urbanMSP

There's always a ton of rumors on airliners.net and more often than not they turn out to be nothing but rumors. That said the latest rumor regarding MSP is that sometime in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2014 Minneapolis will be getting a second Asian destination. The consensus so far has been a Korean Air flight to Seul Incheon or a China Southern flight to Shanghai. [s]Both would of course be a joint venture with Delta[/s]. Compared to most rumors this doesn't seem that unlikely. The time frame is practical and the thought of MSP having another non-stop Asian route is pretty realistic. Any thoughts?

There's always a ton of rumors on airliners.net and more often than not they turn out to be nothing but rumors. That said the latest rumor regarding MSP is that sometime in the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2014 Minneapolis will be getting a second Asian destination. The consensus so far has been a Korean Air flight to Seul Incheon or a China Southern flight to Shanghai. Both would of course be a joint venture with Delta. Compared to most rumors this doesn't seem that unlikely. The time frame is practical and the thought of MSP having another non-stop Asian route is pretty realistic. Any thoughts?

I could've sworn that somewhere on airliners.net I read that Korean Air and Delta didn't have joint venture agreements for transpacific flights. Or maybe that's completely wrong. Either way, this would be really exciting.

I think that because of the 100+ seat reduction from a daily 747 to a daily 777 that there is currently unsatisfied O&D demand for Asian destinations that Korean Air would help with. I wonder what plane they'd use, A332?

I understand that MSP is undertaking some stop-gap measures to improve the capacity of their customs facility to handle demand before the larger work outlined in the master plan takes place.

I could've sworn that somewhere on airliners.net I read that Korean Air and Delta didn't have joint venture agreements for transpacific flights. Or maybe that's completely wrong. Either way, this would be really exciting.

Correct! Not sure what I was thinking. Must have still been thinking about that Air France flight.

I realize it's pretty good when we have a new CDG flight in the works on AF metal, and there's a likelihood that we'll see KE to ICN within 2 years.

Here's the rest of my wishlist:
- Bearskin to Thunder Bay
- Upgraded mainline AC to Toronto
- BA or LH (but I wonder if this would cannibalize Icelandair service for the non-SkyTeam 1 stop connections to Europe)
- A gulf carrier?
- Aeromexico to MEX? Even though the DL route to MEX failed?

I've got friends in Canada and they rave about Porter Airlines. I'd love to get direct service from Toronto to MSP with them. Toronto City Airport is super-convenient. They fly Q400's, but their level of service is apparently far superior to what everybody else is offering.

That would be so cool to fly to that airport, walk on a skyway right onto the upper deck of a ferry, and cross a 400' channel to downtown Toronto. So multi-modal!

I somehow doubt a Q400 taking off from a short runway could make it to MSP... I wonder what their longest routes are from City Airport.

Edit: Looks like MSP would be another 100 miles beyond what I'm guessing is their longest route, Thunder Bay...
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=YTZ-MSP%2C ... =wls&DU=mi

This thread suggests that it would be doable.

I realize it's pretty good when we have a new CDG flight in the works on AF metal, and there's a likelihood that we'll see KE to ICN within 2 years.
Here's the rest of my wishlist:
- Bearskin to Thunder Bay
- Upgraded mainline AC to Toronto
- BA or LH (but I wonder if this would cannibalize Icelandair service for the non-SkyTeam 1 stop connections to Europe)
- A gulf carrier?
- Aeromexico to MEX? Even though the DL route to MEX failed?

I'd like to add: China Southern to Beijing, China Eastern to Shanghai, Hawaiian to Honolulu, Vietnam to Ho Chi Min, Alitalia to Rome and the return of KLM to Amsterdam. All of which are pretty much never going to happen... It sure would make things a lot more exciting though!

And the return of flights between MSP and STP!

What do we think the odds are of MSP picking up one of Virgin Atlantic's slots to Heathrow?

From Virgin Atlantic's website:

We have also announced a joint venture with Delta which will create an expanded transatlantic network. By combining the strengths of our two companies in a joint venture, we can better serve customers travelling between North America and the UK and continue building a better airline for our employees, shareholders and most importantly our customers.

Seeing how much demand there is for NYC-LHR I think it would be a bit of a long shot... I'd love to see a Virgin Atlantic A340 alongside that Air France one though!

Yes, but Virgin flies to a surprising number of non-NYC locations that aren't part of Delta's network -- I'd think that it would be worth their while to provide a flight that Delta could provide connections to. Take a look at Virgin's route map.

The only reason they would fly here is if they had an aircraft that was better suited to MSP-LHR than Delta, or they needed more capacity. This will be a joint venture, so they will share the costs and the profits of the trans-Atlantic flights. So in essence, the current flight on a Delta 767-400ER will be considered both a Delta and Virgin Atlantic flight. For the Paris flight, they must have detirmined that there was seasonal demand for more capacity, so they added the Air France flight. But it wasn't based on a desire of Air France to serve MSP, because they already have the Delta flight through the Air France-KLM-Delta Joint Venture.

There's a long ways for this to go...
First, it's not even certain it will go to SkyTeam (but likely of course)... yet before *A was their preferred alliance.
Second, to have more than an alliance or code share, they need to try and get ATI from the DOJ and probably the Europeans.

Well, what Alliance they join (or if they join one) doesn't technically have much bearing on this Joint Venture. And it will be a seprerate Joint Venture than the Air France-KLM-Delta-Alitalia Trans-Atlantic Joint Venture of SkyTeam members. You are right, it does require anti-trust immunity from regulators in the US and EU, but I haven't read anything to suggest that will be difficult (I also haven't searched extensively for anything that says otherwise, so I could be wrong).

But since Delta is buying a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic, SkyTeam seems a likely choice for an alliance. They did buy the stake from an airline in Star Alliance, and Virgin never entered that Alliance, but that is for another time.

I was thinking about the airside tram...
I know when the south side of T1 is extended (Concourse G extension, and possibly Concourse H/I depending on if T2 keeps the H designation)... they want a similar airside tram compared to the north side (A/B/C/D).

Unfortunately the existing tram stub ends into the terminal at both ends. If it didn't, it would be great to just create an airside loop through the terminal. I could imagine these stops:

- A, B, Hi C (existing)
- Mid C (existing)
- D, Low C (existing)
- E, Shopping/Landside
- F, Shopping/Landside
- Low G
- Mid G / New International Landside
- High G or H/I

You mean like a loop within the inside of the (future) circumference? Kind of like Dallas, but on the inside as opposed to the outside of the circle? That would certainly make more sense!

Yes, but I'm not sure exactly how it would get squeezed in. I'm not sure where it could go by E and F, likely on the immediate outside of the original terminal building. But I've always thought it would make sense to rebuild E and F anyways... maybe a ORD T1-style satellite instead of the two old piers? If they did this, I always thought they could build another remote pier or two on the other side of Rwy 4/22 near where the tower and some old hangars are now.

The MSP 2020 plan shows a new International landside terminal on the south side, where an extension of G would be. I guess that's fine by me but here's another idea:
http://goo.gl/maps/wHwj6

Unfortunately they spent so much $$$ on the two trams without any room for expansion except the hub tram eastward.

I sure wish we had taxi ways over a highway... I like your idea. Especially the ORD style satellite of F. How would you link it to the tram? Underground or with a bridge?