urbanMSP

Ok, dug a little deeper. This might be why the cars are going by the T2 LRT:
http://metroairports.granicus.com/MetaV ... ta_id=9100

Staff has identified a location next to the Light Rail platform at Terminal 2 that would serve
well for a car sharing pilot program. This location not only provides easy connectivity to both
terminals, but also provides access to transit. Since this location was not constructed using
Rental Auto Facility Charges, car sharing companies will not be required to collect Rental
Auto Facility Charges as part of this pilot program.

What happens if you take a Car2Go to the airport to catch your flight and find that all of the spots are full?

Well you can check how many spots are available on the app, so your risk is really limited to someone nabbing the remaining spots while you are driving there.

They allow reserving cars, would make sense to reserve a space at the end, right? As a potential trip taker to the airport, it would show as full. You wouldn't know the difference between all of them sitting empty right now but reserved or all of them actually full, but either way it saves you the hassle of driving all the way out there only to be C2G-blocked.

But parking fees and car rental surcharges are a cash cow for the airport.

That's an understatement; per their budget (page 37), 37% of their 2015 revenues will be coming from parking. They actually make more from parking than they do from the airlines - MSP is functionally a parking lot with an airline and food service.

But parking fees and car rental surcharges are a cash cow for the airport.

That's an understatement; per their budget (page 37), 37% of their 2015 revenues will be coming from parking. They actually make more from parking than they do from the airlines - MSP is functionally a parking lot with an airline and food service.

Hah, thanks for that. I shared with the wife. We both LOL'd

And it's a good thing too that MSP isn't counting on the airlines to keep the thing running, because the airlines have been methodically slashing the fees they pay the airports at the same time they're shifting responsibilities onto them.

Meanwhile, they're also lobbying hard to prevent the airports from increasing the Passenger Facility Charge they're allowed to charge to try to recover some of those costs.

Is it necessarily a good thing, that a sizable portion of MSP costs are borne by local passengers, but the profits of the parking venture cover a significant portion of airport expenses? That basically means that MSP O&D passengers are subsidizing non-O&D passengers.

While I'm a huge proponent of parking costing money, I'm also an opponent of parking fees having little relation to parking expenses.

Well, you can obviously slice that question about a million different ways. Here's two approaches:

1. An airport costs more or less what it costs. So now you've got to figure out how to pay for it. As I noted previously, PFC's are limited by legislation, and airport rents and fees are brutally negotiated by airlines (not unlike professional sports teams -- might be worthwhile to go to St. Louis or Pittsburgh or Memphis or other airports where they've lost a large chunk of their air service and ask them how things are going for their airport finances). At least locally, we've been pretty successful at funding the airport without general tax revenues. So that leaves things like parking and food and retail concessions.

2. Local passengers benefit from the convenience of living near a major hub airport. Passengers making connections typically don't care where that connection happens -- hopefully, it's a clean, well tended airport with decent services, but they don't really care if they connect in Minneapolis or Detroit or Atlanta. To put it slightly differently, the fact that passengers are connecting through MSP is "subsidizing" the availability of local passengers to get direct, non-stop flights to hundreds of destinations.

3. This is a classic case of supply and demand, and apparently some people are willing/able to pay a lot of money for convenient airport parking. Like most other things, the cost to provide a service has little bearing on what price the market will bear.

Just to pull a "MNdible" and be a little contrarian but in some ways it kinda sucks to be a Delta hub because there's little competition for most routes. You can get a non-stop Delta fare to most places for an amount that seems expensive to me in most cases, and the few flights that other legacy carriers offer are basically matching that non-stop fare rather than Delta matching a "lower" connecting fare from another legacy carrier.

Obviously airline revenue management is dark voodoo science, and dependent on so many things, but I look at the trips I've taken in the last few years, and I've paid $200 round trip non-stop to go to Denver and Pittsburgh and nearly $500 round trip non-stop to go to New Orleans or Washington DC, and anything but Delta is usually less direct *and* more expensive.

I'm sure many travelers value the non-stop connections, but we don't really have a choice here. But I'm a cheapskate who flies Spirit so what the hell do I know.

Well, sure. But if you're a cheapskate, you're not paying $22 a day to park at Terminal 1 either.

No doubt, the lack of competition in a fortress hub drives up prices for flights. Depending on how much you value your time, you may or may not find that paying $100 more for a direct flight (that saves you 3 hours and helps you avoid the potential snafus that a connection brings) is a good value. It also makes a huge difference if the ticket is being paid for by your company or out of your own pocket.

Clearly, Denver is the holy grail of competition, being a hub for United, Southwest, and Frontier. But I think the dirty little secret is that there's not much competition left in the airfare game, outside of a few lucky markets (see the recent justice department investigation into airline price collusion).

Speaking of parking, it looks like the new aircraft viewing area at the end of Cargo Road is nearly complete - the end of the road's no longer closed anyways; suspect an official opening will take place once the sod gets laid down. This spot offers really, really nice views of departing aircraft when the winds blowing out of the northwest, and best of all, security won't be able to hassle you here anymore.

Airport hotel update. (locked)
http://finance-commerce.com/2015/10/air ... er-hurdle/

Airport hotel update. (locked)
http://finance-commerce.com/2015/10/air ... er-hurdle/

More images from the EAW Document:

Hotel Info


Phased parking additions, outbound road and new exit plaza location

That seems like an insanely inefficient use of space for the exit plaza. Couldn't they do that at the base of one of the parking expansions, so they can use all that surface space for something more useful in the future?

I've always thought it would make sense to orient the future International Landside between the east end of G and the west end of A/B (parallel to the Concourse Connector) rather than east-west along G.

Why?
- There are already plans to reconfigure A and B for larger jets (no more dozens of CRJs and Saabs needing gates) so the north apron and south apron could both have gates feeding into the FIS area.
- Would require less roadway and terminal reconfiguration along G.
- Connects the existing A/B/C/D airside tram, the future extension of the landside tram to the parking and hotel pictures above, and the future F/G/J? tram on the south apron.

Also, Terminal 1's solar 3 Megawatt project is slated to go-live at the end of this month. And there's a new proposal for a 1.3 Megawatt solar installation and LED light upgrade at the T2 ramp. If approved, construction is slated to start in spring.

http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3900844.shtml

http://www.wday.com/news/3835889-122m-s ... terminal-2

That seems like an insanely inefficient use of space for the exit plaza. Couldn't they do that at the base of one of the parking expansions, so they can use all that surface space for something more useful in the future?

From what I've read, they have to move it to make room for phase I expansion starting next year. There isn't room in that phase to incorporate it - and Phase II will have the Post Office as the base. So in order to have a plaza, they have to move it with the start of Phase I. The area they're moving it to will be where nothing else has been planned - through 2030.

Good point, and they show the future entrance road realignment marked in. My guess is the exit plaza will last until the time they move the roadway. That will be a big change.

[quote="Ottergoose"]Speaking of parking, it looks like the new aircraft viewing area at the end of Cargo Road is nearly complete - the end of the road's no longer closed anyways; suspect an official opening will take place once the sod gets laid down. This spot offers really, really nice views of departing aircraft when the winds blowing out of the northwest, and best of all, security won't be able to hassle you here anymore.


The new viewing area opened (officially) with a ceremony on Saturday, 10/17. I showed up well after the ceremony to check out the area. Only a few cars, however, there is signage directing you to the area off Longfellow Ave (runs along Cedar/77). IMO, good views depending on the direction of air traffic.

Directions: https://www.mspairport.com/docs/maps/ot ... g-MAP.aspx