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Indy

Posted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 05:10:02 am

Indy
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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

It is almost 5am and it is time for my weekly edition of Wild Speculation. Ok maybe it isn't a weekly edition but it should be. Smile

As you may or may not know the Indianapolis International Airport is getting a new belly cargo facility.

http://www.indairport.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1253

What is that? Short and sweet version is that belly cargo (in this case) will be what gets loaded into the belly of a commercial flight. This is not the cargo that gets loaded into the Fedex flights or Cargolux flights. This would be the type of service that Southwest Airlines would use for example. Currently Southwest is the #1 cargo carrier at IND for commercial airlines.

I've flown to Europe many times in my life. I've often sat in the terminal near the gate and watched the loading of cargo into the belly of a wide body jet. This is nothing like what you would see if you looked out the window at IND and watched one of those Southwest jets being loaded. It isn't an extra cart or two attached to the baggage tug. It isn't a bunch of boxes of mail being delivered on a USPS contract. In the thread I linked above I have included a link to a picture that shows what wide body belly cargo looks like. It often comes in containers that get raised up on a lift and then rolled into the belly of the jet. You might also find something that looks like pallets with boxes stacked on it and wrapped up. The bottom line is that loading cargo into a wide body jet is a much bigger operation than loading some boxes into the belly of a 737. It isn't just an extra cart on the tug. It is a series of large flatbed trailers carrying slide off containers and pallets. This takes much more space and equipment to operate.

So is this why we are getting the new cargo facility? Why the rush to build one now when air traffic at IND is down something like 12% from a year ago. Even Fedex is hurting with their numbers down quite a bit from 2008. There is going to be a mad rush to get bids in and get this project going and completed by June of 2010. What is significant about June? June does start the busy travel season. But we survived just fine this year. We survived just fine last year when traffic was higher. We did so well that the airlines didn't find it necessary to build the facility. Why the push? Safety? Again if safety were a concern wouldn't the facility have opened with the new terminal? June (and July) marks the month that new long haul routes start. If an airline were to start international service from Indianapolis to anywhere in Europe or Asia it would start in the early summer months. Maybe the big rush to get the cargo complex built is so that whoever starts the international service will have the cargo facility available to handle the daily loading of a 767 or A330 (200 series would be my guess).

Would an airline start international service from IND? Eventually. Is 2010 the year? Who knows. The economy is showing signs of turning around and we have a brand new airport with a great deal of real estate dedicated to international arrivals. The problem is we have one international flight a week that operates for about half the year. You can't dedicate that much space to 25 to 35 A320 flights a year. The airport needs to make better use of that space.

My thought was that Northwest Airlines would be the one to launch international service from IND. Then they merged with Delta. There is no telling how that would go. IND really pushes the limits of the 757 for TATL service. LHR is the major airport within a comfortable range. AMS would be pushing the limits. Having used the MEM facilities for an international flight I had felt that maybe some day IND would take the AMS flight from them and become the new gateway in the NW/DL network. No offense to people in Memphis but the international arrivals and departure experience is pretty sad. I don't see how it could leave a good impression on NW/DL customers. Especially those visiting the U.S. Is this what you want the first impression to be?

Long range scheduling (June 2010) shows some interesting things for IND. Keep in mind June is very far out and much of this can change. It could be the product of an incomplete schedule. The source of this information is NOT nwa.com, delta.com or any other public site. I'm sorry but I can't reveal where this came from. But right now it looks like we may be losing routes like BOS, LGA, JFK, RDU, LAS and DCA. Among other changes it looks like DTW will go from 8 flights a day down to 6 and MEM will go to 4 daily from 3. The MEM flights will be all mainline. The change marks a pretty big change in the number of seats to and from MEM. Lets consider what this could mean.

DTW is mostly feed. If you look at faremeasure.com you'll see the number of people traveling to and from Detroit daily is low. Less than 200. Far less than the number of seats on that route. I doubt anyone here would disagree with most of the DTW service being feed even if you've disagreed with everything else I've said so far. If IND were to get TATL service that would reduce the number of people flying to DTW daily. No need to connect them in DTW anymore when they are flying nonstop to Europe. If they were planning on selling 150 tickets a day on a TATL flight that would pretty much eliminate the need for a DC9 and a CRJ to DTW. But what about the MEM increase? What if the additional seats between IND and MEM were meant to serve people flying MEM-IND-AMS/CDG? If they were planning on feeding up 100 people a day that would certainly account for the addition of a 4th flight. Also if IND had international service it would also diminish the need for service to JFK which is a gateway airport to Europe.

The MEM-AMS flight was always a heavy feed flight. The local market couldn't support the flight in the best of times. Supporting that flight in these tough economic times is even harder. Then of course you look at the condition of the facilities and it is hard to imagine Delta wanting to keep that route around. We have Memphis easily beat on market size and condition of facilities. Would we replace MEM as a gateway? Probably not. We may however become an international spoke to a European hub like AMS or CDG.

Or this could just be a cargo facility and nothing happens. If anything is going to happen we should know by the end of November.

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Indy

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 02:41:01 am

Indy
Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

BTW this is what the IAA had to say about cargo and using it as a means to landing more passenger international service.

Mr. Dooley stated that IAA has been trying to increase its cargo business. International cargo business is up 16%, because of Cargolux and some occasional international cargo commerce. Domestic cargo and IAAĆ¢??s landed weight increased slightly. IAA is trying to attract more international cargo service. There has been a lot of effort put into the Asian side of the market. IAA is working closely with ACI, an international air service committee. IAA believes cargo is the way to get their foot in the door to eventually get additional international passenger service in the future. The Asian markets are those markets in the future that will get rights to fly into the U.S., so IAA has been working with the U.S. government to make sure Indianapolis is one of the airports that they can fly into. IAAĆ¢??s focus has not been on domestic service or carriers, because when they get additional rights to fly into Asia they will use their own hubs not IAA. IAA is also working with European markets because there are growth opportunities for cargo service there as well.

http://www.indy.gov/eGov/Counc...mmittee/Minutes/munimin226.pdf

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Indy

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 02:54:10 am

Indy
Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Here is my top 3 routes. Will any of these happen? No telling.

#1 Delta 767 service to Paris - CDG
#2 KLM 747 combi service to Amsterdam - AMS
#3 JAL 767-300ER service to Tokyo

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Indy

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 05:56:52 pm

Indy
Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Tokyo is on the list as a hub airport and backed up by the idea that Japanese corporations have set up over 200 plants in Indiana since the 1980's.

http://www.indystar.com/articl...for+jobs++state+turns+to+China


Remote Image

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shebalso/3398073328/

Tokyo is the ideal hub for connections to China.

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Indy

Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2009 07:28:24 pm

Indy
Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Notes about CDG service.

Eli Lilly has a plant in Paris
Pfizer which has a plant in Terre Haute also has one in Paris
Cummins has the HQ in Columbus and a plant in Lyon, France. (The train ride from CDG to Lyon is 2hr 11min)

Cargo between IND and France would seem to be a likely tool for subsidizing this flight if it were to happen.

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Fit2Fly

Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 11:32:29 am


Member

Joined: 28 Apr 2008
Posts: 157
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Air France could be a possibility too. I believe the landing fees and taxes are cheaper here in IND as opposed to ORD

Indy

Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 05:05:49 pm

Indy
Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Plus I think everyone would expect whichever airline that starts the route to receive some pretty sweet incentives.

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