MSP Airport / Metropolitan Airports Commission

[Silophant]

I don't believe the South St Paul Airport is part of the MAC system - I think it's just owned by the city.

[Apollo]

I don't believe the South St Paul Airport is part of the MAC system - I think it's just owned by the city.

Correct,
https://metroairports.org/our-airports

It's not on their maps.

[dajazz]

Not just businesses. I don't think the MAC would even entertain talking about closing STP, let alone taking the steps to plan for that capacity to be absorbed at other airports.

At the bare minimum, I think you'd need another east side airport to be expanded to at least the size of Flying Cloud, possibly larger. I don't think there's room at the West St. Paul airport, and I can't imagine an expansion like that going over well at Lake Elmo.

What are these non commercial flights that use Downtown St Paul airport? What markets do they serve?

There are a lot of medical flights that go in/out of STP, with a key number being organ transplant teams.

[twincitizen]

Two random questions/thoughts on MAC, since the conversation went there:

1. I still think it makes sense to close the Crystal Airport and develop the property with housing. 400 acres of land in a 1st ring suburb, located along the Blue Line extension. This would likely require an infill station as the nearest stations in either direction are a bit out of walking range. I wish this was being planned now, but status quo gonna status quo. I have to believe that the current operations at Crystal could be accommodated at the other MAC airports, or nearby at the Buffalo municipal airport.

2. Would it ever make sense to roll St. Cloud STC into MAC? MAC covers the same 7-county area as Met Council, but I don't believe there is a statutory relationship between those bodies, meaning the legislature could simply make a change to expand the MAC's territory to include Sherburne and Wright Counties (without doing the same to Met Council), bringing St. Cloud regional and Buffalo municipal into MAC.

[MNdible]

I think that the St. Cloud airport is just a little too far out. They've tried for years to market it as an option for people living in the Northwest suburbs, but it's never caught on. Paine Field near Seattle is trying to develop itself as a back up airport option with some success, but it's much closer in than St. Cloud.

[commissioner]

Not just businesses. I don't think the MAC would even entertain talking about closing STP, let alone taking the steps to plan for that capacity to be absorbed at other airports.

At the bare minimum, I think you'd need another east side airport to be expanded to at least the size of Flying Cloud, possibly larger. I don't think there's room at the West St. Paul airport, and I can't imagine an expansion like that going over well at Lake Elmo.

What are these non commercial flights that use Downtown St Paul airport? What markets do they serve?

There are a lot of medical flights that go in/out of STP, with a key number being organ transplant teams.

Medical flights, 3M and I believe Best Buy among other companies fly in and out of there, Army national Guard flies Blackhawks out of there a lot. State Patrol flies out of there as does other state agencies. I've seen it used for touch and go landing practice.

[MNdible]

I looked it up because I was curious, and I was honestly really surprised how few flights were happening at St. Paul -- around 40k per year, which is about 1/3 of what's happening at Flying Cloud. That said, I think that the nature of the flights out of St. Paul is a different mix than the other relievers. The other relievers have a lot of small individual hangars, so there's much more recreational and small single prop planes going in and out. St. Paul's hangars are all set up for bigger aircraft -- as noted above, more corporate and charter flying.

[Tcmetro]

Long Term Plan is out for review:
https://www.mspairport.com/long-term-plan

[DanPatchToget]

There's been some flip-flopping over Aer Lingus returning to MSP next spring. At first there were reports of them beginning four weekly flights in April, but shortly later those reports were scrubbed. Not sure if the announcement was premature and Aer Lingus is finalizing the schedule, or sudden change of plans, or something else. I hope as soon as Aer Lingus receives their A321XLRs they will resume Dublin-MSP.

There's also been rumors of Delta announcing MSP-Dublin service, but I don't know how legit they are. I'd prefer Aer Lingus, but if Delta starts it at least it's another non-stop trans-Atlantic route for the Twin Cities.

[DanPatchToget]

Now it's confirmed that Aer Lingus will be starting service to MSP in the spring.

And straight out of Northwest's playbook Delta just announced they will also offer MSP-Dublin service in the spring!

https://news.delta.com/delta-launch-dub ... anfIG5sE5k

[DanPatchToget]

Lufthansa announced they will begin non-stop service from Frankfurt to MSP beginning June 2024. The route will operate five times per week with 787-9 aircraft.

https://www.startribune.com/lufthansa-l ... 600303966/

[mattaudio]

Has anyone seen which terminal LH will use?
Aer Lingus was in T1 along with the other oneworld airlines American and Alaska (though Alaska is new to oneworld since Aer Lingus' previous suspension).
Lufthansa's Star Alliance friends United and Air Canada are in T1 as well.

But T1's international arrivals area was already bursting at the seams before the arrival of all these new flights, Delta's Dublin retaliation, second DL-metal Paris flight, etc. Will the new gates under construction be enough to ease the crunch in T1 next summer?

[DanPatchToget]

Interesting article about future MSP projects and where the funding comes from, and supposedly none of it is from taxpayers. https://www.startribune.com/ramstad-msp ... gEl_C6cIlk

[DanPatchToget]

Sun Country is expanding its MSP network next summer including to Toronto and Montreal. https://www.stories.suncountry.com/post ... new-routes

[Anondson]

Wall Street Journal rates MSP 2nd best large airport in the US. Close behind Phoenix.


Top Mid size airports rated in the low 70s.

If you have access to an Apple device here is the Apple News link to the WSJ story.

https://apple.news/AlnZWprHDSiu9yMhNZfye3g

https://www.wsj.com/rankings/airport-ra ... ports-2023

[DanPatchToget]

No official announcement yet, but Ethiopian Airlines plans to introduce two new North American destinations per year for the next few years, and MSP is on the list.

https://simpleflying.com/ethiopian-airl ... tinations/

[mattaudio]

Those two new FIS-connected gates on G (which block other FIS gates) won't keep up with this growth.
The final draft 2040 plan plans a mid-term project to rebuild the Green/Gold ramps (oldest/closest to the T1 drop-off) with that space having expanded curbside areas and a new FIS facility. A reconstructed Concourse F (aligned with G) would be built previous to this. It's assumed that more F and G gates would have vertical connection to a sterile corridor to the relocated FIS. This is a change from the 2030 plan which would have created a T1b/ T1-Intl curbside, FIS, and other areas along an expanded Concourse G.

The draft final 2040 plan currently stages a two-level curbside for Terminal 2, another major project, as an enabling project before the Green/Gold ramps can be replaced with an expanded T1 curbside/FIS. T2 is supposedly beyond capacity.

Given those two things, I wonder how this expansion would slot in or be constrained by facility limits. If T2 didn't need major expansion, then it seems like Star Alliance (Lufthansa, potential Ethiopian and/or Turkish) and Oneworld (Aer Lingus, potential Brithsh) would be a good fit in T2 alongside American and United.

[DanPatchToget]

I'm going a little into fantasy about this, but for many years I've thought it would be nice to start fresh with a Terminal 3 for all international arrivals and departures. This hypothetical T3 would have a sterile connection to the existing terminals, so if you're connecting to a flight at a different terminal you wouldn't have to leave the sterile area and then go through security again. Definitely expensive and a lot of consideration would need to be taken into ground transportation to/from T3, but at least we probably wouldn't have to worry about pushing the limits of our FIS facility for at least a few decades.

[jcm028]

Today is the 25th anniversary of Icelandair starting service to MSP from Reykjavik/Keflavik. Without them I can't imagine flying to Europe would've been affordable for the Twin Cities, especially when Northwest was still around.

I have the layout map of the 1991 Dakota County proposal, don't know how to attach the photo on here though..

[MNdible]

I have the layout map of the 1991 Dakota County proposal, don't know how to attach the photo on here though..

Here's a PDF that includes some initial layout plans.

https://www.leg.mn.gov/docs/2012/other/120470.pdf