Pulling Out Of Fort Lauderdale

[NYPD]

Just a rumor at this point, but it comes from a "reliable source". Nothing official, but if it's true, it shows just how lame-brain our senior management is.

Word has it, that the FLL airport is just not able to handle the traffic or the U.S. Customs volumn from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Hmm.

 

[speedbird86]

Let's hope it's rumor. I'd hate to think all that wasn't planned ahead of time.
Is the air traffic the problem or passenger traffic?

 

[Walmartgreeter]

Word has it, that the FLL airport is just not able to handle the traffic or the U.S. Customs volumn from the Caribbean and Latin America.

DOH!

 

[tadjr]

We were supposed to be giving up 2 gates in TPA, but I also hear that that is on hold because we couldnt decide exactly what we wanted to do with them. Neither one is an international gate though. We currently have 3 international gates under our control in TPA with AA having 1 and 2 for airport use (BA/KX/WS/Charters). I dont know how easy it would be for the airport to add international gates to our current jetways since our ops dept is between 2 of them and the imm/customs area. I guess an elevated walkway or redesign of the ops area could accommodate more international gates. 2 of our current gates could easily be transformed to international since the walkway to imm/customs is right below them. All they would need to do would be to build a ramp from the top of the jetway down the outside of the current building to connect with the facilities.
Also, a new terminal is opening in TPA sometime in April or May that will open up gates when WN moves. They might be able to persuade AA to move to A terminal opening up 3 other gates for our use (1 intl 2 domestic).
I wouldnt hold my breath on any of it though if the main purpose of the FLL ops was hub PLUS VFF traffic. TPA does have some, but not enough VFF traffic except to a couple of cities currently served south from FLL.
Even though the thought of getting full time back if this occured is nice, I dont know if I want to work in an international hub city as the trade off. :unsure:

 

[delldude]

heard they wasted 11 million on FLL....duh 😉

 

[EyeInTheSky]

heard they wasted 11 million on FLL....duh 😉

[post="254878"][/post]​

Yeah, and we wasted 7 million on Segal. What's he doing now? He's in FLL only this time he's in charge of counting flying bagels.

 

[crazyincanton]

Here's another management mistake( i.e. metrojet, business select) that labor will end up paying for.

 

[JFK777]

Why pull the plug on FLL so soon after it opened? USAir is financially troubled now but was also when this was announced back in mid 2004. Latin Flying is exactly what US needs to diversify its international route system. FLL is the place to do.
Flying from PHL to Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo might work too, but that is an entirely different operation. Going to Brazil would be a good thing for US.

 

[Harry Callahan]

I'm sure A320 will light us up with the real story.
By thw way was told by a FLEO that FLL can't handle the intl traffic Customs & Immigration wise. Also TSA not staffed to handle it either. He also reported US was told of this in advance !

 

[Fatherknowsbest]

I would bet that Management forget to check these things out (TSA,Customs) before announcing their grand plan for 2005. I can hardly wait for the big Transformation Plan Part XIX next week! Bet everyone a beer it gets delayed.

 

[linemech]

Just a rumor at this point, but it comes from a "reliable source". Nothing official, but if it's true, it shows just how lame-brain our senior management is.

Word has it, that the FLL airport is just not able to handle the traffic or the U.S. Customs volumn from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Hmm.

[post="254854"][/post]​

If true, this is par for the course for this "highly talented" and highly paid management team.

Do they never tire of being laughed at by their peers in the airline and business community? :down:

Linemech

 

[bwipilot]

FLL departure and arrival traffic stinks. FLL has three runways but they only fully use one--and that's a stretch. 13/31 is a crossing runway that I've never seen used--probably only available for emergencies and shutdowns of the primary runway. 9R/27L is restricted to small aircraft for noise and marginal lenght: 5200'. Still, if all the small aircraft were made to land on 9R it'd help a lot--but tower and ATC don't seem fit to do so even with departure and arrival delays. Finally, 9L/27R handles 99% of the traffic. Tower has to fit departures between arrivals. At best the arrangement allows about 48 arrivals and 48 departures per hour. Alas, Miami approach sequences the arrivals and doesn't keep enough space between many arriving aircraft so tower doesn't launch between about 20% of arriving aircraft. Hence, FLL has a departure rate of about 38/hour during heavy arrival traffic. BIG lines form for a medium sized operation. Maybe U felt comfortable starting a new hub in the poor operational environment with all the experience at PHL 🙂

As for the facilities I'm sure the government and airport would be glad to improve them--if U were to pay for it. A Carribean hub is a good idea--FLL is a bad place.

If the above makes it sound like I don't like FLL's airport, then I did an OK job of posting :}

 

[N628AU]

Everyone is getting awfully worked up over rumors from "reliable sources".

 

[madders]

well if fll cannot handle the load both on a volume and custome/immigration poit of view how is it the fault of usairways..
If FLL said they could handle it seems to me they owe Usairways some form of compensation..

I flew out of fll a week ago and stood on the runway for 30 minutes before take off ..and daily there is some gdp in effect in fll due to volume

 

[jimntx]

well if fll cannot handle the load both on a volume and custome/immigration poit of view how is it the fault of usairways..
If FLL said they could handle it seems to me they owe Usairways some form of compensation..

I flew out of fll a week ago and stood on the runway for 30 minutes before take off ..and daily there is some gdp in effect in fll due to volume

[post="255040"][/post]​

As if who didn't know that FLL was a 1 runway operation with delay problems? It was a big conspiracy to hide the truth from US Airways management so that they would build transformation plan VII, v2, rls 3.4 around FLL.