urbanMSP

Wait. The public (i.e. my kids and I) can drive on that road? Why have I never tried that? I guess I assumed there was a gate involved at some point and I had no real purpose other than seeing cool takeoffs. Thanks for making me aware of this!

Indeed! And it's amazing when they're departing on 30L (otherwise a lot of planes on the taxiways, but, not as cool). Apparently you're liable to get called in and asked to leave at the moment, but, I've been there a handful of times on (mostly weekend evenings) and haven't had any trouble, and, once the park is there, that shouldn't be an issue anymore.

The viewing area has been under construction for a couple weeks now. Many people I work with do not see the big deal. The increased traffic and perceived expectation that Cargo road is a "non-public" road some of my coworkers like to spread. Being in a position to work with some of the largest wide body jets coming into MSP five-six days a week. I am starting to force myself to remember the days before I started and how cool having a public viewing area would have been right smack dab in the center of the airport. I will try to remind myself when it opens to let everyone here know.

As a side note I noticed two flights from DL coming from AMS today. What I thought was strange is I heard nothing about an increase in capacity on this flight. Does anybody know anything?

Delta has three flights a day to AMS during the summer season. Afterwards it reverts to two flights a day for the non seasonal months.

In relation to the close call mattaudio mentioned back on July 30th, a new FAA order closes runway 35 to arriving traffic when 30L is in use for departures. This is because an abort maneuver on runway 35 could put a plane on a collision path with one departing on 30L. This reduces the arrival capacity of the airport from 90 planes per hour down to about 60 or 64 per hour.

http://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy ... traffic-an

Yummmm!

I'd show up so early for flights.

http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... ce-at.html

Sounds like Smack Shack, Angel Food Bakery and a MN Twins themed grill will be coming to MSP. Barbette left out.

@TwinsPrez: So excited to partner with @delawarenorth to bring Minnie & Paul's @Twins Grill to @mspairport. Place is gonna be a sports fan's dream.

@TwinsPrez: Congrats to star MPLS brands @Smack_Shack & @AngelFoodBakery on winning @mspairport bids. Proud to join @delawarenorth as your partner.

For those of you who might want to see some of the cool seasonal, non-Delta international departures (around 8 PM or so) this year, you only have a few more chances this summer.

Air France, with daily service to Paris, has its final flight on September 1.

Condor flies to Frankfurt on Sundays and Wednesdays, with the last flight of the season departing on September 6.

Iceland Air's quasi-seasonal daily flights to Reykjavik wrap up on January 10; I believe they'll transition to regular, year-round daily service in March.

An interesting article we missed over the weekend:
"Delta claims jobs threatened by Persian Gulf carrier expansion in U.S."
http://www.startribune.com/delta-claims ... 321965521/

My guess is this means one of two things, considering how Anderson singled out MSP within the DL sphere of influence:
1. We're on the short-list for new service by one of the ME3 carriers, and DL is issuing a pre-emptive strike to get MN pols, MAC commissioners, and congressional delegation to see that as a negative rather than a positive.
2. Delta wants to cut jobs and wants to point the finger at other factors.

I'd guess that this is a roadshow that's traveling to every Delta city, and that the other major carriers are doing the same. This is a full court press, and the mainline airlines are going to work hard to get the politicians on their side.

The gulf carriers are offering fares that are essentially impossible without government subsidies. They deny that they are receiving subsidies, but there's really no other way they could be doing this. The impossible competitive disadvantage has already forced non-gulf carriers to significantly reduce flights to the gulf region. The US and European airlines are concerned that the gulf carriers are now going to flood the US/European markets with unsustainably cheap seats, which would be very bad. What do you think the gulf carriers will do once they've stolen most of the market? Hint: it won't be "continue offering absurdly cheap seats".

What do you think the gulf carriers will do once they've stolen most of the market?

It would be extremely difficult to steal "most of the market." The US airline industry makes almost 400 billion in revenue annually. 16 billion in profit. UAE's entire GDP is 400 billion.

Fair enough. As much of the market as they can, then. Still unfair competition.

Also don't need to corner all the traffic, just the most profitable routes and customers from the domestic carriers.

Good read. Not the comments, of course.
http://www.startribune.com/msp-airport- ... 322555041/

On the other hand, one of the leaders of opposition to the airport noise is not going to write a balanced opinion piece (not that he should, but just keep in mind the source).

Pretty cool concept.

A U.S. first: MSP to have luxury lounge open to passengers of any airline
http://www.startribune.com/a-u-s-first- ... 323929591/

This concept seems like it would make a lot more sense in a non-fortress hub market -- at MSP, I'd guess that most of the people who would pop for using a lounge already have access due to their Delta status. Even so, my gut tells me that most use of lounges is occurring between connections in a hub airport, so...

That makes sense to me, since it seems other airlines are reluctant to have a members-only lounge at MSP because there aren't enough members of most other airlines to warrant one. So using your same ideology, I can see why airports like MSP that are dominated by one carrier but still have 25%-30% non-Delta fliers may have a need for an all-inclusive members-only club like this that fulfills the needs of the remaining (elite) 30%.

If MSP had just two airlines and the other had 30% of the total passenger count, I can see why this type of lounge wouldn't make as much sense. Same as if an airport had an equal distribution of passengers on different carriers.

So... by my count, we will then have 2 Delta clubs, a United club, this non-affiliated club, and the USO club. Any others I'm not remembering?