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Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:39 am
by usxguy
Living in Juneau, Alaska - with its population of 35,000 and regional population not nearly that much - I've always been interested as to why/how Alaska Airlines maintains so much service here, especially with 737s. When Alaska first got the E175s, many of us in town thought we'd get these jets, but so far, not yet. I fly a bit too much for work, and my flights are either packed to the gills or empty as sin. And we get a nice bump of traffic in the winter with the Legislature in session (lobbyists, legislators, aides, etc). Flight up Wednesday AM had about as much of us in First Class than in Main Cabin (on a 737-800), it was continuing on to Yakutat and was booked to 30ish as well. My flight on Sunday has about 40 open seats (to Seattle).
In the "off" season, for instance, tomorrow Juneau has 1,647 seats available on Alaska Airlines; 3 flights to Anchorage, 3 to Seattle; 1 milkrun to Yakutat/Cordova/Anchorage; 1 flight to Ketchikan/Seattle; 1 milkrun to Petersburg/Wrangell/Ketchikan/Seattle, 1 flight Sitka/Ketchikan/Seattle, and 1 evening to Sitka.
(busy season is even more; 1 extra to Anchorage, and I believe 2 extra to Seattle).
Do any other cities of nearly the same population see so much "mainline" flights?
Even Whitehorse to the north gets 2 CRJ 900s to Vancouver on AC, 2 daily 737-400/500s to YVR on Air North; nearly daily 737 round-robin to Calgary/Edmonton on Air North; and 3x a week to Yellowknife/Ottawa. Whitehorse's population is only 10,000 less than Juneau; both are "population" hubs for their regions.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most/largest flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:02 am
by c933103
Kangerlussuaq Airport? Not as much seats but also far fewer people in the area
Edit: The problem with this thread's title is that you listed two "most" criteria which would make it hard to balance between
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:04 am
by usxguy
adjusted a bit
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:11 am
by Dominion301
Yellowknife, which is about the same size as Whitehorse, gets a lot of jet service too, as does Iqaluit, population 7,000.
YZF has jets to YXY, YOW, YCB, YCO, YEG, Norman Wells/YEV and YRT/YFB and seasonally to YVR.
YFB has jets to YOW, YVP/YUL and YRT/YZF plus 767 freighters to YOW, YVP and YWG.
YXY has more service in summer too than listed above.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:25 am
by slcdeltarumd11
BTV Burlington Vermont actual city only has 42,260 people yet has a pretty healthy airport with 15 gates. Mainline and regional planes.
Now granted the majority of northern NY and northern Vermont all use that airport.
The ski airports for seasonal will win this one. EGE Vail small population yet lots of flights and big planes.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 6:27 am
by Chemist
Lots of tourism, at least in summer. I would guess lots of fish flying out as well?
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:13 am
by PatrickZ80
The village of Weeze (Germany) only has 10.611 inhabitants, but it does have an international airport and sees 737s on a daily basis. Thing is that this airport does not only serve Weeze but the wider region. Ryanair, the main airline at Weeze airport, calls this place Dusseldorf Weeze.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:18 am
by TR
Billund (pop 6.300) in Western Denmark has a high number of mostly international flights. AF, AY, BA, KL, LH, SK are the legacy carriers with quite extensive daily services. Norwegian, Ryanair, WizzAir are among the low cost carriers.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:27 am
by BartSimpson
PatrickZ80 wrote:The village of Weeze (Germany) only has 10.611 inhabitants, but it does have an international airport and sees 737s on a daily basis. Thing is that this airport does not only serve Weeze but the wider region. Ryanair, the main airline at Weeze airport, calls this place Dusseldorf Weeze.
I top that with the village of Hahn (pop. 188 according to Wikipedia). The airport (HHN) is served regularly by B737s and even B747 and AN124 freighters. It has even seen an AN225...
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:35 am
by SRQKEF
TR wrote:Billund (pop 6.300) in Western Denmark has a high number of mostly international flights. AF, AY, BA, KL, LH, SK are the legacy carriers with quite extensive daily services. Norwegian, Ryanair, WizzAir are among the low cost carriers.
It also serves Vejle and other parts of Yutland though. Keflavik itself is only 5,000 people or so, but the thing is KEF also serves Reykjavik which is 40km away by car. Otherwise KEF would probably top this list with its 98 international destinations, some of them multiple daily and all but 4 served with jets (BHD, ABZ, UAK and SFJ are exceptions).
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:50 am
by qf744fan
Paro, in Bhutan would have to be a contender. Its population is only 15,000 and there aren't a huge number of flights, but I believe the terrain around the field necessitates 100% jet ops.
Happy for this comment to be deleted if I'm mistaken.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 8:55 am
by oslmgm
I think most small cities in Norway have a higher rate of flights/population than Juneau.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:00 am
by oslmgm
qf744fan wrote:Paro, in Bhutan would have to be a contender. Its population is only 15,000 and there aren't a huge number of flights, but I believe the terrain around the field necessitates 100% jet ops.
Happy for this comment to be deleted if I'm mistaken.
Maybe similar situation to Svalbard: Population 2100 and typically 2 daily 737s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_ ... ,_Longyear
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:52 am
by Aliqiout
usxguy wrote:adjusted a bit
But now you have smallest and most together, which is just as impossible to answer.
How can the population of of a region be less than it's principle city?
I think the question is only interesting if you consider the population served by an airport, not the size of the city it happens to be in. Otherwise it just becomes a game of finding the major airport that is in the incorporated area with the smallest population.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:06 am
by PA12
El Calafate, Argentina, pop. around 15k , múltiple 738’s and 320’s daily. Balmaceda, Chile, pop. 500, gets 319’s, 320’s, 321’s, and avro 85’s I think, daily.
Lots of airports in Canada and Alaska also.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 10:43 am
by FlyRow
Wouldn't be surpised if it was a Med-holiday island. Tons of traffic, virtually no large cities.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:14 pm
by slcdeltarumd11
KEF probably has the most international and long flights for a city of it's size.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:12 pm
by jetwet1
FlyRow wrote:Wouldn't be surpised if it was a Med-holiday island. Tons of traffic, virtually no large cities.
Something like that or Las Vegas, city population is around 620,000, LAS had 48,500,000.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:16 pm
by airbazar
I just flew to Bozeman, MT (BZN), and there seemed to be a lot of jet service there from multiple airlines. The largest aircraft I saw there was a DL 757.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:21 pm
by Beechtobus
Let’s be real for a second, I don’t think we can consider Weeze, Keflavík, or Hahn, or anything like that. Sure, they are small cities but clearly the airport serves a nearby (or maybe not so nearby in Ryanair’s case) larger city.
I’m thinking Kona has to be up there regarding jet flights vs. population. Roughly 12000 people live there yet they have flights all over the Hawaiian islands, the mainland and to Tokyo.
The ski towns of Colorado and Wyoming have to be up there as well: Vail (pop 6000), Montrose (20,000), Gunnison (6000), Steamboat (12,000), Jackson Hole (10,000).
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:33 pm
by WaywardMemphian
Highfill AR
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:42 pm
by Beechtobus
jetwet1 wrote:FlyRow wrote:Wouldn't be surpised if it was a Med-holiday island. Tons of traffic, virtually no large cities.
Something like that or Las Vegas, city population is around 620,000, LAS had 48,500,000.
But the Metro area is around 2.3 million. I do imagine though, even with 2.3 million people, Vegas is pretty up there as far as jet seats to people.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:48 pm
by DLASFlyer
Jackson, Wyoming, population 10,529, flight schedule for tomorrow:
DL SEA E75
UA SFO E75
DL LAX CR7
UA LAX E75
DL SLC A319
DL SLC A319
UA DEN A319
UA DEN A320
UA DEN CR7
DL MSP A319
UA ORD 73G
UA ORD CR7
UA IAH 73G
AA DFW 319
AA DFW 319
DL ATL 752
DL ATL 752
DL JFK 752
UA EWR 73G
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:50 pm
by Amsterdam
Atlanta has the biggest airport in the world but has only a population of 400.000 people.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:52 pm
by AVLAirlineFreq
EGE (population 6,500) during the height of ski season would have to be up there as well.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:09 pm
by izbtmnhd
slcdeltarumd11 wrote:BTV Burlington Vermont actual city only has 42,260 people yet has a pretty healthy airport with 15 gates. Mainline and regional planes.
Now granted the majority of northern NY and northern Vermont all use that airport.
The ski airports for seasonal will win this one. EGE Vail small population yet lots of flights and big planes.
Doesn't a chunk of the metro Montreal population use BTV as well?
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:14 pm
by pdp
Stansted Mountfitchet has to be a contender. Traditional English village with a whacking great airport next door (because it's not within the M25 it doesn't count as London to me).
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:33 pm
by izbtmnhd
Amsterdam wrote:Atlanta has the biggest airport in the world but has only a population of 400.000 people.
A little deceptive IMHO. Metro Atlanta has 6+ million people whereas Burlington, VT and Jackson, WY, for examples, don't have much outside of their city limits. If we're talking just population within city limits there are a lot of mid-sized North American cities that can be leading contenders for this list.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:39 pm
by 225623
pdp wrote:Stansted Mountfitchet has to be a contender. Traditional English village with a whacking great airport next door (because it's not within the M25 it doesn't count as London to me).
But it does not matter how you count it.
For everybody else it is one of the London airports because it serves the London metropolitan area.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:44 pm
by tjwgrr
izbtmnhd wrote:Amsterdam wrote:Atlanta has the biggest airport in the world but has only a population of 400.000 people.
A little deceptive IMHO. Metro Atlanta has 6+ million people whereas Burlington, VT and Jackson, WY, for examples, don't have much outside of their city limits. If we're talking just population within city limits there are a lot of mid-sized North American cities that can be leading contenders for this list.
Romulus, MI (DTW) population 23,281. 34+ million pax, and almost 400,000 flight ops / year.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:47 pm
by Dominion301
Amsterdam wrote:Atlanta has the biggest airport in the world but has only a population of 400.000 people.
Not counting the metropolitan population of a city is just ridiculous. By that accord, LHR, LGW, LCY, STN and LTN all serve the City of London, population 9,401.
Although trying to define the most-to-smallest ratio is also kinda ridiculous as some ski resort towns or sun destinations, as cited above have ridiculous swings in seasonality in terms of service levels.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:48 pm
by hOMSaR
qf744fan wrote:Paro, in Bhutan would have to be a contender. Its population is only 15,000 and there aren't a huge number of flights, but I believe the terrain around the field necessitates 100% jet ops.
Happy for this comment to be deleted if I'm mistaken.
I can’t speak to current operations, but I know I saw an ATR there in a hangar when I was there three years ago. IIRC, the DrukAir magazine also listed the ATR in its fleet.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:51 pm
by 225623
oslmgm wrote:I think most small cities in Norway have a higher rate of flights/population than Juneau.
I was in Alta (ALF) last year, a nice little town in Northern Norway with about 20,000 people. But the airport has multiple 737 flights a day to Oslo and Tromsø with SAS and Norwegian plus Widerøe connecting to a lot of other and sometimes much smaller places.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:01 pm
by Dominion301
SNN evidently needs to be in this discussion. Shannon itself is only 10,000 people, but SNN is essentially the international airport for all of western Ireland.
Ditto for NAN. Nadi itself is only 42k, but Lautoka only 20km away is an additional 52k population, and NAN is of course Fiji's only major international airport.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:17 pm
by pdp
ei146 wrote:pdp wrote:Stansted Mountfitchet has to be a contender. Traditional English village with a whacking great airport next door (because it's not within the M25 it doesn't count as London to me).
But it does not matter how you count it.
For everybody else it is one of the London airports because it serves the London metropolitan area.
Using that logic you could count EMA as Birmingham Derby Airport as it does serve the metropolitan area of the West Midlands
Also, ask anyone where a lot of the London airports where they are and they won't say London... Luton being a great example as it's also a very tenuous link to London!
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:53 pm
by usxguy
Dominion301 wrote:SNN evidently needs to be in this discussion. Shannon itself is only 10,000 people, but SNN is essentially the international airport for all of western Ireland.
Ditto for NAN. Nadi itself is only 42k, but Lautoka only 20km away is an additional 52k population, and NAN is of course Fiji's only major international airport.
Shannon is that small?!?! Wow.
On the flipside, look at the EAS program (essential air service) in the US and some cities of populations near 100,000 only get 3 to 6 flights a day in a Cessna Caravan or 402C...
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:54 pm
by evank516
Key West sees many E170/E175s and regular service on 737s as well (Delta is nearly all mainline during some parts of the year). They're a tiny island, but the tourism industry is booming there. Not to mention they weren't severely affected by Irma like the other Keys to the north and east. Oh, and this is all done on a 4,801 foot runway. Their population is 26,990 as of 2016.
Daytona Beach is another one. AA aside DL flies aircraft ranging from the MD-88 all the way to the 757 at certain times of year from ATL and B6 has the daily A320 from JFK. Population is 66,645 as of 2016.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 5:42 pm
by ucdtim17
usxguy wrote:Shannon is that small?!?! Wow.
All populations in Ireland look tiny compared to most other countries. Dublin is the major capital and it's only 550k. Everything else would qualify as a small-to-medium sized town in the US.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 7:37 pm
by Dominion301
ucdtim17 wrote:usxguy wrote:Shannon is that small?!?! Wow.
All populations in Ireland look tiny compared to most other countries. Dublin is the major capital and it's only 550k. Everything else would qualify as a small-to-medium sized town in the US.
Well that's the city proper, which as mentioned several times is not a true indicator of a city's size. Metro Dublin is 1.3 million or 1.9 million depending upon your definition of the city's suburbs. In other words, it's similar in size to Auckland and proportional to what Auckland is to New Zealand.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 9:21 pm
by 77H
The towns KOA, LIH and OGG are located in all have less than 30K residents on the high end though of course they each serve entire islands all with populations over 150K.
77H
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 10:06 am
by SCQ83
Ibiza would be a good contender. 150,000 the island, 50,000 the capital.
Those are the scheduled departures for today, February 10th, ultra low-season (no codeshares included). In August 2017, IBZ had 10 times the traffic of February 2017, so a typical July/August day would easily be up to 10 times what is scheduled today:
IB 8101 Iberia (PMI) Palma Mallorca 7:30 AM
UX 1701 Air Europa (PMI) Palma Mallorca 7:35 AM
IB 8905 Iberia (ALC) Alicante 7:35 AM
FR 8137 Ryanair (BCN) Barcelona 8:20 AM
VY 3541 Vueling (BCN) Barcelona 8:35 AM
VY 3529 Vueling (MAD) Madrid 8:55 AM
FR 5355 Ryanair (MAD) Madrid 8:55 AM
IB 8105 Iberia (PMI) Palma Mallorca 9:25 AM
UX 1703 Air Europa (PMI) Palma Mallorca 9:55 AM
BA 8462 British Airways (LCY) London 10:40 AM
IB 8441 Iberia (VLC) Valencia 12:25 PM
VY 3537 Vueling (BCN) Barcelona 1:40 PM
UX 6024 Air Europa (MAD) Madrid 2:20 PM
IB 8909 Iberia (MAD) Madrid 2:35 PM
IB 8103 Iberia (PMI) Palma Mallorca 2:35 PM
UX 1707 Air Europa (PMI) Palma Mallorca 3:10 PM
IB 8127 Iberia (PMI) Palma Mallorca 3:40 PM
IB 8923 Iberia (MAD) Madrid 5:20 PM
IB 8125 Iberia (PMI) Palma Mallorca 5:20 PM
FR 7217 Ryanair (VLC) Valencia 5:30 PM
FR 8842 Ryanair (BCN) Barcelona 5:40 PM
VY 2425 Vueling (SVQ) Sevilla 5:40 PM
IB 8437 Iberia (VLC) Valencia 6:20 PM
IB 8117 Iberia (PMI) Palma Mallorca 7:40 PM
UX 1711 Air Europa (PMI) Palma Mallorca 8:00 PM
HV 6514 Transavia (EIN) Eindhoven 8:20 PM
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2018 2:29 am
by stl07
I think pretty much everywhere in SE Alaska/surrounding Candian area wins due to tourism and lack of roads (esp Juneau, Ketchikan ect.)
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 12:09 am
by XNA2ASG
XNA, Northwest Arkansas has quite the number of flights/destinations for our population. Walmart, Tyson, JB Hunt and some other companies have there headquarters in the area which makes up most of our traffic. We are one of the smallest airports to have service to LAX and SFO (year-round) and they are 3/4 hour flights. We also have New York 4/5X daily, (UAX to EWR and AE/Delta Connection to LGA). As well, DCA. CVG too cause of business for Walmart.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 1:37 am
by USAOZ
EGE ? Just there & very busy with corporate jets + AA, UA + AC from Canada etc.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:23 pm
by IADCA
As others have mentioned, if you're being honest about something and counting the actual catchment area for an airport rather than a municipal boundary (e.g., claiming that CDG serves the commune of Roissy - population ~3,000), it's almost certainly going to be a tourist destination that takes this crown. For example, ATL has over 100,000,000 annual passengers but serves an MSA with a population of roughly 5.7 million, or roughly 18-19 passengers per resident. ZQN, for example, serves a town and suburbs with roughly 30,000 residents but has over 1.4 million annual passengers - over 45 passengers for every resident and has international service on 3 or 4 different airlines, depending on how wants to count JQ/QF.
Re: Smallest "city" with the most or largest # of jet flights?
Posted: Thu Feb 22, 2018 3:13 am
by RamblinMan
usxguy wrote:Living in Juneau, Alaska - with its population of 35,000 and regional population not nearly that much - I've always been interested as to why/how Alaska Airlines maintains so much service here, especially with 737s. When Alaska first got the E175s, many of us in town thought we'd get these jets, but so far, not yet.
Get in your car and try to drive to Seattle and you'll understand the need for the disproportionately high service levels real quick. Seriously, you live there and you're wondering why so much air service? Simple...it's just about the only way in and out.
I don't know much about the E-jets, but the fact they haven't been deployed there may have to do with the approach to JNU, which requires maneuvering down a fjord which often gets fogged in. IIRC Alaska Air invested in some special equipment on the 737s which allow them to make this approach in low visibility. The E175 may not be capable.