Quote:
Originally Posted by texastarkus
We blew that a few years back when the Air Force closed Kelly. Long runway to get to London, Frankfort or Asia from here. Plenty of space for a large terminal and lots of parking. What gets me laughing is a few months ago someone suggested we re-visit a regional airport in the New Braunfels area for both the Hill Country and South Texas. There is no way in Hades that they would close a perfectly good airport and move 80 miles south when we are willing to drive up there and use theirs. AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
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At the end of the day, I'm in favor of keeping the airport where it is currently. The strategic advantage of having an airport so close to downtown cannot be understated. And there is opportunity to lengthen runway 4/22 to the necessary 10,000 ft for long haul service and even add a parallel runway adjacent to 21R/30L (which is in the current master plan). IMO, SAT should keep the airport, build it to the max that the land available will allow, then when comes time in the distant future, they create a new airport as a secondary for low cost carriers. Atlanta is currently considering doing something similar. Just eyeballing, the existing airport could potentially be expanded to around 75 total gates (Current total is 24). At current, I don't foresee SA getting lucky enough to be a hub airport, but if need be, that gate count could help an airline make SAT a small hub or focus city.
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