Lexy wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

"Business market is large"...... really?? compared to where? SDF doesn't even have service to BOS, LAX, SFO, SEA, e.t.c

What does Nashville offer? A business market that can sustain multiple nonstop flights to all major US business market, in addition to a tourism market and a fast growing city
What does Indy offer? A business market with large corporate travel spenders, that can sustain multiple nonstop flights to all major US business market, in addition to a large convention market

"IND just lost AS service to SFO...Louisville has large corporations as well dude and the city is working to attract NS to BOS, LAX, SFO and SEA. Louisville also is a Tier One convention city...just like Indy and Nashville.

Louisville is larger and more vibrant today than Nashville was in the 90's. Nashville's growth is slowing and will continue to slow as cost of living grows and traffice gets worse. BNA traffic would be 40% less if WN did not operate a focus operation there.

Nashville's growth isn't slowing. That's a fact. Over 15,000 hotel rooms planned along with a number of high profile commercial projects underway downtown says otherwise. As to your statement about passenger numbers, that's pure conjecture on your part. Like I said, Louisville isn't in the same league. SDF can't even get service to the west coast for crying out loud.

"Dude....according to the US Census...Nashville's growth is cooling. There is a huge amount of development going on in Nashville....the bubble is about to burst. (Cost of living, traffic and over-building are all symptoms of the bust to come...it happens to every city that grows like Nashville has grown). Conjecture about passenger numbers? Huh. WN connects at least 3-4M passengers per year at BNA. None of this is anti-Nashville. It is facts."

Bluegrass60 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"IND just lost AS service to SFO...Louisville has large corporations as well dude and the city is working to attract NS to BOS, LAX, SFO and SEA. Louisville also is a Tier One convention city...just like Indy and Nashville.

Louisville is larger and more vibrant today than Nashville was in the 90's. Nashville's growth is slowing and will continue to slow as cost of living grows and traffice gets worse. BNA traffic would be 40% less if WN did not operate a focus operation there.

IND lost 1 of its 4 frequencies to the Bay Area, SDF doesn't even have 1 flight a week

BNA's growth isn't stopping

SDF is in the same realm of OMA, OKC, e.t.c not IND and BNA

"SDF will have West Coast nonstops within the year....they will get them the same way IND and BNA has gotten some service...guarantees. BNA is growing and will continue to grow...but...double digit growth is not gonna happen UNLESS WN adds more focus for more connections. At least 40% of BNA traffic is CONNECTING

I guess TATL flights are coming to SDF too? BNA and IND have offered ZERO in the way of subsidies to get west coast service. There’s just that much demand.

Where’s this proof of a cooling trend? My wife is a realtor and she’s yet to stop.

Lexy wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

IND lost 1 of its 4 frequencies to the Bay Area, SDF doesn't even have 1 flight a week

BNA's growth isn't stopping

SDF is in the same realm of OMA, OKC, e.t.c not IND and BNA

"SDF will have West Coast nonstops within the year....they will get them the same way IND and BNA has gotten some service...guarantees. BNA is growing and will continue to grow...but...double digit growth is not gonna happen UNLESS WN adds more focus for more connections. At least 40% of BNA traffic is CONNECTING

I guess TATL flights are coming to SDF too? BNA and IND have offered ZERO in the way of subsidies to get west coast service. There’s just that much demand.

Where’s this proof of a cooling trend? My wife is a realtor and she’s yet to stop.

Here are some examples comparing Louisville:
https://www.urbanophile.com/2012/02/12/ ... ouisville/
https://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/ ... y-why.html
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/n ... 045738001/

Need I mention, Louisville doesn't even have a major sports franchise.....

EvanWSFO wrote:

QUOTE 1 from opening statements by Willie Walsh speaking of the growth of the TATL offerings:
"We’re growing on our networks, and 10% growth in ASK on the transatlantic in the second quarter. Half of that was in Europe, which are performing incredibly well. Nashville, it is up and coming in terms of its performance. British Airways launched in Philadelphia and Seattle, and are already looking and making Seattle to a daily service."

Am I missing something here? Re: the comments about PHL and SEA?

I believe that comment refers EI not BA

Bluegrass60 wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"IND just lost AS service to SFO...Louisville has large corporations as well dude and the city is working to attract NS to BOS, LAX, SFO and SEA. Louisville also is a Tier One convention city...just like Indy and Nashville.

Louisville is larger and more vibrant today than Nashville was in the 90's. Nashville's growth is slowing and will continue to slow as cost of living grows and traffice gets worse. BNA traffic would be 40% less if WN did not operate a focus operation there.

Nashville was vibrant enough back then to attract a hub from a legacy carrier.

"SDF was also considered by AA....BNA got it because SDF did not have parallel runways at the time. In 2018, no carrier is looking for a new hub; they may be looking for new focus cities however."

Actually when AA initially began their Nashville hub, they only had 2 runways. 20 and 31.

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

Midwestindy wrote:

Lexy wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"SDF will have West Coast nonstops within the year....they will get them the same way IND and BNA has gotten some service...guarantees. BNA is growing and will continue to grow...but...double digit growth is not gonna happen UNLESS WN adds more focus for more connections. At least 40% of BNA traffic is CONNECTING

I guess TATL flights are coming to SDF too? BNA and IND have offered ZERO in the way of subsidies to get west coast service. There’s just that much demand.

Where’s this proof of a cooling trend? My wife is a realtor and she’s yet to stop.

Here are some examples comparing Louisville:
https://www.urbanophile.com/2012/02/12/ ... ouisville/
https://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/ ... y-why.html
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/n ... 045738001/

Need I mention, Louisville doesn't even have a major sports franchise.....

"https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/03/26/nashville-tn-population-housing-apartments-rent-jobs/458757002/. Austin, TX is another major city with no major sports franchise. IND got SFO service by $1.5M fund from the Indiana Economic Development Fund. BNA to London and IND to Paris both enjoy "guarantees' without which neither Delta or British Airways would have started those flights. Am glad your wife is busy and good luck landing Amazon"

ADrum23 wrote:

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

"not at all. only trying to inject some facts into discussions about air service at BNA. So all you bright guys/gals...2 Questions:
1. From 2000 to 2010, Nashville's population grew by 21% but total BNA pax was 2% LESS than it was in 2000. WN carried 3.75M PAX in these years
2. From 2010 to 2017, Nashville's population grew again by 20% and this time total BNA pax grew by 69%.......and.....coincidentally WN traffic doubled to 7.7M pax in 2017

The answer is WN focus operations greatly increased beginning in 2011/2012....and that caused increase in connecting traffic....and thus contributed mightily to the 69% BNA growth.

The BA flight to London has a subsidy that guarantees BA will not lose money. It's a great bet that might prove successful long term.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

"not at all. only trying to inject some facts into discussions about air service at BNA. So all you bright guys/gals...2 Questions:
1. From 2000 to 2010, Nashville's population grew by 21% but total BNA pax was 2% LESS than it was in 2000. WN carried 3.75M PAX in these years
2. From 2010 to 2017, Nashville's population grew again by 20% and this time total BNA pax grew by 69%.......and.....coincidentally WN traffic doubled to 7.7M pax in 2017

The answer is WN focus operations greatly increased beginning in 2011/2012....and that caused increase in connecting traffic....and thus contributed mightily to the 69% BNA growth.

The BA flight to London has a subsidy that guarantees BA will not lose money. It's a great bet that might prove successful long term.

BA hasn’t needed to touch any of that money. You really think that money was the only reason it started? LOL! The LF says otherwise.

Alright, so the issue of subsidies has once again come up. Here's the low down, NO airline is going to come into a non-hub city without a guarantee for revenue should demand not fully mature. With that said, some of the money is/can be used for marketing purposes. BA hasn't had to dip into the guarantee at BNA and likely won't have to. 95% LF and a healthy cargo load every flight should be all it really takes. It also helps to have some extra feed on AA from BNA.

Secondly, no Nashville's growth isn't slowing down. It's actually on about the same pace as last year with some ebbs and flows along the way. The market is beginning to mature a bit and that's to be expected.

Thirdly, SDF is growing, but not near as much as its peer cities. SDF will get west coast service, but it will 100% be subsidized by the new airport route committee who's head by a good man named Tom Tyra. Tom originally started at LEX and did a fantastic job there. The demand to the west coast from Louisville isn't as big as it is to the east coast or else somebody would be flying it already.

Fourthly, SDF can't even sustain daily service to Toronto. While this may not seem like much, it is proof of how far SDF still needs to go before airlines will really take them seriously. YYZ is a relatively easy airport to have service to, so why does SDF struggle so much with it?

And finally, the addition of Allegiant in Louisville has squashed much of the growth that other airlines will have there. AA and DL are still majority RJ's into and out of SDF and UA is 100% RJ's. Allegiant and Southwest are the only two that offer 100% "big jet" flying. SDF has a long way to go in comparison to its peers. It won't be a focus city for anyone for a long time.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

"not at all. only trying to inject some facts into discussions about air service at BNA. So all you bright guys/gals...2 Questions:
1. From 2000 to 2010, Nashville's population grew by 21% but total BNA pax was 2% LESS than it was in 2000. WN carried 3.75M PAX in these years
2. From 2010 to 2017, Nashville's population grew again by 20% and this time total BNA pax grew by 69%.......and.....coincidentally WN traffic doubled to 7.7M pax in 2017

The answer is WN focus operations greatly increased beginning in 2011/2012....and that caused increase in connecting traffic....and thus contributed mightily to the 69% BNA growth.

The BA flight to London has a subsidy that guarantees BA will not lose money. It's a great bet that might prove successful long term.

Let's say WN is 50 percent connecting, which is not an unreasonable assumption. If WN is 7 million passengers and everyone else is 5 (I'm doing this quickly and not pulling data but again not far off), then BNA had 8.5 million local passengers, or more than twice what SDF had, last year. The comparison is silly.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

"not at all. only trying to inject some facts into discussions about air service at BNA. So all you bright guys/gals...2 Questions:
1. From 2000 to 2010, Nashville's population grew by 21% but total BNA pax was 2% LESS than it was in 2000. WN carried 3.75M PAX in these years
2. From 2010 to 2017, Nashville's population grew again by 20% and this time total BNA pax grew by 69%.......and.....coincidentally WN traffic doubled to 7.7M pax in 2017

The answer is WN focus operations greatly increased beginning in 2011/2012....and that caused increase in connecting traffic....and thus contributed mightily to the 69% BNA growth.

The BA flight to London has a subsidy that guarantees BA will not lose money. It's a great bet that might prove successful long term.

Yeah, let’s avoid attributing any of the 2000-2010 pax reduction on the nation-wide financial collapse that had an insane effect on the airline industry for years.
Dude WN doesn’t connect that many people at BNA, there’s just a lot of local demand. It’s not just Nashville (Davidson county) that the airport serves. The surrounding counties, primarily Rutherford and Williamson (but not discounting Sumner, Wilson, and Montgomery) are exploding in population and economic growth. Williamson in particular has many corporate HQ’s and is having a construction boom that rivals Nashville, and Rutherford will have over 400,000 residents in the not-too-distant future.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

"not at all. only trying to inject some facts into discussions about air service at BNA. So all you bright guys/gals...2 Questions:
1. From 2000 to 2010, Nashville's population grew by 21% but total BNA pax was 2% LESS than it was in 2000. WN carried 3.75M PAX in these years
2. From 2010 to 2017, Nashville's population grew again by 20% and this time total BNA pax grew by 69%.......and.....coincidentally WN traffic doubled to 7.7M pax in 2017

The answer is WN focus operations greatly increased beginning in 2011/2012....and that caused increase in connecting traffic....and thus contributed mightily to the 69% BNA growth.

The BA flight to London has a subsidy that guarantees BA will not lose money. It's a great bet that might prove successful long term.

Since the early 2000s, WN has ran 80-100 daily departures out of BNA. Today, they run 115. Around 2011-2012, they actually cut back on service, losing flights to BHM, ORF, BDL, and a couple others. They’ve added 3 new destinations this year. That will continue to grow.

pdt2f wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

ADrum23 wrote:

I see we have a bitter Louisville resident here.......

"not at all. only trying to inject some facts into discussions about air service at BNA. So all you bright guys/gals...2 Questions:
1. From 2000 to 2010, Nashville's population grew by 21% but total BNA pax was 2% LESS than it was in 2000. WN carried 3.75M PAX in these years
2. From 2010 to 2017, Nashville's population grew again by 20% and this time total BNA pax grew by 69%.......and.....coincidentally WN traffic doubled to 7.7M pax in 2017

The answer is WN focus operations greatly increased beginning in 2011/2012....and that caused increase in connecting traffic....and thus contributed mightily to the 69% BNA growth.

The BA flight to London has a subsidy that guarantees BA will not lose money. It's a great bet that might prove successful long term.

Yeah, let’s avoid attributing any of the 2000-2010 pax reduction on the nation-wide financial collapse that had an insane effect on the airline industry for years.
Dude WN doesn’t connect that many people at BNA, there’s just a lot of local demand. It’s not just Nashville (Davidson county) that the airport serves. The surrounding counties, primarily Rutherford and Williamson (but not discounting Sumner, Wilson, and Montgomery) are exploding in population and economic growth. Williamson in particular has many corporate HQ’s and is having a construction boom that rivals Nashville, and Rutherford will have over 400,000 residents in the not-too-distant future.

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

Didn't realize there was beef between Nashville and Louisville until now.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

It doesn't work that way. Demand from a city is way more complicated than just the population size. BNA is a stronger business climate, has little leakage to other airports (many SDF/LEX passengers use CVG/IND instead), and I could go on and on.

flymco753 wrote:

Didn't realize there was beef between Nashville and Louisville until now.

This user has beef that SDF is not getting the level of service that BNA/IND/CVG have been getting. I have tried using PDEW data to demonstrate that SDF has much lower demand, however, their response was that "it must include connections" .

flymco753 wrote:

Didn't realize there was beef between Nashville and Louisville until now.

This seems to come up every 6-9 months.

I just couldn't help myself.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

You're ignoring the data in front of you. We know for certain what the O&D numbers are, so that is a hard data point. It isn't estimated or calculated or otherwise inferred. It is as real as the decennial census data. Extrapolating population data to infer travel demands isn't accurate. There's no way to get around that fact. To create a model for passenger demand you would have to include several other data points in addition to population, namely the size of the economy, the hospitality industry, and the leakage to or from adjacent airports because of the lack of or presence of nonstops and larger aircraft. Alternatively......you could just look at O&D numbers and have your answer, which is what you ignore.

If you want a reasonable explanation as to why BNA has significantly more air traffic than SDF then I'll attempt an answer:
1. The population of the catchment area is significantly larger. The Nashville MSA is larger, the CSA is larger, and two other MSAs fall well within the catchment area of BNA that aren't included in either MSA or CSA figures: Clarksville-Hopkinsville and Bowling Green-Glasgow. I suspect we'll see Clarksville added to the CSA after the 2020 census. It also ignores the Cookeville micro stat area. Just those three add well over 600,000 people that are ignored by your CSA number but clearly fall within the BNA service area.
2. The economy is larger ($124 billion vs $75 billion). I'm ignoring the other MSAs and larger CSAs that clearly fall within each airport's catchment areas. A 65% larger economy is going to have significantly more air travel demand. The per capita economy size is also larger (62k vs 55k) meaning that each person is also responsible for larger economic activity.
3. The hospitality industry is roughly double the size. Nashville recently passed New Orleans in hotel room number to give you an idea of the importance of tourism and hospitality in Nashville. It is truly important and is the only explanation for some of BNA's nonstops (SYR on Allegiant and Calgary on WestJet for example).
4. Success begets success. The more nonstops an airport has the more passengers it attracts. Fortunately for BNA, it is surrounded by meaningful (but significantly smaller) metros that can't support a large number of nonstop flights. Chattanooga, Knoxville, Huntsville, Paducah, and Jackson, TN, all send varying degrees of people to Nashville for their air service needs. None of them are in the category of Clarksville or BG, but all are going to contribute significant numbers to BNA (there are even shuttles between Chattanooga and BNA). Unfortunately for SDF, the obvious feeder MSA (LEX) is just as close to CVG and sees the bulk of its passenger leakage to CVG.

HeyHey wrote:

I just couldn't help myself.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

You're ignoring the data in front of you. We know for certain what the O&D numbers are, so that is a hard data point. It isn't estimated or calculated or otherwise inferred. It is as real as the decennial census data. Extrapolating population data to infer travel demands isn't accurate. There's no way to get around that fact. To create a model for passenger demand you would have to include several other data points in addition to population, namely the size of the economy, the hospitality industry, and the leakage to or from adjacent airports because of the lack of or presence of nonstops and larger aircraft. Alternatively......you could just look at O&D numbers and have your answer, which is what you ignore.

If you want a reasonable explanation as to why BNA has significantly more air traffic than SDF then I'll attempt an answer:
1. The population of the catchment area is significantly larger. The Nashville MSA is larger, the CSA is larger, and two other MSAs fall well within the catchment area of BNA that aren't included in either MSA or CSA figures: Clarksville-Hopkinsville and Bowling Green-Glasgow. I suspect we'll see Clarksville added to the CSA after the 2020 census. It also ignores the Cookeville micro stat area. Just those three add well over 600,000 people that are ignored by your CSA number but clearly fall within the BNA service area.
2. The economy is larger ($124 billion vs $75 billion). I'm ignoring the other MSAs and larger CSAs that clearly fall within each airport's catchment areas. A 65% larger economy is going to have significantly more air travel demand. The per capita economy size is also larger (62k vs 55k) meaning that each person is also responsible for larger economic activity.
3. The hospitality industry is roughly double the size. Nashville recently passed New Orleans in hotel room number to give you an idea of the importance of tourism and hospitality in Nashville. It is truly important and is the only explanation for some of BNA's nonstops (SYR on Allegiant and Calgary on WestJet for example).
4. Success begets success. The more nonstops an airport has the more passengers it attracts. Fortunately for BNA, it is surrounded by meaningful (but significantly smaller) metros that can't support a large number of nonstop flights. Chattanooga, Knoxville, Huntsville, Paducah, and Jackson, TN, all send varying degrees of people to Nashville for their air service needs. None of them are in the category of Clarksville or BG, but all are going to contribute significant numbers to BNA (there are even shuttles between Chattanooga and BNA). Unfortunately for SDF, the obvious feeder MSA (LEX) is just as close to CVG and sees the bulk of its passenger leakage to CVG.

"Hey Hey Hey - you completely ignore....how many passengers connect at BNA vs O&D? That is my ONLY question and no one seems to be able to answer that with any fact. I would suggest the connecting passengers are at least 40%. Connecting passenger means they fly to BNA...get off the plane...walk to another gate and get on another plane to get to their final destination. Anyone who thinks BNA's 15M annual passenger count does not contain a very large number of connecting traffic is delusional. I will guesstimate 3M-4M connecting passengers/year at BNA.
1) Catchment -- make it simple. TN has 6.5M vs KY 4M. Factor in KY Large Airports: CVG, SDF, LEX. TN Large Airports: BNA, MEM, TYS, CHA and maybe TRI
2) Economy is larger in Nashville....NASH MSA per capita = $52,450 LOU MSA per capita = $45,525. Multiple by respective CSA populations...Nashville economy is 35% larger.
3) Nashville has larger hospitality industry.....but how many of those tourists actually fly to Nashville? I suspect many more tourists fly to New Orleans because of geographic location
4) Success begets success. No doubt about it. BNA has many more nonstop flights than SDF. How many flights would it have if there was no Focus by Southwest? (related to the connecting passenger question)

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Hey Hey Hey - you completely ignore....how many passengers connect at BNA vs O&D? That is my ONLY question and no one seems to be able to answer that with any fact. I would suggest the connecting passengers are at least 40%. Connecting passenger means they fly to BNA...get off the plane...walk to another gate and get on another plane to get to their final destination. Anyone who thinks BNA's 15M annual passenger count does not contain a very large number of connecting traffic is delusional. I will guesstimate 3M-4M connecting passengers/year at BNA.

Considering that WN only carries about half of BNA's total traffic and that WN is the only carrier that connects significant numbers of passengers at BNA, it's almost certainly less than 40 percent. More likely the number is in the 20s (which would make WN's operation roughly between 40 and 60 percent local).

Bluegrass60 wrote:

HeyHey wrote:

I just couldn't help myself.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

You're ignoring the data in front of you. We know for certain what the O&D numbers are, so that is a hard data point. It isn't estimated or calculated or otherwise inferred. It is as real as the decennial census data. Extrapolating population data to infer travel demands isn't accurate. There's no way to get around that fact. To create a model for passenger demand you would have to include several other data points in addition to population, namely the size of the economy, the hospitality industry, and the leakage to or from adjacent airports because of the lack of or presence of nonstops and larger aircraft. Alternatively......you could just look at O&D numbers and have your answer, which is what you ignore.

If you want a reasonable explanation as to why BNA has significantly more air traffic than SDF then I'll attempt an answer:
1. The population of the catchment area is significantly larger. The Nashville MSA is larger, the CSA is larger, and two other MSAs fall well within the catchment area of BNA that aren't included in either MSA or CSA figures: Clarksville-Hopkinsville and Bowling Green-Glasgow. I suspect we'll see Clarksville added to the CSA after the 2020 census. It also ignores the Cookeville micro stat area. Just those three add well over 600,000 people that are ignored by your CSA number but clearly fall within the BNA service area.
2. The economy is larger ($124 billion vs $75 billion). I'm ignoring the other MSAs and larger CSAs that clearly fall within each airport's catchment areas. A 65% larger economy is going to have significantly more air travel demand. The per capita economy size is also larger (62k vs 55k) meaning that each person is also responsible for larger economic activity.
3. The hospitality industry is roughly double the size. Nashville recently passed New Orleans in hotel room number to give you an idea of the importance of tourism and hospitality in Nashville. It is truly important and is the only explanation for some of BNA's nonstops (SYR on Allegiant and Calgary on WestJet for example).
4. Success begets success. The more nonstops an airport has the more passengers it attracts. Fortunately for BNA, it is surrounded by meaningful (but significantly smaller) metros that can't support a large number of nonstop flights. Chattanooga, Knoxville, Huntsville, Paducah, and Jackson, TN, all send varying degrees of people to Nashville for their air service needs. None of them are in the category of Clarksville or BG, but all are going to contribute significant numbers to BNA (there are even shuttles between Chattanooga and BNA). Unfortunately for SDF, the obvious feeder MSA (LEX) is just as close to CVG and sees the bulk of its passenger leakage to CVG.

"Hey Hey Hey - you completely ignore....how many passengers connect at BNA vs O&D? That is my ONLY question and no one seems to be able to answer that with any fact. I would suggest the connecting passengers are at least 40%. Connecting passenger means they fly to BNA...get off the plane...walk to another gate and get on another plane to get to their final destination. Anyone who thinks BNA's 15M annual passenger count does not contain a very large number of connecting traffic is delusional. I will guesstimate 3M-4M connecting passengers/year at BNA.
1) Catchment -- make it simple. TN has 6.5M vs KY 4M. Factor in KY Large Airports: CVG, SDF, LEX. TN Large Airports: BNA, MEM, TYS, CHA and maybe TRI
2) Economy is larger in Nashville....NASH MSA per capita = $52,450 LOU MSA per capita = $45,525. Multiple by respective CSA populations...Nashville economy is 35% larger.
3) Nashville has larger hospitality industry.....but how many of those tourists actually fly to Nashville? I suspect many more tourists fly to New Orleans because of geographic location
4) Success begets success. No doubt about it. BNA has many more nonstop flights than SDF. How many flights would it have if there was no Focus by Southwest? (related to the connecting passenger question)

Complains about no one having facts to show what % is O/D vs connecting but throws statements like "I would suggest the connecting passengers are at least 40%". If you are complaining about people not showing you facts, why are you throwing statements like this about? Hard to take you seriously.

cvgComair wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

It doesn't work that way. Demand from a city is way more complicated than just the population size. BNA is a stronger business climate, has little leakage to other airports (many SDF/LEX passengers use CVG/IND instead), and I could go on and on.

flymco753 wrote:

Didn't realize there was beef between Nashville and Louisville until now.

This user has beef that SDF is not getting the level of service that BNA/IND/CVG have been getting. I have tried using PDEW data to demonstrate that SDF has much lower demand, however, their response was that "it must include connections" .

"cvgComair - there is no beef...there is a question....and PDEW does not answer the question. PDEW counts the number of passengers that deplane at an airport and the number of passengers that enplane at an airport....PDEW does not count which of those passengers are getting off at an airport and walking to another gate at the same airport and getting on a different plane to go to their final destination. FACT: BNA is a focus city for WN and in 2017 handled 14.1M passengers. How many of those 14.1M landed in BNA and then walked to a gate and got on another flight to their final destination? Since you are from CVG...of CVG's 7.8M passengers handled in 2017....how many connections were made by Delta (CVG is still a hub for Delta) or Frontier(CVG is a Focus city)? PDEW for SDF is lower than BNA and CVG and IND because there is little to zero connecting traffic at SDF. The other weakness of PDEW is.....in 1993 WN began SDF-MDW service. The PDEW between SDF-MDW before WN was 0...as in zero. After WN began service the PDEW rose to 400/day. The reason.....frequent nonstops at prices that made sense."

flymco753 wrote:

Didn't realize there was beef between Nashville and Louisville until now.

Nashville native here.... there is no beef. I dont think I've ever really heard people think of or talk about Louisville at all.

We just have one bull-headed poster arguing that BNA's passenger numbers are due to an impossible number of WN connections.

Bluegrass60 wrote:

cvgComair wrote:

Bluegrass60 wrote:

"Dude....Nashville CSA has 1.9M people and BNA handles @15M passengers. Louisville CSA has 1.5M people and SDF handles @4M passengers. So Nashville CSA is 1.26 times the size of the Louisville CSA. BNA handles 3.75 times as many passengers as SDF. SDF passenger count is 98% O&D. Baseline BNA should handle 1.26 times as many passengers as SDF = 5M. So where does the other 10M passengers come from? (I await with bated breath the answer to that one)

It doesn't work that way. Demand from a city is way more complicated than just the population size. BNA is a stronger business climate, has little leakage to other airports (many SDF/LEX passengers use CVG/IND instead), and I could go on and on.

flymco753 wrote:

Didn't realize there was beef between Nashville and Louisville until now.

This user has beef that SDF is not getting the level of service that BNA/IND/CVG have been getting. I have tried using PDEW data to demonstrate that SDF has much lower demand, however, their response was that "it must include connections" .

"cvgComair - there is no beef...there is a question....and PDEW does not answer the question. PDEW counts the number of passengers that deplane at an airport and the number of passengers that enplane at an airport....PDEW does not count which of those passengers are getting off at an airport and walking to another gate at the same airport and getting on a different plane to go to their final destination. FACT: BNA is a focus city for WN and in 2017 handled 14.1M passengers. How many of those 14.1M landed in BNA and then walked to a gate and got on another flight to their final destination? Since you are from CVG...of CVG's 7.8M passengers handled in 2017....how many connections were made by Delta (CVG is still a hub for Delta) or Frontier(CVG is a Focus city)? PDEW for SDF is lower than BNA and CVG and IND because there is little to zero connecting traffic at SDF. The other weakness of PDEW is.....in 1993 WN began SDF-MDW service. The PDEW between SDF-MDW before WN was 0...as in zero. After WN began service the PDEW rose to 400/day. The reason.....frequent nonstops at prices that made sense."

If I were you I would give this argument up

PDEW does not account for connecting passengers that is basic aviation knowledge, so your whole argument just fell apart. IND hardly has any connecting traffic, so again your point is invalid.

Well if it makes you feel better, Louisville carries a lot more cargo than Nashville.

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

2. I was in the airport last week waiting to fly out on The BA flight to LHR and noticed that there was a DL flight on the board to CAE. I am fully aware that we don’t have regularly scheduled flights to CAE but I didn’t know why it would be listed on the departure board. Any insight into this?

HeyHey wrote:

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

Titans playing at Green Bay.
outbound: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KBNA/KGRB

Flight went ORD-BNA-GRB-ORD

HeyHey wrote:

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

2. I was in the airport last week waiting to fly out on The BA flight to LHR and noticed that there was a DL flight on the board to CAE. I am fully aware that we don’t have regularly scheduled flights to CAE but I didn’t know why it would be listed on the departure board. Any insight into this?

Looks like I got beat to the punch!

HeyHey wrote:

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

2. I was in the airport last week waiting to fly out on The BA flight to LHR and noticed that there was a DL flight on the board to CAE. I am fully aware that we don’t have regularly scheduled flights to CAE but I didn’t know why it would be listed on the departure board. Any insight into this?

The UA 757 was for the Titans. The Delta flight to CAE was a diversion, and they had pax deplane, and board again, so they listed it on the gate board.

ytib wrote:

HeyHey wrote:

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

Titans playing at Green Bay.
outbound: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KBNA/KGRB

Flight went ORD-BNA-GRB-ORD

I saw the plane come in also. Was a little surprised to see they used a 753 for a preseason game. They normally use a larger plane (767) due to having more players to carry.

rexchase12 wrote:

ytib wrote:

HeyHey wrote:

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

Titans playing at Green Bay.
outbound: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KBNA/KGRB

Flight went ORD-BNA-GRB-ORD

I saw the plane come in also. Was a little surprised to see they used a 753 for a preseason game. They normally use a larger plane (767) due to having more players to carry.

They've gotten cheap the past few years.

rexchase12 wrote:

ytib wrote:

HeyHey wrote:

Two things totally unrelated to the current conversation:

1. Did UA recently begin flying 753s into BNA from ORD? I saw UA2564 fly overhead today and it was a 753 with tail number N77865. I wasn’t aware they were flying these into bna but clearly could have missed it.

Titans playing at Green Bay.
outbound: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL ... /KBNA/KGRB

Flight went ORD-BNA-GRB-ORD

I saw the plane come in also. Was a little surprised to see they used a 753 for a preseason game. They normally use a larger plane (767) due to having more players to carry.

During the season I think they typically use 764’s and 772’s. Maybe some of the veterans were able to fly commercial closer to the game, since they have less prep work than the young guys who are trying to make the team?

During the regular season, they use the 753, or 764 on west coast games.

Has anyone heard anything about how the LF’s are for G4 so far at BNA?

pdt2f wrote:

Has anyone heard anything about how the LF’s are for G4 so far at BNA?

Every time I’m by the gate, it looks pretty good.

anyone have any clue if the 757's BNA-ATL have been going out fill in the past couple days (granted the upgrade just started)

I think 199 pax should be able to be filled quite easily.

gsg013 wrote:

anyone have any clue if the 757's BNA-ATL have been going out fill in the past couple days (granted the upgrade just started)

I think 199 pax should be able to be filled quite easily.

I think we will all be very interested to see the LF’s on all the ATL flights, both WN and DL. Especially once the WN new-flight specials all end.

pdt2f wrote:

gsg013 wrote:

anyone have any clue if the 757's BNA-ATL have been going out fill in the past couple days (granted the upgrade just started)

I think 199 pax should be able to be filled quite easily.

I think we will all be very interested to see the LF’s on all the ATL flights, both WN and DL. Especially once the WN new-flight specials all end.

I think both carriers can co-exist on the route, but I think DL will eventually pull back some of the 757 service. For quite awhile it was almost all M88, so I would not be surprised to see the A220 make an appearance at BNA down the line a bit.

pdt2f wrote:

gsg013 wrote:

anyone have any clue if the 757's BNA-ATL have been going out fill in the past couple days (granted the upgrade just started)

I think 199 pax should be able to be filled quite easily.

I think we will all be very interested to see the LF’s on all the ATL flights, both WN and DL. Especially once the WN new-flight specials all end.

I think both carriers can co-exist on the route, but I think DL will eventually pull back some of the 757 service. For quite awhile it was almost all M88, so I would not be surprised to see the A220 make an appearance at BNA down the line a bit.

Interesting I was looking and i do see that they may swap away from the 757's with some other aircrafts with slightly less seating capacity.. I do see some 737-900er on the route and a321 on the route... we will see what happens... anyhows always nice for them to shift away from the MD-88s or T-tails when they can

BNA has an announcement at 10am tomorrow. I have a feeling it could be WS to YVR.

southwest1675 wrote:

BNA has an announcement at 10am tomorrow. I have a feeling it could be WS to YVR.

Probably F9 related, they have had a string of 10am announcements dating back to last week. But I may be wrong

Midwestindy wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

BNA has an announcement at 10am tomorrow. I have a feeling it could be WS to YVR.

Probably F9 related, they have had a string of 10am announcements dating back to last week. But I may be wrong

Currently its between WestJet, Frontier, Allegiant, or Aer Lingus. Any more guesses?

Balloonchaser wrote:

Midwestindy wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

BNA has an announcement at 10am tomorrow. I have a feeling it could be WS to YVR.

Probably F9 related, they have had a string of 10am announcements dating back to last week. But I may be wrong

Currently its between WestJet, Frontier, Allegiant, or Aer Lingus. Any more guesses?

I think Sun Country extended their schedule today so I will throw it in the ring also.

Midwestindy wrote:

southwest1675 wrote:

BNA has an announcement at 10am tomorrow. I have a feeling it could be WS to YVR.

Probably F9 related, they have had a string of 10am announcements dating back to last week. But I may be wrong

Awesome. Maybe F9 should go ahead and cancel 20-30% of these new flights to get ahead of the game.

enrila's weekly OAG update shows F9 adding some frequency to DEN, LAS, PHL, MCO, RSW, and TTN but I thought those were already announced. Can't see MNAA making a special announcement over that. I'll go with Southwest1675 and say WS adding seasonal service to YVR.

EvanWSFO wrote:

enrila's weekly OAG update shows F9 adding some frequency to DEN, LAS, PHL, MCO, RSW, and TTN but I thought those were already announced. Can't see MNAA making a special announcement over that. I'll go with Southwest1675 and say WS adding seasonal service to YVR.

Those routes were announced a while ago, the OAG represented F9 extending its schedule. CLE had many routes mentioned on that OAG thread, and just had an announcement today. It's too early to announce YVR anyway, BNA-YYC was announced in Jan for a May start

A lot of people on social media are speculating that they will need to get their passport renewed.. Aer Lingus? WOW? Air France/KLM? Lufthansa? Iceland Air?

Or could it just be the General F9 spark announcement (We have seen RSW, FLL, TPA, etc the past few days)

Midwestindy wrote:

EvanWSFO wrote:

enrila's weekly OAG update shows F9 adding some frequency to DEN, LAS, PHL, MCO, RSW, and TTN but I thought those were already announced. Can't see MNAA making a special announcement over that. I'll go with Southwest1675 and say WS adding seasonal service to YVR.

Those routes were announced a while ago, the OAG represented F9 extending its schedule. CLE had many routes mentioned on that OAG thread, and just had an announcement today. It's too early to announce YVR anyway, BNA-YYC was announced in Jan for a May start

To add to this, F9 on that thread is usually off. I usually don't pay attention to the F9 changes on it.
It is weird that F9 (and even some of the airports) didn't announce the adds today. You would think they would have added all the new adds to the system today and not some today and some tomorrow.