Sucks because after 10 years of living in and traveling out of Houston, I have quite a few United miles built up (from the old Continental). Also sucks because I had already booked my away game travel for this year out of Waco, and am now having to rebook. One out of College Station and one out of DFW on American.

I always thought it would make sense to build an airport around Moody to serve Bell, McLennan, and Coryell. What, 600,000 people in those counties? If Lubbock, Amarillo, and Mid/Odessa are EACH big enough for Southwest Airlines, you'd think we are.







[This message has been edited by Captain Pablo (edited 7/9/2012 2:36p).]

That's a good point. My only other good option would've been Killeen, but that's 85 miles away from where I live. Might as well go to Dallas and not connect. Going to College Station on the other flight b/c I will south of Waco that morning. But still an 85 mile drive to BCS. Would LOVE to have something in between Waco/Temple/Killeen, but local govts will never get behind that, and Dallas/Austin lobby would try to block probably.

A centrally located airport was talked about in the 80s, but never got off the ground (no pun intended). So, Killeen/Ft.Hood is what we'll have for the forseeable future, and that's not exactly centrally located. Too far from Waco, and actually a pretty good clip from parts of Temple. That said, you'd be surprised how many good, non-stop flights Delta offers out of Killeen, for about the same price as Austin...

Still wish they'd have followed thru with the airport near Moody.

edited for typo





[This message has been edited by Captain Pablo (edited 7/9/2012 2:35p).]

Eastbound out of Killeen is good - I have done it twice with the Delta connection. Westbound it is always cheaper to drive to Austin and park. Always $400 more out of Killeen going westbound.

First, I live in Temple, not north like you. From Waco area, DFW is NOT a bad drive at all. I even have some avoid the mess at Fort Worth ways to get there.

I prefer to fly out of Austin and never even check for flights out of Killeen. Austin is a highly user friendly airport now.

It's funny how the more time passes from living in Houston, the less I want to deal with the bigger city traffic and parking at the airport messes. I dealt with it for 11 years no problem!

Also, another thing I don't like about DFW is the terminal "pod" setup. If you park at a terminal and leave there's a strong possibility you don't return to the same one an if you have luggage you have to take a shuttle bus to get to your car. Hell I pay the extra to park at the terminal so I DON'T have to take a shuttle bus!

Bo, I have learned to love that off site parking that takes you on a bus right to your gate and then right back to your car after the flight. I don't remember the name, but they advertise at aggie events. It even beats parking at the terminal at Austin. I know that they are at other airports.

3GA, I never get there in time to use that option it seems like

I flew into Killeen around 2006 and it was nice. That would definitely be my preferred airport.

I remember the talk in the 80s about a regional airport. I think the hang up was that the best facility would be the old Connally AFB and of course Waco wouldn't give up its airport. I was new to the area so I didn't know much about it. In hindsight, it would have been a good thing.

I'm at a place now where, I'd much rather fly in/out of a small airport like Burbank but I need the flexibility on flights that I get out of an airport like LAX.

I used to park at The Parking Spot in LA which ran a shuttle to the terminal. Also, the Parking Spot was next to In-N-Out Burger so that was nice.

In Denver, I would park in the economy part of the parking lot but I could still walk to my car. That's the main benefit. I generally hate parking in remote lots that require a shuttle. Like I said, the Parking Spot in LA had their service down.

Another airport I've used was Palm Springs. The problem with that was the seasonal flights. I like having flights available year-round.

With the new Texas 130, it's a lot easier to get to Bergstrom now.

For a tourist flying in, I hate the extra rental car fees they hit you with in Austin but I really hate the extra fees they hit you with at DFW. I also like being able to walk to your rental car rather than take a shuttle. A train setup like at San Francisco isn't too bad. But, you still have to plan for extra time to return the car and check-in before the baggage cut-off closes.

Yeah, Austin is a nice option, especially now that Texas 130 is built. We went out of there to Vegas in January, and I think we figured out it took us the same amount of time to get there and get in than it did to go to DFW, despite us being north of Waco.

As for United out of Waco, I guess you never saw many people using it, even when it was Continental. American is definitely the preferred airline, having been there basically uninterrupted as long as I can remember. Continental/United has been in and out. Again, I'm just pissed because I have all these miles on United that I'm going to have to either go out of Houston (3 hour drive) or drive to somewhere 90 minutes away where I still have to connect through Houston.

I used to make that Waco to Houston connection a lot. Lots of empty seats on those flights. Surprised it lasted this long, but it's probably just fallout of United's tantrum following the loss to Southwest on the Hobby issue. Waco people just always seem adverse to anything Houston-related though. To my memory, the flight from Waco to Houston wasn't really much longer than the flight from Waco to DFW on American for some reason (maybe 10 min more?). Not enough to make it a deal-breaker anyway. At least back then you could get good service on Conti and be guaranteed crap service from American. I'm sure American still sucks.

I've used all of these Central Texas airports at one point or another in my career, and I do recall frequently finding better deals when flying Continental out of Austin (even including connections in Houston most of the time). I'm sure United has jacked that up by now, but give it a look when trying to book something out of Houston. Austin's a great alternative if the price is right and it's 90 minutes less driving each way.