Here are some updates on air service into the SLC airport...

Air Canada and Delta both begin their nonstop flights to Toronto this week

Delta is starting a daily flight to Miami beginning December 17th. American Airlines already flies SLC to Miami

Delta is beginning seasonal nonstop flights to Aspen, CO on December 17th

Southwest is starting new nonstop service from SLC to San Jose, CA with two daily flights beginning November 6th. They will be joining Alaska and Delta on the route

United is beginning one daily nonstop flight to Newark on December 16th. Delta currently offers SLC to Newark nonstop flights

Does anyone have a sense of how well the SLC-LHR flight is doing thus far? If the Delta seating maps are any indication, it appears that on most days, the flights to and from SLC are leaving almost half empty. I would think that London would be a very popular destination. I know the route is only a month old but I really hope this route can survive. Maybe seating maps are not fully accurate as to how many seats have been purchased.

It does appear that the KLM service has been warmly received and doing well.

Just for fun, I looked at the seat maps for LHR service on 05/31 to various US cities to compare to SLC.

It looked a bit worse than MSP and DTW, but better than SEA

edit: checked tomorrow as well... Better than SEA again, but worse than MSP and about the same as DTW

Looks like Business class is doing well out of SLC, so that's good.

It just seems that the LHR service is really lagging behind AMS and CDG. AMS and CDG flights seem to be leaving at full or nearly full every day. I would think LHR would be a more popular destination than AMS.

According to the airport website, SLC will be phasing out the smoking rooms in the current airport. They will begin phasing out the first room in summer and be complete by December of this year. They emphasize that the new airport will NOT have any smoking rooms. That seems like a change from earlier plans. Apparently your Mayor was behind the changes.

Bummer. I quite liked the smoking rooms. Thought it was a nice amenity. One more strike against the Mayor in my book.

There are several airports that don't have smoking rooms.

Actually, Salt Lake is one of the few major airports out there that still has smoking rooms.

I think I heard the stat that only 7 major airports still have them and 2 others are phasing them out this year. One article I read said the justification was to free up areas for retail which is a lame excuse in my book since they will be tearing it down in 4 years anyways. Seems like it could have been a legacy that just went away when the new terminal opened.

Most airports don't have them and that's why it's so nice that we do! Traveling can be stressful and sometimes you are traveling all day and all you want is a friggin cigarette. I'm not even a smoker and I have taken advantage of those rooms. Sure beats having to leave the airport and go through security again when you have a long layover.

I'll actually be spending the summer at Oxford, so I'll be taking a flight to LHR next month. I'll let you know how the flight goes and I can even take some pics for you guys. Then I'll be able to share my anecdotal stats of a flight from SLC to LHR on a typical Wednesday.

AMS is a major hub for regional flights from across Europe. It's a very common transfer point for people flying into Europe and connecting to another country within the continent. It does not surprise me at all that this would be a top location. When I flew to Europe in the past, it was typical to change planes in AMS.

Demolition and Rerouting of Terminal Dr.
 

I don't know if any of you have been out to the airport lately. Progress seems to have speed up fairly quickly. Demolition of the old rental car facilities seems to be complete. Also, Terminal Dr has been rerouted to make way for the construction of the south concourse and terminal.

The roadway now makes a sharp left turn against the parking structure. Large excavators have began utilities work west of the current concourses and terminals.

Exciting news. I flew to Austin about a month ago and none of that was happening yet!

Question: Are there airports of our size that are hubs for multiple airlines? With the recently added 30 gates with the north concourse, is it feasible that there could be some interest from another airline? Also, have there been any rumors about additional flights because of the north concourse announcement?

With the north concourse, is it going to just spread of the gate usage to reduce congestion or is it expected that many additional flight will commence after the slctrp completion?

The airports in the US that are right ahead or right behind the SLC airport in terms of passengers served are Baltimore (Southwest), Washington Dulles (United) and Reagan (American), Chicago Midway (Southwest) Honolulu (Hawaiian), and San Diego (Southwest). I put in parentheses the airline that has a hub/focus city at the airport.

I would not be surprised to see Alaska Airlines make SLC a focus city once the new terminal opens. Alaska is growing out west and wants to expand more and I think they planted the seed in SLC a few years ago with the mini expansion they did in SLC back then. Once the new terminal opens in SLC, Alaska's merger with Virgin America will probably be complete and I can see at that time Alaska looking to expand even more outside of their strong holds all up and down the west coast. Alaska has also began code sharing with American on flights in SLC. So I think Alaska is realistically the only airline that might expand.

I just took a flight from SLC to LHR on Wed night and it was packed from end to end. I saw maybe a half dozen empty seats at the very most sprinkled about. Looked to me like it was around 95% capacity. It could be that there is more travel this time of year, a correlation to the enduring strength of the dollar, or that the route is maturing. Whatever the reason, it's definitely highly utilized if my flight was any indication. I have a return flight in a month, so I can also give you an idea on the utilization on that one.

Just because a flight is full that doesn't mean it's making money. 1/3 of that flight could be employees flying non rev. Also, some seats could be purposely left empty due to weight balance restrictions SLC faces during the hot summer months too. Also some could be traveling essentially free using skymiles as well. Seeing a near full flight does not give the entire story of the pay load of a flight.

LOL the guy knows an important point about the airline industry and you post this dribbel.

I'm not an idiot, obviously what he says has some meaning. He is just a huge, well, debbie downer with pretty much anything. It's fairly annoying.

Anyhoo, it's "drivel".

:tup:

How is giving probable facts being a Debbie Downer? I would love to see this route work out but to get the entire financial facts of the route you need to give it at least a year, then you can probably look back and analyze the numbers and everything considered. There is no way you can look at one single flight with a good load factor and call it a success.

The Paris and two Amsterdam flights from SLC have been successful. KLM and Delta have stated that right from their mouths. The London flight is tbd.

Guys, Come one. All those things said are very true, but (Eco)nomy_404 was just observing a nearly full flight, which is by no means a bad sign at all.

As far as that GIF goes… …mixed feelings :haha:

Sheesh, it was just a debbie downer gif. That's all.

The facts are just fine, we don't know. But the post came off as very debbie downery (yes, I just decided it's a word).

No big deal.

He didn't "call it a success". He qualified his statement multiple times with phrases like "if my flight is any indication". His post was fairly tempered. He didn't have data to share so he shared an anecdotal observation. I don't think he claimed it was anything more than that.

I wanted to see the progress at the airport, so I drove through yesterday. They've re-routed some roads and cleared a huge area west of the parking structure. Construction is still at a very early stage. It looks like they're driving some pilings. I went home and looked at a map again. That's when I realized that they can build all of phase 1 without tearing anything down. I thought that was pretty surprising. But not when you consider that they're forced to use the old buildings until the new ones are ready.

I went by the airport the other day and they are making MASSIVE progress and changes. Just a couple months ago, they removed the exit from the short term garage and rerouted Terminal Dr. Now it appears that they have completely razed the west sections of the E gates (the "Y") and the tarmac in that section has been completely removed. Does anyone know when that happened? Seems to be a rather large development that didn't have much fanfare. I didn't have enough time to do much investigation as to the specific work that is going on right now, but it looks to be moving quickly.

Google recently updated their satellite images, you can really see the progress from above:

http://i66.tinypic.com/10wms78.jpg

http://i63.tinypic.com/30lj4id.jpg

Flight Control upgrade
 

So, It sounds like they're upgrading the flight control system at the airport. Great news!
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=41082533&nid...ght-technology

Can anyone repost a schematic of what the airport will look like when finished along with a date of completion? Thanks.

Click on the first page of this thread.

https://scontent.fsnc1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...19534705_o.jpg

New Delta Air Lines CEO foresees growth, innovation for Salt Lake City hub
http://www.sltrib.com/news/4348510-1...es-ceo-forsees

From portions of the last two TRP Press Releases:

"2020-Projected completion of the South Concourse-west side and North Concourse-west side.
2023/24-Completion of the South Concourse-east side."

"SLC's new terminal, including the recently announced North Concourse, will offer 77 gates when the entire project is completed in 2023/24. All gates will have jet bridges, to accommodate regional jets and larger aircraft, including three gates that can handle wide body aircraft at the same time. (Compare this to SLC's 71 gates, with 56 jet bridges.) Additionally, the concourses' linear alignment will facilitate movement of these larger planes by preventing bottlenecks on the airfield to encourage Salt Lake City's on-time performance record."

https://slcairport.com/assets/The-Ne...-Concourse.JPG

Well how convenient is that! Fully completed in 2024, perfect timing for the 2026 games. Throw in the expansion of Rice Eccles, the addition of the CCH, one final Salt Palace expansion, one additional large convention adjacent hotel, the Trax Black Line and we're ready to welcome the world once again.

https://c8.staticflickr.com/3/2879/1...41479d41_z.jpg

I'm sure this has already been discussed but what is the plan to connect to the North concourse. Please for the love of god don't say shuttle busses.

I'm pretty sure they are doing an underground passenger tunnel. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

Underground Train

The tunnel already exists. I do remember reading something about the train not being a possibility, but either way, there is already a tunnel

The only tunnel that exists currently is the west tunnel. Not the main one. And as far as the main one goes, it was changed to moving walkways from the automated train. Much cheaper, easy maintenance, less logistical issues.

Fun Fact, if you go onto google Earth and change the date to somewhere around 2005, you can see the construction of the west tunnel.

So basically, what you're saying, is that if we want to see how this is all going to function with the layout and connectivity, we should just visit the Detroit Airport (also a new airport designed to be a Delta Hub). Though without the weird elevated tram running down their long concourse.

http://i.imgur.com/odXUhg4h.jpg

When Washington Dulles Airport was phasing their shuttles out (we called them "moon vehicles"), they transitioned first to a passenger walkway tunnel and then years later to a train system. So now they have both.

I admit, half the time I preferred the passenger tunnel with its moving walkways over the train to my flights. It was quicker and with far less people. Not bad at all.

Although I never had to make connecting flights. I could see how that would create headaches.

This new plan seems less disruptive in that the current concourses don't seem like they will be that effected while the "2020 South and North Concourses" are built.

Airport Development Video Update
 

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^^^Really interesting but I have no idea what I am looking at haha. This just reminds me of Bruce Willis drilling on an asteroid in hopes of saving our planet.

They are doing ground improvements to the site to improve the soil to build on top of. That equipment is doing stone column installation. They drill a hole then drop gravel down and build it up.

• Video Link

Haha! You were close! :haha: :cheers:

North concourse tunnel plans
 

The West tunnel will be 1300’ long and 50’ wide when completely completed during Phase 1 of the SCW and NCW construction. 900’ of the tunnel already exists so the new tunnel work will be where the tunnel connects to both the north and south concourses.
It will have two separate sections in the tunnel. The first section is for the passengers and moving walkways and will be about 30’ to 35’ wide. The seconded section is for tunnel maintenance access and utilities and about 15’ wide.

The moving walkways will be placed to the outside walls with a space to walk between the north and south moving walkways.
This west tunnel will have 3 runs or sets of the below configuration and will each be 300' in length with 50' gaps or breaks between them. That is a total of 900’ of moving walkways in each direction.
Wall|1st South bound moving walkway|2nd South bound moving walkway| Walking area between moving walkaways |1st North bound moving walkway|2nd North bound moving walkway|Wall

The Center tunnel will be 1360’ long and 135’ wide at the north and south ends with the middle section being only 112’ wide for a length of 420’. Basically think of the tunnel as an elongated hour glass shape.
This tunnel would be completed during Phase 2 of the SCW and NCW construction after existing concourse D is demolished.

It is true that this tunnel will NOT have automated trains due to the cost and other reasons. However the tunnel will be constructed to accommodate automated trains in the future and the north end of the tunnel will be stubbed out beyond the north concourse to accommodate for a future tunnel extension to a future concourse. I have heard that the future concourse and tunnel extension is more than 50 years out if it is even needed at all. Even though this center tunnel is much wider than the west tunnel, much of it will be to accommodate the future automated trains. That is about 40’ from each side of the tunnel or 80’ total will be for the future trains.

Here is the negative thing about the moving walkway in the center tunnel. It will be configured the same as the west tunnel but will only consists of one set of moving walkways in each direction and will only be 325’ long. In other words the passengers using the center tunnel will have to walk about 800’ of the tunnel without a moving walkway. The moving walkway will be in that 420’ long middle section of the tunnel and the passenger area will only be about 30’ to 35’ wide here. The passenger areas north and south of the moving walkways will both be about 400’ in length and about 55’ wide.

Awesome! Thanks for the info! :worship:

I'm glad to hear that the center tunnel is being future-proofed to handle a train should the airport expand farther. Any idea why the center tunnel is being built without longer moving walkways... like, are they going to put waiting areas or retail options down there in the wider sections?

As for the west tunnel, it's great that there will be multiple walkways in case one breaks down. I wonder what the design aesthetic will be? Light show like Detroit? LED-scree blue sky simulation? Something totally bizzare, like this tunnel in shanghai (train not included...)?

• Video Link