other flights at Hartfield Airport. It's really a Chicago-Atlanta-Florida gap. You can travel down the East Coast, but you can't get from the Heartland to Disney World. (Not that WDW is the only reason people take this trip, but I have noticed the mouse ears on the plane, okay?) I think that's why Amtrak is so focused on fixing the Atl

17. Denver-LAHere's an interesting one. Long, but I wonder if it could be coherently served.

Denver, CO needs better service period.

25. NY-DCAgain, Amtrak's doing nearly as well as they can here.

It should hardly be on the airplane city pair list at all. If Amtrak can get the funding to fix the Baltimore tunnel bottleneck and upgrade to constant tension catenary we could see higher speeds on this corridor.

26. Atlanta-LALong. And Georgia. Forget it.

Crescent to New Orleans, Sunset Limited to LA.

28. Charlotte - NYMore evidence that the Crescent should be improved.

Looks like corridor service to me. Not the Crescent, more like Piedmont.

30. Atlanta-ChicagoFinally we get to this fairly common request. It would require a massive amount of track improvement crossing mountains, through three or possibly four states which have shown no support for passenger rail. While I see the value in a Chicago-Florida train, notice how many common city pairs come far ahead of this in terms of demand.... Seems like back-burner material.

That's because Atlanta isn't as hot a commodity as it imagines itself to be, and the two Chicago airports aren't major hubs (ie, you don't get bounced through there as often as other airports in the region since it's a huge origin and there are capacity constraints). But go all the way to Florida and suddenly you're looking at a very important market.

It may be that as the HSR map gets built out that it won't be a matter of drawing a straight line on a map because the fastest route won't be the shortest one. IMO. I mean, there are mountains in the way, and they aren't populated by wealthy Schweizers. (Yes, I've watched Modern Marvels, why do you ask?)

chicago airports aren't major hubs!!! Last time I looked, United and American served just about everywhere from O'Hare and Southwest goes to many, many places from Midway. It seems like there are a lot of people transferring at both airports.

 

[crescent2]

As discussed at length, ATL to "somewhere else"!

Atlanta's tiny little station and only one train route are surprising. I love the Crescent for going to NOL, but would love more options. Yes, I know I'm dreaming.

 

[VentureForth]

ATL to MACON to SAVANNAH then JAX & MIAMI without going through DC. Would make my trip to central NC easier, too.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Wow never thought I would see this resurrected! There has been a clear focus on the Southeast since this was resurrected, and while it obviously needs work, I still have to go for an 11-hour offset 9:30PM departure of the CS from LA, arriving Seattle TWO days later at 7:30AM continuing to Vancouver for a padding-arrival of around noon. Then leaving circa 5:30PM departure, Seattle at 10:00PM, arriving LA at 9:00AM two mornings later. Sorry Portland, but this is quite a nice schedule. at least 5:30 of turnaround time on each end, connecting three high density corridors with times offset from existing services, and it just seems goooood.

 

[Gord]

Michigan to Canada via Detroit/Windsor. Not only would it save a lot of backtracking and/or bussing for those of us wishing to travel east, it could open up a route to Niagara Falls, Toronto, and other tourist destinations.
I agree with the L.A. to Las Vegas route, or even Kingman to Las Vegas. Basically, anything that doesn't require a bus to Las Vegas in the middle of the night.

I'm with Sorcha on this one. There are over six million of us in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and lots of us like to travel and spend our money in the USA. Pretty difficult to do by rail with only one train per day from Toronto to the US. I'm about to do a TWO, CHI, NOL, NYP, TWO trip by Amtrak. Sure would be nice to have an overnight sleeper service direct from Toronto connecting with the westbound LSL at Buffalo-Depew.

Gord

 

[Bus Nut]

chicago airports aren't major hubs!!! Last time I looked, United and American served just about everywhere from O'Hare and Southwest goes to many, many places from Midway. It seems like there are a lot of people transferring at both airports.

Not like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Memphis, or Philly. You said it yourself, you can go anywhere from O'Hare. Direct traffic is going to squeeze out hub traffic. We are using a different definition of hub. In my mind, hubs are big (as in # of runways) airports that generate less trips on their own, but are used by regional airlines to sort passengers the way Fed-Ex sorts freight. For example, not too many domestic flights are going to layover at Logan Airport in Boston. It's maxed out. But you could get bounced through Manchester or Hartford.

Midway, I'm sorry, is much smaller than O'Hare and really not comparable.

But we can continue to talk out of the sides of our necks or somebody could produce some sort of comparison between total passengers served by an airport per year, and how many linked trips originate at that airport.

 

[Bus Nut]

ATL to MACON to SAVANNAH then JAX & MIAMI without going through DC. Would make my trip to central NC easier, too.

I could go for that. Bringing back the Silver Palm would be the cherry on top. I am so sick of driving to SC to see the in-laws.

 

[Anderson]

Wow never thought I would see this resurrected! There has been a clear focus on the Southeast since this was resurrected, and while it obviously needs work, I still have to go for an 11-hour offset 9:30PM departure of the CS from LA, arriving Seattle TWO days later at 7:30AM continuing to Vancouver for a padding-arrival of around noon. Then leaving circa 5:30PM departure, Seattle at 10:00PM, arriving LA at 9:00AM two mornings later. Sorry Portland, but this is quite a nice schedule. at least 5:30 of turnaround time on each end, connecting three high density corridors with times offset from existing services, and it just seems goooood.

You know, though it'll never happen, wouldn't it be nice if that could actually include through cars on both ends? Through cars on the San Diego end aren't impossible to envision (they existed in the past and could be resurrected, at least in theory), and on a reversed schedule you could simply have a protocol for hooking them to the next Surfliner to come through and just limiting ticket sales if there's a minor stop on one train but not the next.

Also (and I'm sure Bill or someone else can detail historic operations in this vein), such a train could arguably use set-out equipment (at the very least, a sleeper) at PDX to make up for the lousy times both ways.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

ATL to MACON to SAVANNAH then JAX & MIAMI without going through DC. Would make my trip to central NC easier, too.

I could go for that. Bringing back the Silver Palm would be the cherry on top. I am so sick of driving to SC to see the in-laws.

Sick of the drive or the in-laws? :giggle:

 

[gfdavis3]

chicago airports aren't major hubs!!! Last time I looked, United and American served just about everywhere from O'Hare and Southwest goes to many, many places from Midway. It seems like there are a lot of people transferring at both airports.

Not like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Memphis, or Philly. You said it yourself, you can go anywhere from O'Hare. Direct traffic is going to squeeze out hub traffic. We are using a different definition of hub. In my mind, hubs are big (as in # of runways) airports that generate less trips on their own, but are used by regional airlines to sort passengers the way Fed-Ex sorts freight. For example, not too many domestic flights are going to layover at Logan Airport in Boston. It's maxed out. But you could get bounced through Manchester or Hartford.

Midway, I'm sorry, is much smaller than O'Hare and really not comparable.

But we can continue to talk out of the sides of our necks or somebody could produce some sort of comparison between total passengers served by an airport per year, and how many linked trips originate at that airport.

O'Hare happens to have 6 runways which is tied for second most runways at a single airport in the world. It is the second busiest hub for both American and United. 5th busiest airport in the world. By any CORRECT definition, O'Hare is a major hub. Midway is not a major hub or a hub at all actually. Southwest operates, by far, the largest amount of flights at Midway but does not use the hub and spoke model but rather point to point. To go along with that, Southwest operates more flights from Midway than any other airport. Memphis is a slow airport by passenger count. Philladelphia and Minneapolis don't compare to O'Hare regarding amount of passengers or flights.

 

[George Harris]

Not like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Memphis, or Philly. .

. Memphis is a slow airport by passenger count.

This is one of these interesting things where changes in the airline corporate world made for a huge change in an airport's activity. After Northwest took over the sucessors to Southern Airlines, they made Memphis their Southeastern Hub. Several times a day there would be a flurry of flights in utilizing most of the gates followed by a mad scramble of people from plane to plane followed by a flurry of flights out. At one point these flights included a nonstop flight to Amsterdam (is it still operating? ) and a through flight to Tokyo (with a change of equipment in Seattle :wacko: ). Since "home" is within 20 miles of the Memphis airport, this was extremely handy for us when I was working in Asia.

To give you an idea of how Northwest was operating at that time, they used Tokyo Narita as their hub for that part of the world. There was one flight between there and Taipei. We would always be on that one, but between Memphis and Tokyo, we could go via Seattle, Detroit, San Francisco, or Los Angeles, and maybe a couple of other places. I think Chicago was also on the list of possibilites, but we managed to avoid that one.

 

[leemell]

chicago airports aren't major hubs!!! Last time I looked, United and American served just about everywhere from O'Hare and Southwest goes to many, many places from Midway. It seems like there are a lot of people transferring at both airports.

Not like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Memphis, or Philly. You said it yourself, you can go anywhere from O'Hare. Direct traffic is going to squeeze out hub traffic. We are using a different definition of hub. In my mind, hubs are big (as in # of runways) airports that generate less trips on their own, but are used by regional airlines to sort passengers the way Fed-Ex sorts freight. For example, not too many domestic flights are going to layover at Logan Airport in Boston. It's maxed out. But you could get bounced through Manchester or Hartford.

Midway, I'm sorry, is much smaller than O'Hare and really not comparable.

But we can continue to talk out of the sides of our necks or somebody could produce some sort of comparison between total passengers served by an airport per year, and how many linked trips originate at that airport.

O'Hare happens to have 6 runways which is tied for second most runways at a single airport in the world. It is the second busiest hub for both American and United. 5th busiest airport in the world. By any CORRECT definition, O'Hare is a major hub. Midway is not a major hub or a hub at all actually. Southwest operates, by far, the largest amount of flights at Midway but does not use the hub and spoke model but rather point to point. To go along with that, Southwest operates more flights from Midway than any other airport. Memphis is a slow airport by passenger count. Philladelphia and Minneapolis don't compare to O'Hare regarding amount of passengers or flights.

Memphis is notable of one thing, it is FedEx's largest hub and averages about 3,000 flights a day. Pretty large for a smallish regional airport.

 

[VentureForth]

chicago airports aren't major hubs!!! Last time I looked, United and American served just about everywhere from O'Hare and Southwest goes to many, many places from Midway. It seems like there are a lot of people transferring at both airports.

Not like Minneapolis, Atlanta, Memphis, or Philly. You said it yourself, you can go anywhere from O'Hare. Direct traffic is going to squeeze out hub traffic. We are using a different definition of hub. In my mind, hubs are big (as in # of runways) airports that generate less trips on their own, but are used by regional airlines to sort passengers the way Fed-Ex sorts freight. For example, not too many domestic flights are going to layover at Logan Airport in Boston. It's maxed out. But you could get bounced through Manchester or Hartford.

Midway, I'm sorry, is much smaller than O'Hare and really not comparable.

But we can continue to talk out of the sides of our necks or somebody could produce some sort of comparison between total passengers served by an airport per year, and how many linked trips originate at that airport.

O'Hare happens to have 6 runways which is tied for second most runways at a single airport in the world. It is the second busiest hub for both American and United. 5th busiest airport in the world. By any CORRECT definition, O'Hare is a major hub. Midway is not a major hub or a hub at all actually. Southwest operates, by far, the largest amount of flights at Midway but does not use the hub and spoke model but rather point to point. To go along with that, Southwest operates more flights from Midway than any other airport. Memphis is a slow airport by passenger count. Philladelphia and Minneapolis don't compare to O'Hare regarding amount of passengers or flights.

Memphis is notable of one thing, it is FedEx's largest hub and averages about 3,000 flights a day. Pretty large for a smallish regional airport.

That's a bit of a stretch. Around 950 flights per day is more accurate. That's still a take off or landing every 1.5 minutes for the whole day. But at 3,000 operations per day, it'd be 25% busier than Atlanta, with 2 fewer parallel runways!

 

[George Harris]

Memphis is notable of one thing, it is FedEx's largest hub and averages about 3,000 flights a day. Pretty large for a smallish regional airport.

That's a bit of a stretch. Around 950 flights per day is more accurate. That's still a take off or landing every 1.5 minutes for the whole day. But at 3,000 operations per day, it'd be 25% busier than Atlanta, with 2 fewer parallel runways!

And if you are in line with the main east-west runway, most of these flights will be nose to tail inbound starting around 10:00pm and outbound starting sometime after 3:00am. However, you won't hear much complaining about the noise. People there know which side their bread is buttered on. FedEx is a major component to the economy of the area.