AUSTIN | ABIA Updates

[ATXboom]

ACT is this all a result of poor leadership (the current director)? Or something more systemic?

[gabetx]

What a damn mess this airport is starting to become. Whoever is running this show should be embarrassed of how things have turned out, especially the past few weeks. It just really goes to show you how behind the times the airport is in its growth and development. Luckily Hawaiin isn't here on Mondays or else we would have an even bigger mess on our hands.

I don't see us attracting any other widebodies or long-haul routes until this issue is resolved. Also, with the crowds, I can see a lot of people start choosing to fly out of SAT over AUS, especially in the in between areas.

[chinchaaa]

Originally Posted by gabetx

I don't see us attracting any other widebodies or long-haul routes until this issue is resolved. Also, with the crowds, I can see a lot of people start choosing to fly out of SAT over AUS, especially in the in between areas.

Ok, drama. I highly doubt that. We’ve had a few bad days, but AUS is a pretty damn good airport. I just flew out Saturday morning with no issues. We will be fine. These are just growing pains.

[freerover]

Y'all, the airport ain't run by morons. Someone please explain where the money was suppose to come from to fund the expansion when it was indefinitely delayed in 2020? You think the airpot was going to get bonds amid all the uncertainty? You think the feds were financing airport expansions while they were just trying to keep airports and airlines from going insolvent?

Come on. Where was the money suppose to come from?

[ATCZERO]

Originally Posted by freerover

Y'all, the airport ain't run by morons. Someone please explain where the money was suppose to come from to fund the expansion when it was indefinitely delayed in 2020? You think the airpot was going to get bonds amid all the uncertainty? You think the feds were financing airport expansions while they were just trying to keep airports and airlines from going insolvent?

Come on. Where was the money suppose to come from?

I agree that there probably wasn't much they could do during covid but the 9 gate expansion and ramp expansion wasn't good enough because you can't even fit two heavies side by side on the East portion of the ramp.

I don't think this is necessarily poor leadership either. I think all of the plans they are trying to have built are pretty good with a few notable exceptions.

1) More concrete PLEASE! We used to have so much room on the maintenance ramp for diverts or to hold aircraft for flow times. A combination of no gate space at the terminal along with the South terminal operation severely limits how many diverts we can effectively handle. The TMU (traffic management unit) has been awesome about asking us how many we can take when DFW or IAH get shut down but sometimes the weather might prevent other options for the pilots in which case we would quickly be parking diverts on taxiways. Not ideal and not good service for the airlines. We haven't even had a bad divert day yet but we know it's coming.

2) We need a third runway. I repeat, we need a THIRD RUNWAY. Consultants may be telling the airport that we can handle the level of traffic we currently have with just one runway but there's a catch: massive delays. When we go down to one runway, our arrival rate drops to 24/hour. Many of the daylight hours at ABIA have arrivals in the mid thirty range per hour. We would have to work 20 straight hours of nonstop arrivals to accommodate the amount of traffic we get on a daily basis.

Here's another way to look at it. San Diego is the busiest single runway operation in the US. If AUS has to go down to one runway, we would instantly be the busiest single runway operation in the US by a good margin.

So why the third runway? Well, the fuel expansion was just approved on the West side of 18R. If they are going to connect the fuel farms via pipe and somehow tunnel under 18R without having to close it, great! If they have to cut through it though, we would be looking at at least 6 months of single runway operations.

The other project that's proposed in the near-ish future is building taxiway Delta. This would be parallel to 18R and have a bunch of high speed exits for the runway. In order to build the high speed exits, they would have to close the runway for a very long time.

That's my 2¢.

[ATX2030]

From the AAC meeting today. Looks like they haven't started construction on the hardstand op's yet. Hopefully starts in July with an operational date of February '23.

https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/do....cfm?id=380927

[freerover]

Originally Posted by ATCZERO

I agree that there probably wasn't much they could do during covid but the 9 gate expansion and ramp expansion wasn't good enough because you can't even fit two heavies side by side on the East portion of the ramp.

I don't think this is necessarily poor leadership either. I think all of the plans they are trying to have built are pretty good with a few notable exceptions.

1) More concrete PLEASE! We used to have so much room on the maintenance ramp for diverts or to hold aircraft for flow times. A combination of no gate space at the terminal along with the South terminal operation severely limits how many diverts we can effectively handle. The TMU (traffic management unit) has been awesome about asking us how many we can take when DFW or IAH get shut down but sometimes the weather might prevent other options for the pilots in which case we would quickly be parking diverts on taxiways. Not ideal and not good service for the airlines. We haven't even had a bad divert day yet but we know it's coming.

2) We need a third runway. I repeat, we need a THIRD RUNWAY. Consultants may be telling the airport that we can handle the level of traffic we currently have with just one runway but there's a catch: massive delays. When we go down to one runway, our arrival rate drops to 24/hour. Many of the daylight hours at ABIA have arrivals in the mid thirty range per hour. We would have to work 20 straight hours of nonstop arrivals to accommodate the amount of traffic we get on a daily basis.

Here's another way to look at it. San Diego is the busiest single runway operation in the US. If AUS has to go down to one runway, we would instantly be the busiest single runway operation in the US by a good margin.

So why the third runway? Well, the fuel expansion was just approved on the West side of 18R. If they are going to connect the fuel farms via pipe and somehow tunnel under 18R without having to close it, great! If they have to cut through it though, we would be looking at at least 6 months of single runway operations.

The other project that's proposed in the near-ish future is building taxiway Delta. This would be parallel to 18R and have a bunch of high speed exits for the runway. In order to build the high speed exits, they would have to close the runway for a very long time.

That's my 2¢.

I think demo starts on the old airforce buildings this summer so they can get to all the concrete.

In regards to the 3rd runway, are you ok with the non simultaneous use option they went with? It's hard to imagine the Far East runways are really an option given FM 973 and all the flood plain but it would still be nice to have 3 independent runways.

[ILUVSAT]

Does anyone have images of the final, long term airport layout that was approved? I'm trying to follow...but, missing the mark.

Thanks.

[ATCZERO]

Originally Posted by freerover

I think demo starts on the old airforce buildings this summer so they can get to all the concrete.

In regards to the 3rd runway, are you ok with the non simultaneous use option they went with? It's hard to imagine the Far East runways are really an option given FM 973 and all the flood plain but it would still be nice to have 3 independent runways.

Yes, I'm okay with that option because it's not entirely non simultaneous use. There are some strict rules with 18R and 18C being so close together but it's how we would use it that would help. During heavy arrival pushes, we could land 18R/L and depart 18C. During heavy departure pushes, we could arrive 18R and depart 18C/L.

The best part about having that third runway is the fact that if we have to close a runway for construction/repairs/emergency aircraft, we just run the operation with two runways exactly like we've been doing for years. Passengers would avoid Austin induced delays and that's a big win.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by ATCZERO

Yes, I'm okay with that option because it's not entirely non simultaneous use. There are some strict rules with 18R and 18C being so close together but it's how we would use it that would help. During heavy arrival pushes, we could land 18R/L and depart 18C. During heavy departure pushes, we could arrive 18R and depart 18C/L.

The best part about having that third runway is the fact that if we have to close a runway for construction/repairs/emergency aircraft, we just run the operation with two runways exactly like we've been doing for years. Passengers would avoid Austin induced delays and that's a big win.

That all makes sense. It seems like all the added runway exits might help too so we aren't using our runway as a taxiway.

Originally Posted by ILUVSAT

Does anyone have images of the final, long term airport layout that was approved? I'm trying to follow...but, missing the mark.

Thanks.

[atx-adam]

Not to pile on, but… I was on the first Saturday departure for the KLM flight (Apr 2) and we loaded on time, everything was very polished and orderly. 90%+ filled in Business and probably 2/3 filled in the back.

Then we heard an announcement that we were delayed taking off because airport staff didn’t send anyone to load the cargo onto the plane. And we sat. And sat. 90 minutes later they finally loaded it and we took off. I was among the 20+ people sprinting off the plane in AMS to make connections.

[ATCZERO]

Freeover, just to be clear, we aren't using any runways as taxiways. The plans to add high speed exits to 18R just help move aircraft more efficiently instead of having harsh 90 degree exits.

[freerover]

Originally Posted by ATCZERO

Freeover, just to be clear, we aren't using any runways as taxiways. The plans to add high speed exits to 18R just help move aircraft more efficiently instead of having harsh 90 degree exits.

Gotcha.

[Tyrone Shoes]

KVUE is reporting released numbers for Feb.
Total passenger traffic for February 2022 was 1,203,251, up 294.04% compared to February 2021.


https://www.austintexas.gov/news/feb...stin-bergstrom

[Mopacs]

3-gate terminal expansion renderings





https://www.facebook.com/AustinAirport

[freerover]

This is a great article that really makes it clear why criticizing AUS is kinda dumb considering what has happened in the last 2 years.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/t...022/index.html

[masonh2479]

Originally Posted by Mopacs

3-gate terminal expansion renderings

Thank you for posting that, I was curious about the upcoming expansion so that was great timing on your part! Hopefully this will alleviate at least a small percentage of overcrowding, although given pavement and general terminal capacity constraints I have my doubts.

[llintner]

Originally Posted by atx-adam

Not to pile on, but… I was on the first Saturday departure for the KLM flight (Apr 2) and we loaded on time, everything was very polished and orderly. 90%+ filled in Business and probably 2/3 filled in the back.

Then we heard an announcement that we were delayed taking off because airport staff didn’t send anyone to load the cargo onto the plane. And we sat. And sat. 90 minutes later they finally loaded it and we took off. I was among the 20+ people sprinting off the plane in AMS to make connections.

There are a lot of things "Airport Staff" are responsible for, but loading your aircraft isn't one of them. Those personnel are hired by and accountable only to the airlines. Just so happens LH, BA, and KL all use the same company.

[atx-adam]

Originally Posted by llintner

There are a lot of things "Airport Staff" are responsible for, but loading your aircraft isn't one of them. Those personnel are hired by and accountable only to the airlines. Just so happens LH, BA, and KL all use the same company.

Good to know!

[freerover]

Originally Posted by masonh2479

Thank you for posting that, I was curious about the upcoming expansion so that was great timing on your part! Hopefully this will alleviate at least a small percentage of overcrowding, although given pavement and general terminal capacity constraints I have my doubts.

I think the big relief is going to come in the west security infill and the 2nd floor infil project above baggage claim. That's going to be a lot of additional continuous floor space.