SAN ANTONIO | City and Metro Transportation Thread

[adtobias]

SAT lacks major companies with the need for intl air travel.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by WorldTexas

From first hand experience, I can say that key leaders in San Antonio see Austin as a threat and not as an opportunity for regional collaboration. I don't know if it's a cultural remnant from an earlier time, but it definitely reduces opportunities to partner on key things.

I recently relocated to the Seattle area and it's a very different vibe. There's a much more regional perspective here. With the elections done, you should encourage your elected representatives to extend a friendlier hand north.

I wish Austin & S.A. would cooperate more on regional issues with tourism and transportation being at the top of the list.

[Sean1187]

Originally Posted by Hill Country

I wish Austin & S.A. would cooperate more on regional issues with tourism and transportation being at the top of the list.

I completely agree. I wish our civic leaders in both cities would actually work on this. Put pride aside and learn, support and benefit each other. With projects such as the Lone Star Rail, we're slowly heading in that direction at least.

[Paul in S.A TX]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Shoes

Feel free to shoot holes in my ideas.
Two items regarding SAT...
1. About ten years ago - more or less United tried to make SAT a regional focus city flying reginal jets to other medium/small airports (OKC, TUS etc). It was a huge failure because it was not supported by the flying public.
2. Longer ago before Austin built ABIA an idea was floated by the folks in Austin about building an airport to serve both communities located in San Marcos. The San Antonio city council shot that down rather quickly. Austin proceeded to buy land in Manor then the air force closed Bergstrom.

It is good to see the council approving monies to improve SAT and that continued with the funding of the CONRAC. We will not get trans-pacific or trans-atlantic routes until we get a longer runway. Our longest runway is shorter than the shortest Austin runway and they will get non stops Asia and Europe first.
Just my opinion.

I wonder why it is this way? San Antonio attracts 31 million annual visitors and is the 10th the most visited U.S. destination and it was also the 18th most visited U.S. city by international travelers. It also had the highest percentage increase in the state for international travel. A very popular city with a cute little landlocked medium sized airport. Will we ever have a big time airport that reflects a city of 2.4 million people? What will the city do when we reach 3 million inhabitants, in another 10 or so years? I think they also need to name the Airport, S.A. international is boring! I always thought S.A. Hugman International Airport has a good ring to it. Hugman, the architect of the Riverwalk.

[Tyrone Shoes]

Originally Posted by adtobias

SAT lacks major companies with the need for intl air travel.

What is funny is the 'Catch 22' in that statement. The most major of majors we had was the AT&T corporate office but they moved to Dallas because of the lack of daily non-stop flights out of SAT. So how do we get more? By having a need by major companies but we don't have the major companies because we don't have the flights.

When the air force closed Kelly I hoped the city leaders would move SAT there. Build a whole new airport with the existing longer runways. Back then the current airport looked like a rundown bus station. A shiny new terminal with miles long runways to support trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes. The monies spent renovating and improving the current land locked airport could have been spent at Kelly.

As always feel free to shoot holes in my ideas....

[trillhippy_210]

Or at least make the other terminal at the current airport

[maxus]

Originally Posted by Paul in S.A TX

I wonder why it is this way? San Antonio attracts 31 million annual visitors and is the 10th the most visited U.S. destination and it was also the 18th most visited U.S. city by international travelers. It also had the highest percentage increase in the state for international travel. A very popular city with a cute little landlocked medium sized airport. Will we ever have a big time airport that reflects a city of 2.4 million people? What will the city do when we reach 3 million inhabitants, in another 10 or so years? I think they also need to name the Airport, S.A. international is boring! I always thought S.A. Hugman International Airport has a good ring to it. Hugman, the architect of the Riverwalk.

Paullll. No exaggerations please. SA is a city of 1.5 million.

[Paul in S.A TX]

Originally Posted by maxus

Paullll. No exaggerations please. SA is a city of 1.5 million.

Would you rather I use the term, metro? Because that is what I was referring to. I didn't mean in a technical sense using the exact terminology used when defining municipalities or communities.

[ILUVSAT]

Nothing much is going to change when SA reaches 3 million in about 15 years. SAT is not going to magically become a 20 PAX airport just by having an additional 600,000 people move into the metro area.

[trillhippy_210]

Originally Posted by ILUVSAT

Nothing much is going to change when SA reaches 3 million in about 15 years. SAT is not going to magically become a 20 PAX airport just by having an additional 600,000 people move into the metro area.

What about our region? We are the biggest city in S. Tx. The region has about 4.6 million in it. I think that would qualify a bigger airport.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by maxus

Paullll. No exaggerations please. SA is a city of 1.5 million.

Ugh... wrong.

[Spoiler]

I'm all for relocating the airport, but mainly because the current location could be turned into a new "downtown" for the Northside. Its central location would be perfect for a dense population locus, and SA is anticipating a lot of new residents. I'll be damned if they all end up living in new perimeter sprawl.

[Tyrone Shoes]

Originally Posted by Spoiler

I'm all for relocating the airport, but mainly because the current location could be turned into a new "downtown" for the Northside. l.

I wonder if we could support two commercial airports like Dallas (DFW&DAL), Houston (HOU&IAH) or San Francisco (SFO,OAK). Would we need to lure an airline to hub here? What airline is in need of a south central hub? Virgin America, Jet Blue, Spirit, Allegiant, Frontier?????

[WorldTexas]

Originally Posted by Paul in S.A TX

I wonder why it is this way? San Antonio attracts 31 million annual visitors and is the 10th the most visited U.S. destination and it was also the 18th most visited U.S. city by international travelers. It also had the highest percentage increase in the state for international travel. A very popular city with a cute little landlocked medium sized airport. Will we ever have a big time airport that reflects a city of 2.4 million people? What will the city do when we reach 3 million inhabitants, in another 10 or so years? I think they also need to name the Airport, S.A. international is boring! I always thought S.A. Hugman International Airport has a good ring to it. Hugman, the architect of the Riverwalk.

Never take stats at face value. The entities in charge and their PR team go for the wow factor when they release numbers.

First, airlines prefer business passengers over leisure passengers because they provide more predictability and profit. Company employees, vendors, or consultants flying for routine work gives the airlines and their routes some stability and guaranteed passengers. It also dampens the waves on seasonal tourists.

Then drill down on those 30 million visitors and look at how many are business passengers, conventioneers, and leisure. On the leisure branch, how many visitors are from outside Texas? San Antonio is a very popular driving vacation for Dallas, Houston, Corpus, the valley, etc. That's one reason why we have 30 million visitors but only 9 million airport passengers.

For the international numbers - again look at origin. Mexico dominates that space by a humongous margin. That's why SAT is so well connected with cities south of the border. The really awesome traffic volume from Mexico can't be used to justify a flight to Toronto or Madrid.

[WorldTexas]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Shoes

What is funny is the 'Catch 22' in that statement. The most major of majors we had was the AT&T corporate office but they moved to Dallas because of the lack of daily non-stop flights out of SAT. So how do we get more? By having a need by major companies but we don't have the major companies because we don't have the flights.

The key is focusing on the companies already in San Antonio and getting them to scale up and do more business outside Texas and the U.S. A great example is Rackspace and all the cyber security firms that are fast growing. They're already in SA and they don't need a ton of flights. As they grow, demand grows with them. A bunch of medium sized companies can create as much demand as one large firm.

Another way is to hope more SA firms get acquired by foreign companies. A great example is the recent acquisition of two SA biomed companies by an Autralian firm. There will now probably be a couple of extra SAT-Australia business travelers.

[Paul in S.A TX]

Originally Posted by WorldTexas

Never take stats at face value. The entities in charge and their PR team go for the wow factor when they release numbers.

First, airlines prefer business passengers over leisure passengers because they provide more predictability and profit. Company employees, vendors, or consultants flying for routine work gives the airlines and their routes some stability and guaranteed passengers. It also dampens the waves on seasonal tourists.

Then drill down on those 30 million visitors and look at how many are business passengers, conventioneers, and leisure. On the leisure branch, how many visitors are from outside Texas? San Antonio is a very popular driving vacation for Dallas, Houston, Corpus, the valley, etc. That's one reason why we have 30 million visitors but only 9 million airport passengers.

For the international numbers - again look at origin. Mexico dominates that space by a humongous margin. That's why SAT is so well connected with cities south of the border. The really awesome traffic volume from Mexico can't be used to justify a flight to Toronto or Madrid.

Being a hub airport does increase passenger totals substantially but it doesn't equate to more visitors stepping a foot outside the airport. If San Antonio were a hub it's numbers would jump and I doubt it would increase its visitor numbers. 31 million visitors is a lot any which way you look at it.

[ILUVSAT]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Shoes

I wonder if we could support two commercial airports like Dallas (DFW&DAL), Houston (HOU&IAH) or San Francisco (SFO,OAK).

Absolutely not.

[ILUVSAT]

Originally Posted by trillhippy_210

What about our region? We are the biggest city in S. Tx. The region has about 4.6 million in it. I think that would qualify a bigger airport.

As we know, San Antonio is apart of the South Texas Plains region. Yes, there are about 4.7 million people in this region. However, roughly 2.4 million of those are located within the metropolitan area of San Antonio (8 counties and 7,400 sq mi). The other 2.3 million are spread out over an additional 24,600 sq mi - about the size of West Virginia.

The total population of a region as large as the State of Indiana (SA + the rest of S. Texas) does not "qualify" San Antonio for a bigger airport. Market drivers will dictate how big SAT will become.

[Paul in S.A TX]

Originally Posted by ILUVSAT

As we know, San Antonio is apart of the South Texas Plains region. Yes, there are about 4.7 million people in this region. However, roughly 2.4 million of those are located within the metropolitan area of San Antonio (8 counties and 7,400 sq mi). The other 2.3 million are spread out over an additional 24,600 sq mi - about the size of West Virginia.

The total population of a region as large as the State of Indiana (SA + the rest of S. Texas) does not "qualify" San Antonio for a bigger airport. Market drivers will dictate how big SAT will become.

The S.A. metro does include 8 counties but nearly 2 million of the 2.4 million is in Bexar county, not that this tid bit of info means much really when discussing air travel demands for the metro. Anyhow I don't think passenger totals really gives a fair assessment of what cities have a higher demand and thus should recieve more non stops, or connections in general. There are several cities that are a fraction of the size of some bigger cities but yet have a much higher passenger count and they are not top destinations they are simply hubs which makes all the difference, imo. Sure, market drivers may be an indicator to look at but I wouldn't limit it to just that.

[maxus]

Originally Posted by Paul in S.A TX

Would you rather I use the term, metro? Because that is what I was referring to. I didn't mean in a technical sense using the exact terminology used when defining municipalities or communities.

SA is a good medium sized city. Not the 7th largest- very misleading. The metro is some suburban and numerous rural communities. New Braunfels is the only other urbanized area. Let's stop trying to justify an un-truth. The reality of a city is a continuous urbanized area. Look at this image. SA is nothing more and nothing less than this. You'll get it one day Mr Paul.