Portland International Airport (PDX) News

[tworivers]

I wish that I had a headline here about new flights to Paris or Beijing but no...just this hilarious description of Portland on the Icelandair website: http://www.icelandair.us/destination...s-to-portland/

[maccoinnich]

Portland is a rather small city, with about 560 thousand inhabitants.

Iceland has a population of 325,671. It keeps getting better from there.

[PDXDENSITY]

Should you want to quench your knowledge for thirst, visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Knowledge for thirst, eh?

[Tanaka07]

Alaska Announces Daily Nonstop Service from PDX to St. Louis

Daily year round beginning July 1, 2015.

http://splash.alaskasworld.com/Newsr...125_045610.asp

July 1

Portland-St. Louis

10:15 a.m-3:55 p.m.

Daily

July 1

St. Louis-Portland

4:35 p.m-6:45 p.m.

Daily

[Derek]

I wonder how that'll affect Frontier's seasonal St. Louis service.

[maccoinnich]

Does your airport have a 50-page bike plan?



Portland International Airport’s new bike-pedestrian plan is probably thicker than the average city’s.

Fifteen years after a rising bike-commute rate among airport workers led PDX to begin a strategic focus on its biking and walking connections, links to the airport keep getting better. Now, the airport is preparing to double outdoor bike parking, and, in the longer term, help the City of Portland pay for a multi-use path looping the entire airport plus three bike lanes that’ll greatly improve airport access from the city.


The publicly owned airport has been on a tear recently. Travel + Leisure reader surveys named it the best in the country in 2013 and 2014. Though it’s the smallest of the country’s 30 “large-hub” airports, it ranks third in that group (after Chicago-Midway, Charlotte and Miami) for growth in passenger boardings since 2010.

...continues at Bike Portland.

[MarkDaMan]

In two airport deals, port proposes $98M PDX expansion, $10M Hillsboro land acquisition
Dec 5, 2014, 11:55am PST
Jon Bell
Staff Reporter- Portland Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/...s-98m-pdx.html

From a sizable land purchase to swapping concourses for two major airlines at Portland International Airport, the Port of Portland is gearing up for some major airport expansion projects in the coming months.

At its meeting on Wednesday, the Port of Portland Commission will consider letting the port move forward with an RFP process as part of a three-year, $98 million project that will rearrange and expand concourses at Portland International Airport.

Called the "Terminal Balancing Concourse E Extension Project," the project would move Alaska Airlines from concourses A, B and C onto concourse E, while moving United Airlines from concourse E to concourse C. The project would also extend concourse E by 210 feet and improve ground loading facilities nearby.

According to information from the port, the current setup at PDX has resulted in an imbalance that causes longer lines at the security checkpoint, excessive wear on the baggage handling system and capacity issues on concourse A. Design for the project started in June 2014 and is expected to be complete by the end of 2015. Construction is scheduled to be completed by late 2017.

...

[pdxlexus]

This surprises me since Concourse D has been under utilized after Delta cut way back on its international and connecting operations a decade ago.

[pdxtraveler]

Originally Posted by pdxlexus

This surprises me since Concourse D has been under utilized after Delta cut way back on its international and connecting operations a decade ago.

D and E use the same security, so this is doing what you are thinking, it is moving more passengers to the Delta side from the opposite to balance it out.

[WestCoast]

Re-balancing sure, but it's got to be mostly about Horizon being absolutely jammed into the A gates. That's just a bad scene at most hours.

I'm sure Alaska would like to be all in one concourse, instead of A, B and C.

That said, I'm not convinced E will be big enough at all, and they will spill out into D, which is a bit of a hike from E.

[65MAX]

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Re-balancing sure, but it's got to be mostly about Horizon being absolutely jammed into the A gates. That's just a bad scene at most hours.

I'm sure Alaska would like to be all in one concourse, instead of A, B and C.

That said, I'm not convinced E will be big enough at all, and they will spill out into D, which is a bit of a hike from E.

But the article said that they were expanding the E concourse by over 200 feet and upgrading those facilities. Also, the D and E concourses are right next to each other. What "hike" are you talking about?

[WestCoast]

I'm going to assume you don't fly a lot, or aren't that familiar with Alaska operations.

E concourse, after expansion, will not be big enough for AS/QX.
So, they will need to use gates in D. Hence the 'hike'.

I forget how many gates in C are AS (it's not a lot) and how many are common use with Alaska having priority. Regardless, E won't be big enough.

If you are connecting from C to A now. It is a 'hike'.
And from end of E to D will be similar. Which is too bad after all the hassle of moving gates, counters etc

[babs]

Originally Posted by WestCoast

I'm going to assume you don't fly a lot, or aren't that familiar with Alaska operations.

E concourse, after expansion, will not be big enough for AS/QX.
So, they will need to use gates in D. Hence the 'hike'.

I forget how many gates in C are AS (it's not a lot) and how many are common use with Alaska having priority. Regardless, E won't be big enough.

If you are connecting from C to A now. It is a 'hike'.
And from end of E to D will be similar. Which is too bad after all the hassle of moving gates, counters etc

The expansion of Concourse E is all designed for Horizon. It consists of additional holding room space and outside walkways to reach the smaller aircraft. Here is a diagram:
http://www.portofportland.com/Librar...v14_AG_Fin.pdf

I imagine that Alaska will need additional gates in Concourse D. It's so lightly used that they will have plenty of room for expansion.

I think this is a win for everyone. It also probably give a pretty good indication of how far United has fallen over the years.

[65MAX]

Originally Posted by WestCoast

I'm going to assume you don't fly a lot, or aren't that familiar with Alaska operations.

And you'd be wrong on both counts. I travel extensively and have used Alaska at least a half dozen times over the last year. As well as United, Delta and American.

Originally Posted by WestCoast

E concourse, after expansion, will not be big enough for AS/QX.
So, they will need to use gates in D. Hence the 'hike'.

I forget how many gates in C are AS (it's not a lot) and how many are common use with Alaska having priority. Regardless, E won't be big enough.

If you are connecting from C to A now. It is a 'hike'.
And from end of E to D will be similar. Which is too bad after all the hassle of moving gates, counters etc

Who says Alaska would be at the end of D? I'm pretty sure Delta and the international flights are remaining at the end of D. So it's more likely that Alaska's gates will be in the E and close-in D concourses. And those areas are immediately adjacent to each other. Hardly a "hike" at all. Especially when compared to other airports.

[WestCoast]

Ugh, listen. I don't think you understand how the airport works at all, and I'm not going to explain it. Everyone else seems to understand common use gates vs leased gates and the number of both Alasla currently utilizes vs those available in E.

If you connect on QX to AS metal, or vice versa, you have to go from A to C.
It sucks.
Is it as bad as transiting LHR?
No. But it is a long walk up escalators and around corners and walkways.


E is not big enough for AS + QX - after expansion.
So, you'll have to walk from end of New E to D for some flights.

Yes, the FIS gates are at the end of D, so most planes fromm AS won't end up there (although the RONs certainly will, as well as the daily mexico flight).

My point is, as well as other posters, we will get nicer facilities for QX, and everything else will be the same.

You have a connection at D4 to a horizon flight at the end of an extended E pier, it is going to be a LONG walk.

[downtownpdx]

Seems like it wouldn't be such a big deal, if you use the moving walkways there might be 10 mins at the most between the furthest E and D gates. PDX is a pretty simple efficient layout. I don't think there would even be any turns, just a straight shot down the concourse.

[65MAX]

Originally Posted by WestCoast

Ugh, listen. I don't think you understand how the airport works at all, and I'm not going to explain it. Everyone else seems to understand common use gates vs leased gates and the number of both Alasla currently utilizes vs those available in E.

If you connect on QX to AS metal, or vice versa, you have to go from A to C.
It sucks.
Is it as bad as transiting LHR?
No. But it is a long walk up escalators and around corners and walkways.


E is not big enough for AS + QX - after expansion.
So, you'll have to walk from end of New E to D for some flights.

Yes, the FIS gates are at the end of D, so most planes fromm AS won't end up there (although the RONs certainly will, as well as the daily mexico flight).

My point is, as well as other posters, we will get nicer facilities for QX, and everything else will be the same.

You have a connection at D4 to a horizon flight at the end of an extended E pier, it is going to be a LONG walk.

Again, you're making wrong assumptions. I know the difference between common use gates and leased gates. But that's not what I'm talking about.

Look, I agree that A to C is an awful transfer. Even without a tranfer, A is horribly overburdened and has a very convoluted path to and from. The new E is going to be light years ahead in capacity and circulation. But just as downtownpdx says, it's a straight shot from E to D. And the distance is going to be shorter than the current A to C scenario. I think that will make for very easy transfers and we're just gonna have to disagree on what the definition of "hike" is.

[Tanaka07]

Southwest Airlines to start nonstop 2x daily PDX-Los Angeles(LAX)

According to southwest summer schedule year round 2x daily service to LAX beginning in June.

These Nonstop Flights are starting at 69$ one way right now on southwest.com.

[babs]

Originally Posted by Tanaka07

Southwest Airlines to start nonstop 2x daily PDX-Los Angeles(LAX)

According to southwest summer schedule year round 2x daily service to LAX beginning in June

It's about frickin time! I spoke with the Portland station manager about this many times when I used to travel a lot. It's their biggest hole in the schedule out of PDX. At the time I was told, it was a combination of a lack of available gates at LAX and they didn't want to directly challenge Alaska on the route.

[Derek]

I suspect we'll see an announcement soon. Perhaps they'll announce Dallas-Love and LAX together?


Random thought: It looks like the British Airways hype for direct flight to LHR has fizzled out (for now at least). How feasible/likely is it that Norwegian Long Haul could come into play here in Portland?