Is there anyway since it seems the city is content with staying in north central San Antonio and is completely landlocked that they could buy adjacent land for future relocation and expansion of runways so to be better able to expand and add new terminals?

All they would really have to do is move the few hangars that are on the lower southwest corner of the "airport" along terminal dive and add a fourth terminal similar and mirror image to terminal 1. They could move the hangars over by wetmore and the railroad tracks or just rearrange them along the eastern side of Jones Maltsberger. As an example of a landlocked airport; I have a picture of a land and water locked airport.
Here IT is. It would be too big to post on here.
Reagan is busier than Austin and SA combined; but it has most of its hangars neatly arranged (on the left side of the picture) along GW Parkway, not scattered around like SAT does. Here it is on a map.
Reagan does have two luxuries that SAT or AUS don't;
being 20 miles from Dulles and 25 miles from BWI (both larger and busier than Reagan)
and having the Metro line run to it (which the other two don't have.)
Got info from wiki.

good stuff, miaht...

i just spent 20 minutes reorganizing the airport...

Flew in to SA last night, and it appears the pillars are set for the two level roadway extension. Also, there is a deep hole where the new terminal will go. It was pretty dark, so I couldn't make out much else.

We stayed at the Best Western on 281 and Sonterra, so I got a pretty good picture of Tesoro, which I'll post in the metro update thread. My jaw was dropping as I was driving up to Kerrville with all the construction north of 1604. What "bad economy"?? :laugh:

As it is, there's still enough room for another 21 gate terminal (Terminal D) as shown on SAT's master plan to be built sometime beyond 2015.

http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/f...expansion5.jpg

There's now a tower crane up at the Terminal B site and columns for the two level roadway have been set. It looks like they're building the new roadway from the western end over to the east, where it will meet up with the existing road that drops off past Terminal 1.

It certainly looks like the new terminal could open in 2010 :banana:

A lot of setbacks on this project. Mainly from poor project management.

A new project management team is being put together to get this project back on track.

I flew back to STL for the holidays and the airport is a mess, but you can start to see some progress. I can't wait for it to open in (hopefully) 2010.

True, San Antonio International Airport does not have the room to be O'hare or Hartsfield kind of airport. But with moving the bulk of freight operations to Kelly there is plenty of room for growth. Its freight operations with additional taxiing space and hangers that take up a lot of space. With minimum freight, not as much land is needed.

Here is the Masterplan that came out in 1998. It is a little dated, but it shows you what can be achieved in the area.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d..._Page_10-1.jpg

That plan is certainly impressive, but the third runway seems impossible now with all the businesses that sprung up along Nakoma and J-M.

Your right about the third runway. The funny thing about that, is that this report came out in 1998, they started building those businesses off of Arion in 1998. I don't know how much SAT needs a parrallel runway. As long as they lengthen the NE/SW runway airport operations should be fine.

The third runway might be sort of an endgame scenario for Airport expansion.

Very cool. I flew back home on Sunday evening and noticed some pillars on the concrete area where the new Terminal B is being extended. Can't wait to see what it's going to look like when Termials A, B and C are completed.

Read an article within the past two weeks I believe in the E-N that said that SA was heavily courting Jet Blue and that Jet Blue has put SA on its radar as an expansion market....I'll see if I can't find the article....later....Im tired right now and its time for bed! lol

Any pictures?

To me it would make more sense to have moved the airport to kelly when they closed kelly then there would have been alot more room to expand the airport like they did here in Austin by moving it to Bergstrom airforce base cause our airport can be expanded to 55 gates. Jet Blue should fly into San Antonio they are making Austin a connecting hub for flights from the east coast the the west coast.

Actually, SAT is capable of being expanded to 55 gates, though I doubt either it or Bergstrom will ever be that big.

There is hardly any room to even build a terminal at Kelly (not really). There is not much more, if any room for beneficial growth at Kelly vs SAT. Kelly has one runway and there is not enough room to build another. Try to find a major airport with one runway. Kelly is completely surrounded just like SAT is.

The City is doing the proper thing trying to divert as much cargo as possible to Kelly (which has a longer runway) and expand SAT for past and future growth.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...TLtoSA/SAT.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...toSA/Kelly.jpg

Another thing is location. So much has allready developed around SAT and most busnesses are on the Northside. To move the airport to the southside would be rediculous.

Try San Diego.

-pirated off of Wikipedia

Good find shirt. i knew someone would bring San Diego. I should have typed: San Diego is kind of special situation. There are not many airports like it.

I don't know much about the transfer of land for Austin-Bergstrom, but when a city can do that, it is really a good situation. Austin-Bergstrom is a great airport to fly into and it has been planned well. With the terminal built to handle far more gates than are currently operational.

When you walk into the Terminal it has a "major airport" feel to it, even though it only has 25 gates.

I flew out of ABIA the other day and it would feel like a large airport except for the fact that every friggen shop in that terminal is a local f-ing business. Don't get me wrong, I think patronizing local eateries and news stands is good for a city, but 13 bucks for a coffee and bagel!?!?! I was like...where the hell is McDonalds?! Oh wait...I'm in Austin... Bringing in some outside competition would do alot of good for the prices at that airport as far as food goes...food prices in that terminal are HORRENDOUS. Thatll prob be one of the last times I'll fly out of that Airport anyway...thought I would vent though.

I've flown out of SAT mostly and have always had a better experience price wise and customer service wise....even with the construction.