Coming to Waco for my Mom's HS Teacher Retirement party the weekend of August 3/4.

It looks like my only options are American Airlines in/out of ACT.

Or, I can fly United into GRK. Otherwise, it's Austin or Dallas, huh?

I found this story on KWTX about United stopping service into the Waco Regional Airport (I guess they don't call it Madison-Cooper anymore).

Yup. It's kinda pathetic really. I think there are only 4 or 5 flights at most each day.

You could also check into Killeen or College Station.

I like the Killeen airport. Discovered that Delta also flies into Killeen but... you have to route through Atlanta which is a little inconvenient to/from San Francisco.

Have you considered teleportation?

What is so bad about 5 flights a day? It could be ZERO flights a day.

They never match up with a convenient connection at dfw

finally got it worked out
American Airlines from SFO-DFW-GRK - have some Wacoan pick me up in Killeen
American Airlines from ACT-DFW-SFO - have mom or dad or maybe even my future Aggie daughter drop me off.

I'll do a compare/contrast when I get back.

Only time I flew in/out of Waco was for my job interview (current position). The airport gave me a good chuckle. Then again, I got there 30 minutes prior to departure and returned my rental car, checked in, & all that other stuff.

I had all my football trips booked last year on United out of Waco because I have a bunch of carryover mileage from when we lived in Houston (Continental). Then, they abruptly canceled service to Waco and I had to scramble to re-book. It sucked.

Friend of ours had booked a vacation to Jamaica, flying out of waco. She was given 0 notice and showed up to the airport for her flight only to discover it was not going to happen. Needless to say, they comped her flight and night missed at the resort.

I used to wonder how airlines could be goin bankrupt all the time, then I flew American and continental and realized the service sucks, the flights are rarely on time. Add worthless unions and overpaid benefits and its a cocktail for corporate destruction.....

There was talk years ago about building a regional airport around Moody...

The plans were scrapped of course.

Now we (Killeen-Temple-Waco Metro) have a population of 650,000 without decent air service near equally accessible to each city..

Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland EACH have decent sized airports WITH Southwest Airlines service despite EACH having less than half the population of our area.

What a crock..







[This message has been edited by Captain Pablo (edited 7/23/2013 8:44a).]

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I used to wonder how airlines could be going bankrupt all the time, then I flew American and continental and realized the service sucks, the flights are rarely on time. Add worthless unions and overpaid benefits and it's a cocktail for corporate destruction.

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Try flying on an Asian airline. The service is much better. And as a contrast to our American attitudes, the flight attendants are all young women. Once they hit a certain age, they either retire and move to a desk job. Asian cultures (at least those I have visited) place a higher importance on appearances and image.

Capt P: Several years ago Killeen was real close to getting Frontier to come in and then the economy dumped. No current talk about additional carriers to Killeen. I live 5 min from GRK and would drive to Austin if I was going westbound. Eastbound ASA is a good connection. Nowadays we just suck-it up and fly out of GRK.

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Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland EACH have decent sized airports WITH Southwest Airlines service despite EACH having less than half the population of our area.

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Big difference in the areas, for the airports in West Texas/Panhandle, people will drive 150+ miles to catch a flight out of those airports.

In Central Texas, it's a shorter drive to either of the Dallas area airports or Austin. The West Texas airports are regional draws, the Central Texas airports don't do a great job of keeping people from driving to the big airports.

I get that. But what is the population in the panhandle/south plains/permian basin outside a 50 mile radius of the cities? There can't be THAT many people driving in from Places like Pampa, Gruver, and Lamesa. Not enough to sustain Southwest Airlines, I wouldn't think...

Also, it's not a shorter drive from say, midland to Lubbock than Temple to Dallas. Not significantly, anyway. Amarillo and Midland are each about 2 hours from Lubbock..

Austin is closer to Temple. Well, somewhat. It's not the shot down the road it was when the airport was at 290 and 35.

Its 78 miles from Temple to Bergstrom...

When the Moody area airport was scrapped, the area had probably 250,000 people. Today we're around 650,000, and if projections pan out, we'll be close to a million in a couple of decades.

Temple/Killeen/FtHood is projected to be about 550,000 by 2040.

I don't know. With that kind of growth, seems a regional airport around the 317 area north of belton would be a good idea, ESPECIALLY if SWA serviced it.

But, I guess the number crunchers know what they're doing..










[This message has been edited by Captain Pablo (edited 7/23/2013 9:28p).]

Gruver! My uncle is the AD/Football Coach there.

Compare/Contrast Waco/Temple/Killeen with the Los Angeles Basin/SoCal.

In CenTex, we've got ACT serviced by AA Only. And Waco has struggled to have more than one carrier for 30 years (that I know of). I did fly on Rio once from Waco to Houston circa 1983 maybe. I don't remember the circumstance but it was the first solo flight that my little brother and I took sans parents. Funny now but we must have been like 13 and 11 then.

Then we've got GRK serviced by AA/DL/UA. Three different airlines see fit to fly into Killeen. Of course one of them - Delta is probably heavily influenced by US Military contracts/personnel movements.

In Los Angeles, we have 5 major airports and a population of 12-15 Million depending on how you cut it.

LAX - fly anywhere in the world, major world hub
SNA - domestic only in Orange County
BUR - domestic only in Burbank
LGB - domestic only in Long Beach
ONT - domestic commercial flights but International Cargo flights

Then, the outliers would be OXR (Oxnard), PSP (Palm Springs) and SAN (San Diego) which are all domestic as far as I know. I don't think there are any international flights in/out of San Diego other than cargo.

Anyway, quite a few airports in a small space but a massive population. And there are all kind of pricing games you can play which is why one time when I needed to travel to Waco, I flew from PSP-IAH-GRK and back because it was several hundred dollars cheaper than flying from LAX, BUR or SNA even though I lived 5 miles from the Burbank Airport. I drove 115 miles into the desert to save $300+. And again, just like this time, I flew into GRK because it was $300 cheaper than ACT.

I think expanding GRK is probably the right move because it's already setup to handle larger planes. I did help load a C5 there once upon a time.

Of course if it got too big then you'd probably have conflict with the military traffic there.

As it stands right now, with it costing an extra $300 to fly to Waco versus Austin or Dallas, and the extra time flying + waiting for a connection to another flight, there's no good incentive to fly out of Waco.

If it costs $300 and 2 hours of my time to get the connection from DFW-ACT, usually, I'll just say to heck with it and rent a car at DFW and drive to Waco.

The only airline situation that is a little different in CenTex is Delta because they service GRK from Atlanta. So, if I was headed east, or to Europe or something, that would probably be appealing. I just wish Delta would add flights to Salt Lake so I could go west from Killeen without having to go through ATL.

Enough of my CenTex airport rant. Frankly, I don't see any reason why they couldn't build a massive airport north of Belton and have it be another DFW type hub for airlines who are looking to expand into the southwestern US. It would be a perfect hub for somebody like JetBlue. It could be like Phoenix. I think lots of people connect through PHX but I don't think that's anybody's final destination.

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As it stands right now, with it costing an extra $300 to fly to Waco versus Austin or Dallas, and the extra time flying + waiting for a connection to another flight, there's no good incentive to fly out of Waco.

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Yep.

My problem where I am with GRK (I am in West) is that I may as well drive to Dallas (DFW is 20 miles further than GRK) if I'm going to do that and have a better chance to fly direct....or even drive the extra 40 miles to Austin...and still probably fly direct, as we are doing to San Francisco.

As BQ said, the only time GRK might be viable (for me) is if we are flying Delta to somewhere east. Otherwise, I can get a better deal and better flight options driving to Dallas or Austin. Hell, when my whole family of 5 recently flew to Pittsburgh, we went out of Houston because it was direct and it was about $600 cheaper than anywhere else for the 5 of us total.

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There can't be THAT many people driving in from Places like Pampa, Gruver, and Lamesa. Not enough to sustain Southwest Airlines, I wouldn't think...

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Lubbock County and north, the Panhandle has about 700k residents. Also, I knew people in Carlsbad, Roswell, and Clovis that would drive to Lubbock to catch a flight. Then, toss in the Okie Panhandle and you have a lot of people a long way from an airport.

Also, when dealing with SWA, you have to remember that they can only fly to neighboring states out of Love Field. For their flights to the west of NM, they'll stop at Amarillo, Lubbock, or Midland.

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Also, when dealing with SWA, you have to remember that they can only fly to neighboring states out of Love Field. For their flights to the west of NM, they'll stop at Amarillo, Lubbock, or Midland.

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That restriction goes away in 2014, I believe.

That would be the Wright Amendment. Glad to this eventually fade away.

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Lubbock County and north, the Panhandle has about 700k residents. Also, I knew people in Carlsbad, Roswell, and Clovis that would drive to Lubbock to catch a flight. Then, toss in the Okie Panhandle and you have a lot of people a long way from an airport

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Of that 700K, 550K are in the Lubbock and Amarillo Metro Areas. The rest are scattered over an area larger than many states..

550K is a smaller population than Central Texas, but they have 2 airports with SWA service, we have none. And our population is not scattered over a vast area, it is an area the size of a handful of counties..

And those airports aren't there for the Carlsbad and Okie panhandle people. Gruver isn't keeping AMA afloat. What percent of outbound passengers at LBB or AMA are not residents of Lubbock or Amarillo metro areas? I would guess somewhat small...

Also, those people out in Carlsbad or Oklahoma or wherever drive 2 hours to an airport because they live in the middle of nowhere.

We don't live in the middle of nowhere. We live smack in the middle of a fairly large, urban population center...

Yet, like someone in Clovis, NM, we too have to drive 2 hours for decent air service, just like people in the rural Texas Panhandle. Not by choice. Not because we live in the middle of nowhere. But because there is no other decent option despite a sizeable population...

The question is if an option were available to Central Texans to drive 20-30 miles for air service rather than 80-120, would people use it? I believe they would..















[This message has been edited by Captain Pablo (edited 7/26/2013 11:51a).]