Most untapped market

[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.

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

Actually, the in-laws are just peachy keen, but neither they nor I enjoy a 5-6 hr recreational drive through pine forest. We keep attempting to lure them to Florida with no success.

The Amtrak ticket prices to make this trip are a steal (well, most of the year, anyway, but the schedules are insane because the Palmetto terminates in Savannah.

 

[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.

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!

My error, what I meant was about 1000, still a lot for this airport.

 

[Tennessee Traveler]

I acknowledge this subject is what under served markets would I serve and not feasibility. The conservative political climate in most southern states is anti-rail. My government prefers highways and guns over health, education or public transit. Nevertheless, my vote is for:

NOT SERVED AT ALL: NASHVILLE so here are my routes: 1)Nashville - Atlanta, 2)Nashville - Chicago(mainly for connection to LD west trains), 3) Nashville - Washington, DC/New York via Knoxville, Roanoke, Richmond, and 4) Nashville - Dallas via Jackson,MS and Shreveport, LA.

Since I am 71 I no this could never happen in my lifetime and probably not before Jesus returns. Interestingly, all these city pairs are home to NFL teams including Nashville's Tennessee Titans.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Just for the record, I believe O'Hare is actually 2nd largest in the world not 5th, unless Beijing has by now edged it to 3rd...

 

[PRR 60]

Just for the record, I believe O'Hare is actually 2nd largest in the world not 5th, unless Beijing has by now edged it to 3rd...

By passenger traffic, O'Hare is 5th, behind Atlanta, Beijing, London Heathrow and Tokyo Haneda.

 

[Anderson]

On schedules: The Meteor NB isn't too bad as far as CHS; it's SB that is usually at issue (that would work on the old post-rush hour departure from NYP, but that also makes the WAS departure problematic...I don't think too many folks are keen on an 11 PM departure from DC). I do agree that the FL schedules could use some substantial beefing up, but between equipment and everything else...well, let's just say that I see it as a medium-term priority.

 

[Alexandria Nick]

Just for the record, I believe O'Hare is actually 2nd largest in the world not 5th, unless Beijing has by now edged it to 3rd...

The largest in the US and second largest in the world is Denver, at 53 square miles.

Off hand, I know that Denver, Dallas, Orlando, and Pittsburgh each are all bigger than O'Hare and ATL combined.

Yes, I took "largest" literally.

 

[johnny.menhennet]

Hahaha thanks Nick. And sorry for the wrong correction... oops... I didn't know that it had slipped that far.