Lambert-St Louis International Airport is a hub without an airline. It has been struggling with the dramatic drop in traffic since TWA went under and American slowly culled the remains, and now it’s trying to reconfigure itself to be a smaller airport. That’s not something you see very often.
Just a few years ago, St Louis was the major hub of TWA. Traffic was booming and they even saw a need to build a new runway. Now that runway has proven to be completely unnecessary. American plucked TWA out of bankruptcy and has done nothing but shrink St Louis since. The halls of concourses C and D used to be packed full of travelers. Now, as I discovered when I flew through St Louis on American in December, D is nearly empty and C is fading fast. So here’s the new plan:
Not much is changing on Concourse A. That’s the home of the “other” airlines. Nobody is moving in or out over there. But there are a few stragglers currently scattered that will be consolidated on C. Concourse B will basically be shut as the last tenant, AirTran, will move into a space in C where American used to be. Concourse D is already cut off just a few gates in, but now the rest will be closed as well. Frontier and Cape Air will move over to C and that’s where Midwest will go when it starts service. Concourse E, which is part of a separate terminal and isn’t connected to the rest of the airport, will continue to be the home of Southwest. That’s the liveliest part of the airport these days, and it’s the newest part as well.
Back in concourses A and C, $50 million in renovations will take place. There will be new lighting, paint, and restrooms to give them a newer look. There will also be new restrooms and ticket counters in the main terminal area. They’ll be raising ceilings and increasing natural light throughout to give it a more modern feel.
Basically, they’re bringing an old terminal up to par while trying to seal off the past. That’s a painful thing to go through, I imagine.
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30 Comments on "St Louis: The Incredible Shrinking Airport"
How to mothball an airport. Were it not for American Eagle and SunCountry operating out of Terminal B at DFW that facility would be all but dead in the water as well. Terminal B was once the hub of Braniff and it has seen numerous iterations since as well, including the original FIS facility for the entire airport.
Maybe TWA would have been better off merging with America West. Come to think about it, maybe America West would have been better off merging with TWA instead of buying out US AIrways.
it is a sad chapter for a storied airport. it seems daffy to cut off one terminal from another, too. i’m glad Lambert got props in Up in the Air, at least.
Barry,
Many airports have separate terminals. LAX is probably the best example, but MSP and DTW also fit the bill too.
The drop-off sounds very much like what’s happened in Pittsburgh…one of the best, user friendly airports in the country is underwhelmed with traffic..
Which airports are next in line for this kind of sad drop-off in traffic and de-hubinization (just invented a word): MEM, CVG, MSP…. others?
BF wrote:
Cranky will correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure, but I seem to remember Delta promising (yeah yeah, I know…) to maintain MSP as a hub, something they haven’t necessarily said about CVG and MEM.
If STL fathers had the fore-thought they embrace this opportunity to demo and rebuild B and D…then when complete do the same to A and C. Lots of money, no doubt, but at times it helps to build with a vision instead of a need. It would also likely be a cost savings as opposed to building an entirely new airport when things start getting cramped.
MIchael in MKE wrote:
I knew it was something like that. Should be interesting to see what happens then. Or by then since 6 yrs is a long time in the airline biz.
Do you remember how long that Transworld flight from St. Louis to Honolulu took? We flew from St Louis to Honolulu in the summer of 1990, and I remember the flight being ~ 6hrs. My coworkers think I’m crazy.
Jenny – Can’t say whether you’re crazy or not, but it’s definitely a lot longer than that. LA to Honolulu is about 5 hours. When Chicago air traffic control had trouble last week, United’s Honolulu-Chicago flight diverted to St Louis. That one took 7 hours and 43 minutes.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL218/history/20140926/0525Z/PHNL/KSTL
It would be more going westbound.
Ryan B wrote:
Carl Ichan wasn’t the first corporate raider in the airline business and I’m sure there are more to come. That said, I would not discount the effect that Flight 800 had on the airline.
@Eric, MPLS has not faired well in this last recession. It hasn’t been as bad as in some areas but it hasn’t gone untouched. That would be Texas (more specifically Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, McAllen and a few others) In fact, it’s experienced a bit of a brain drain during this last decade.
Since AA & UA are hubbed at ORD & DL wants to serve the same area of the upper midwest, it stands to reason that MSP would be the logicle place for Dl to have a hub. Also it is possible to divert some international flights from DTW to MSP. On the other hand DTW can be viewed as an alternate to ORD with it’s large number of flights overseas. That is where CVG, MEM & SLC come up short.
@ Allen:
sorry Allen, i should have put more emphasis on ‘relatively’. I (was) moved from Minni to DC in 06 and some friends back there have indicated things are tougher. I didnt mean to minimize anything.
Reminds me of whats happened in Pittsburgh which was once a hub of US Airways that had hundreds of flights a day including transatlantic and is now shrunk immensely with some areas even boarded off. Perhaps not as bad as STL but PIT seems so empty these days with such few passengers the airport is never crowded.
CK wrote:
I never did understand why US had a large operation in PIT, PHL, BWI when they are so close to each other.
Going from Louisville to LAX….St. Louis was always the quickest route and best hub city….much better than ORD, DFW or ATL