NEWS: AirTran Grabs a Little Midway

AirTran is taking up some of the slack created by ATA's departure from Chicago-Midway airport adding service to both Minneapolis-St. Paul and Boston. You will recall that Southwest recently used its advantage with ATA to grab up another 4 gates at Midway in preparation for their own expansion in that market. Southwest's advantage lies in the fact that they own about 30% of ATA via a loan to keep the airline afloat in bankruptcy.

NEWS: LAX Expansion Plans Get the Smack Down

An $11 billion dollar LAX modernization plan has been halted by a tenacious grassroots effort. After 10 years of planning and court battles LAX has conceded and agreed to a deal that will limit passengers served and will actually reduce the number of gates at the airport. $150 million has already been poured into the planning of the project and now its back to the drawing board. The question in my mind is, what does this do to the plans to rework LAX for the Airbus A380? LAX is already under pressure from future A380 operators that are threatening to take their business elsewhere if the airport cannot keep needed improvements on schedule.

NEWS: No A380's For Atlanta Airport

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (what a mouthful) has announced that they do not intend to make the necessary modifications to deal with the massive Airbus A380. The reaction from Airbus was a predictable equivalent of "yeah...well...we never wanted to land there anyway". In the mean time its reported that Airbus is leaning on some airports to get moving on preparations for the aircraft. To give you some perspective Orlando International Airport will spend $20 million dollars to upgrade taxiways and facilities to accomodate the behemoth. $20 million to be blessed with the opportunity to try and service 500-800 people dropped on your door step all at once. No thanks.

Finally, I'd like to note that tucked away in my January Archive is a post titled "The A380 Gamble" where I ask the question, "How many of them [airports] will decide its just not worth it?" The answer, so far, is at least one.