Site Admin

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

7E72004 brought this up to me in an email. How will IND handle growth until late 2008? About a year ago it came up that IND may need to add an additional gate to cope with growth. This was when traffic was soaring to the lofty number of 8 million passengers served. 2005 ends with 8.6 million served and the strain grows. How will growth for the next 2.5 years be handled? Provided that no airlines fail or unexpectedly pull out of IND we could be looking at passenger numbers in the area of 9.5 mil per year by the time the new terminal opens. How will IND cope with the possibility of an additional million passengers per year moving through it?

Member

Joined: 27 Jun 2005
Posts: 333
Location: St. Louis, MO

such growth can already be contained in its current capacity.

well, you already have two gates in the C Concourse that are empty. and not all of the D gates are being used.

Frontier could easily add another two or three flights a day from the gate it uses feeding its Denver operation.

same for Skywest.

American and Delta aren't hogging up all of B Concourse and could both expand flights there by a good 30%, not to mention sending all mainline to and from Chicago. Delta can put mainline back into Cincinnati.

United has room and the 757's to toss them onto the Indianapolis routes.

Northwest has 8 gates in the A Concourse but isn't exactly using all of them at the moment especially since Denver is not coming back and other flights such as Dallas, Austin, Phoenix, etc. have been pulled. Some flights to La Guardia or Washington can go to mainline.

Two empty gates in the C Concourse means another carrier could begin services or if Air Tran goes beyond 20 flights a day, there's a good strong possibility they will be taking those gates.

Continental can toss mainline onto its connection routes.

Site Admin

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

The problem I see is that the majority of traffic comes in 3 waves. The morning rush is pretty much at capacity. I know when I catch a late flight in it looks as if just about all gates are full and jets are even parked away from the terminal. Not sure how the other two banks are. Not sure adding bigger jets in the AM is the way to go since the ticketing area is packed and the lines at security are long. Its like they really need to split the load up into 4 banks instead of 3.

Member

Joined: 27 Jun 2005
Posts: 333
Location: St. Louis, MO

well, Indianapolis is a non hub airport, so you are going to have the major banks no matter what. this is what the facilities were used for, so why not use them to their full potential?

you will always have the 530a-7am major rush when every gate has a plane parked at it. following the wave you have the second "aftershock" as the parked planes are towed in and sent out for departure.

you'll have a second major wave mid day and another one about 5pm or so, as all the planes take off for the international destinations and the last connecting flights of the day, with a little "aftershock" again for the west bound connecting flights.

i've gone out of Indy many times on the morning rush and i find it to be one of the most exciting parts about the trip is all the people rushing and scrambling everywhere. makes the "sleepy ole midwest" really come allive for the out of towners experiencing it.

Site Admin

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

So the problem becomes filling in the gaps. Since hub flights are unlikely to change you'd have to get a carrier like NW, WN or FL to add more flights. Point to point flights would be the only thing that could fill in the gaps. Unless a few airlines go with a rolling hub. That way departure times could be spread out more. NW really has the most room to grow. Though with their diminishing quality of service you may be hard pressed to find people willing to fly them with AirTran now a player here. AirTran (FL) is obviously going to expand here more. I think they will do a good job to fill 2 more gates in the next 12 months. Southwest (WN) isn't going to do much. They have a decent load for their 2 gates. I don't see Frontier doing much besides maybe adding another DEN flight. Unless they decide to offer some point to point service out of IND (besides CUN) which seems unlikely at this time.

Member

Joined: 27 Jun 2005
Posts: 333
Location: St. Louis, MO

I doubt we'll be seeing any point to point flights from anybody other than Air Tran or Northwest. That's just the way it is going to be. The growth
will have to be sustained through fleet upgrades. Continental could potentially triple their business from IND if they'd go with 737's and fill them up, coming on the heels of a number of passenger increases, of course.

US Airways could also add another flight or two to Phoenix and upgrade their fleet sizes into Philadelphia going back to all 737's. Same with Charlotte. I'm surprised they haven't at least with Charlotte, as of yet.