Portland International Airport (PDX) News

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by sopdx

This is great news!

Seems to be lead by booming growth by the low cost carriers, Frontier up 211%! And Spirit up 143%. I did a quick calc, full service are up 3.5%, low cost up 102% overall. I wonder what that means?

Interesting Alaska shrank 5%. Although a big increase for Horizon - is Alaska moving more flights to smaller regional type jets? But then Delta is increasing while Skywest went down, seems to be a different strategy by each.

JetBlue down 56%, are they trying to leave the market?

[babs]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

Seems to be lead by booming growth by the low cost carriers, Frontier up 211%! And Spirit up 143%. I did a quick calc, full service are up 3.5%, low cost up 102% overall. I wonder what that means?

Interesting Alaska shrank 5%. Although a big increase for Horizon - is Alaska moving more flights to smaller regional type jets? But then Delta is increasing while Skywest went down, seems to be a different strategy by each.

JetBlue down 56%, are they trying to leave the market?

JetBlue dropped their JFK flights from PDX and only fly to Boston. They are struggling in many markets and I'm not sure how much longer they will stay at PDX since they just dropped a bunch of cities earlier this week.

Someday JetBlue and Alaska will merge.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by babs

JetBlue dropped their JFK flights from PDX and only fly to Boston. They are struggling in many markets and I'm not sure how much longer they will stay at PDX since they just dropped a bunch of cities earlier this week.

Someday JetBlue and Alaska will merge.

Oh I hadn't been tracking that about JetBlue.

Are there real rumors about Alaska and JetBlue?

[RED_PDXer]

Originally Posted by babs

JetBlue dropped their JFK flights from PDX and only fly to Boston. They are struggling in many markets and I'm not sure how much longer they will stay at PDX since they just dropped a bunch of cities earlier this week.

Someday JetBlue and Alaska will merge.

In addition to the cutting of routes, JetBlue flights to the east coast have only been red eyes. No thanks. I accumulated a ton of JetBlue points when they flew to Long Beach, CA with several flights a day, but they are worthless now.

[babs]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

Oh I hadn't been tracking that about JetBlue.

Are there real rumors about Alaska and JetBlue?

No real rumors but JetBlue admitted they had considered making a bid for Alaska before going for Spirit. A merger is unlikely now since the feds would block it but on paper the two airlines would make a good fit since they have almost no overlap.

[uncommon.name]

Originally Posted by RED_PDXer

In addition to the cutting of routes, JetBlue flights to the east coast have only been red eyes. No thanks. I accumulated a ton of JetBlue points when they flew to Long Beach, CA with several flights a day, but they are worthless now.

The LGB route on Jetblue was my go-to for southern CA. It's quite apparent that JetBlue is struggling as they just announced several more routes they are dropping recently. I'd be surprised if Jetblue is around much longer, which is a shame because I really liked flying with them in the past.

[babs]

Originally Posted by uncommon.name

The LGB route on Jetblue was my go-to for southern CA. It's quite apparent that JetBlue is struggling as they just announced several more routes they are dropping recently. I'd be surprised if Jetblue is around much longer, which is a shame because I really liked flying with them in the past.

JetBlue will not go out of business. Their east coast traffic and JFK hub are huge money makers. Long Beach is an awesome airport but a terrible hub due to all the constraints there. But moving flights to LAX made them just another airline. Think of them as the east coast Alaska airlines. That's why a merger between the two is inevitable since they both struggle to grow beyond their own home bases.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by babs

JetBlue will not go out of business. Their east coast traffic and JFK hub are huge money makers. Long Beach is an awesome airport but a terrible hub due to all the constraints there. But moving flights to LAX made them just another airline. Think of them as the east coast Alaska airlines. That's why a merger between the two is inevitable since they both struggle to grow beyond their own home bases.

Honestly from a casual flyer perspective, unless I'm specifically flying to JFK or BOS, I would likely not even look at JetBlue. They are in a weird spot to: not being part of a formal alliance, being a former low cost carrier but maybe not anymore (but also maybe not a real full service airline?), but then trying to merge with actual low cost Spirit.

Trying to merge with Spirit or Alaska are hard to even comprehend as a strategy, since they are such different types of airlines. Which are you? Low cost or full service? Grasping at straws is almost seems.

[maccoinnich]

Re: JetBlue - they've dropped 15 cities and 50 routes over the last year. That their passengers are shrinking in Portland is more about them than Portland.

[subterranean]

I just recently figured out that Allegiant flies nonstop from PDX to Grand Rapids. They fly just 2 days per week, but it was less than a 4 hour flight (direct) and only cost me $381. Absolute steal compared to Delta, the only other airline providing a nonstop flight to Michigan, at nearly half the price.

[PhillyPDX]

Originally Posted by subterranean

I just recently figured out that Allegiant flies nonstop from PDX to Grand Rapids. They fly just 2 days per week, but it was less than a 4 hour flight (direct) and only cost me $381. Absolute steal compared to Delta, the only other airline providing a nonstop flight to Michigan, at nearly half the price.

That's great. I really wonder how Allegiant comes up with its routes. No offense to either PDX or Grand Rapids, but it just seems so random for airports that far apart and no obvious reason to need a direct flight.

Looking now, there are also direct flights from PDX to Appleton, WI?

[subterranean]

Yeah, it feels random, but I think their business model is affordable direct flights to touristy destinations, but with fewer options in terms of flight times. That, and there is probably demand to go just about anywhere if they're not flying there every day. Both flights were full. As for Appleton, that's not so far from Green Bay.

If you have flexibility in your itinerary, it was hard to beat. Half the driving time from Grand Rapids Airport to Traverse City/Leelanau (2 hr 20 m) than from Detroit (4 hr 11 m), much less chaotic, a little shorter of a flight, and a whole lot cheaper. And that's the primary reason I go to Michigan: to spend time with family and friends in NOMI.

We're already looking at booking family trips to Yellowstone/Teton and Arizona via Allegiant. I hope they bring more destinations to PDX.

[eh2zed]

ICYMI, the social media feed at the bottom of the PDX Next site (https://pdxnext.com/) has some links to user photos of the new terminal—multiple in each post. (I think there was an internal dress rehearsal consisting of port employees and families.)

Highlights include the video walls above the security screening entrances (displaying nature scenes) and a glimpse of the temporary exit in the middle of the concourse connector.

[eh2zed]

Originally Posted by PhillyPDX

…

Interesting Alaska shrank 5%. Although a big increase for Horizon - is Alaska moving more flights to smaller regional type jets? But then Delta is increasing while Skywest went down, seems to be a different strategy by each.

…

The Horizon growth doesn’t seem too surprising, but I wonder about the SkyWest trends. Though it doesn’t show frequencies, the July 2024 SkyWest route map (https://www.skywest.com/fly-skywest-...ines-route-map) shows about a dozen routes for AS, two for AA, and one for DL (SEA).

[maccoinnich]

Originally Posted by eh2zed

ICYMI, the social media feed at the bottom of the PDX Next site (https://pdxnext.com/) has some links to user photos of the new terminal—multiple in each post. (I think there was an internal dress rehearsal consisting of port employees and families.)

Highlights include the video walls above the security screening entrances (displaying nature scenes) and a glimpse of the temporary exit in the middle of the concourse connector.

It's stunning. I don't have any flights planned prior to October, but think I may well go out in advance of that to get a drink at Loyal Legion.

[downtownpdx]

Originally Posted by eh2zed

ICYMI, the social media feed at the bottom of the PDX Next site (https://pdxnext.com/) has some links to user photos of the new terminal—multiple in each post. (I think there was an internal dress rehearsal consisting of port employees and families.)

Highlights include the video walls above the security screening entrances (displaying nature scenes) and a glimpse of the temporary exit in the middle of the concourse connector.

They just posted an article/video about the video walls, they will show local imagery based on weather, time of day, how busy the airport is… very cool!

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Just returned from volunteering for the test run.

This place is gonna make people's jaws drop when they first experience it. It's going to become as much of a recognizable hotspot, Instagrammable landmark as the Japanese Garden in fall or the view from Pittock Mansion.

A special shoutout and thank you to the people at PDX and PDX Next for making today work so smoothly.

[downtownpdx]

I was just going to ask if anyone here signed up for that, I waited more than 2 hours so I didn’t make the cut haha! I can’t wait to see in person. So did the run through seem smooth, tsa etc?

[RED_PDXer]

The test run went ok. There's still plenty of work to do. The video walls were awesome. The TSA check areas need some work. The bins are supposed to stack themselves, but they were slow and caused a back up with the bags. The trees had lots of fallen leaves giving the appearance of fall in the terminal. The restrooms were very nice and the check-in areas were great, but not all airlines participated in the simulation. The ceiling and terminal looked exactly like the renderings and were overall very impressive.

[curt-pdx]

yeah - pretty amazing work from everyone. A few things to finish and fettle, but this is NextLevel PDX:

Every bag you've ever lost:

2024_08_03_PDX_next_dress_rehearsal_e by ce, on Flickr

Could compare with Rendering:

2024_08_03_PDX_next_dress_rehearsal_c by ce, on Flickr

This test was only with 2200 people:

2024_08_03_PDX_next_dress_rehearsal_d by ce, on Flickr

Not your typical airport view - still missing the departures monitors:

2024_08_03_PDX_next_dress_rehearsal_b_postable by ce, on Flickr