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We are flying to Florida soon, family of 5. Would have loved to fly Breeze and out of HSV.
Except they only fly to/from our destination twice a week. They also leave Florida early in the morning so the plane can turn quickly and head to Vegas and back. That’s good for Vegas, but if you’re in Florida on vacation, the last thing I want to do is leave a day early at 8AM. Southwest had multiple non-stops every day out of Birmingham or Nashville.
What Breeze should do is fly the TPA-HSV route in the evening, park their jet overnight in HSV, then do the Vegas turn and burn and then back to Florida…. Rinse and repeat.
We are flying to Florida soon, family of 5. Would have loved to fly Breeze and out of HSV.
Except they only fly to/from our destination twice a week. They also leave Florida early in the morning so the plane can turn quickly and head to Vegas and back. That’s good for Vegas, but if you’re in Florida on vacation, the last thing I want to do is leave a day early at 8AM. Southwest had multiple non-stops every day out of Birmingham or Nashville.
What Breeze should do is fly the TPA-HSV route in the evening, park their jet overnight in HSV, then do the Vegas turn and burn and then back to Florida…. Rinse and repeat.
To give you greater options on days, you can fly to either Orlando or Tampa and fly back out of the other airport - I am assuming you're renting a car. In Florida, if you rent a car at one airport, you can drop it at another airport without paying a drop charge. - At least that was the way it was when I covered Florida for work several years ago. So, between the Orlando and Tampa airports, there is a flight to and from HSV Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday which gives you a little more flexibility provided you can still drop a car at a different airport without paying the drop charge.
Breeze is flying HSV only on Mondays and Fridays and the cheapest seat is $258.
They're wanting a minimum $24 to reserve a specific seat. Then they want $35 for the traveler to carry on a 21" rolling bag. Or, $40 to check the bag.
Spirit Airlines appears to be flying out of Nashville daily, and some round trips are so inexpensive that I couldn't believe it--$108. I can be sitting in the Nashville Airport in far less than 2 hours.
Spirit is sort of the Walmart of low cost carriers (and they have a lot of extra charges as well); Breeze is at least at the Target level. Even the big airlines now charge for bags.
Breeze is a fairly recent startup, and assuming success, will likely expand their schedules. All their planes are new.
We are flying to Florida soon, family of 5. Would have loved to fly Breeze and out of HSV.
Except they only fly to/from our destination twice a week. They also leave Florida early in the morning so the plane can turn quickly and head to Vegas and back. That’s good for Vegas, but if you’re in Florida on vacation, the last thing I want to do is leave a day early at 8AM. Southwest had multiple non-stops every day out of Birmingham or Nashville.
What Breeze should do is fly the TPA-HSV route in the evening, park their jet overnight in HSV, then do the Vegas turn and burn and then back to Florida…. Rinse and repeat.
I see your point, but that's not how Breeze runs things.
Their aircraft always spend the night at the aircraft's base, such as Charleston, Tampa, and Orlando. That allows the direct flights to work such as MCO-HSV-LAX.
And the crews are always back home at the end of the day. I expect that is a large quality of life thing. And maybe a decent savings for the airline.
To give you greater options on days, you can fly to either Orlando or Tampa and fly back out of the other airport - I am assuming you're renting a car. In Florida, if you rent a car at one airport, you can drop it at another airport without paying a drop charge. - At least that was the way it was when I covered Florida for work several years ago. So, between the Orlando and Tampa airports, there is a flight to and from HSV Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday which gives you a little more flexibility provided you can still drop a car at a different airport without paying the drop charge.
I once flew to Orlando really cheap on a budget airline.
The big rental car companies were offering their cars for $5.00 a day just to get them delivered one way anywhere north of Florida. The big Winter rush of tourists were over, and they preferred to let the cars be driven elsewhere instead of ordering more new cars to service locations farther north.
We ran around Orlando and then went to Daytona Beach, Savannah, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and deadheaded for Washington, DC. Turned the car into Baltimore and flew home on another budget airline. Good cheap vacation.
Someone was talking about airline schedules. Price is just part of the equation, and it doesn't always making a flight a great value. The time in the air and the time of day they take off and land is also important.
I don't want to fly to a city and arrive at 9:00 a.m.--when I cannot check into my hotel until 2:00-3:00 p.m. And I don't want to have to check out of a hotel at noon--and for my flight to leave at 10:00 p.m. I'm through with those red eye flights too--even if I'm landing at my home airport.
I fly regularly through HSV and have for the last decade because that's my destination. And I've flown from one end of the country to the other and have even driven my trip at one point (when it was cheaper and I was younger).
The reason I fly in direct is because I'm saving maybe like $50 going elsewhere, but then losing a lot of time, or just losing a lot of time even if the savings is more. HSV just is what it is based on supply, demand, and their own costs to manage.
I still remember back in the 1980s when HSV was far busier than today. There were 12 flights daily between HSV and ATL alone. And direct flights to London. Hell, the Concorde even landed here for a short time! I don't think HSV will ever see these levels of demand again short of something like what happened in the 1950s with the space race again transforms the city. There is definitely some transformation happening in the last few years as things have doubled in price and there's more people from all over, but it's going to take a lot more than that to bring high demand back to HSV like in its heyday. I really wish I would have went to the airport to see the Concorde when it was possible, but I was just a kid back then.
I fly regularly through HSV and have for the last decade because that's my destination. And I've flown from one end of the country to the other and have even driven my trip at one point (when it was cheaper and I was younger).
The reason I fly in direct is because I'm saving maybe like $50 going elsewhere, but then losing a lot of time, or just losing a lot of time even if the savings is more. HSV just is what it is based on supply, demand, and their own costs to manage.
I still remember back in the 1980s when HSV was far busier than today. There were 12 flights daily between HSV and ATL alone. And direct flights to London. Hell, the Concorde even landed here for a short time! I don't think HSV will ever see these levels of demand again short of something like what happened in the 1950s with the space race again transforms the city. There is definitely some transformation happening in the last few years as things have doubled in price and there's more people from all over, but it's going to take a lot more than that to bring high demand back to HSV like in its heyday. I really wish I would have went to the airport to see the Concorde when it was possible, but I was just a kid back then.
I didn't see the Concorde at the airport, but saw it do its flyover as it was leaving. Pretty impressive and very loud. Not sure how long after that it ran over a piece of metal on the runway (in Paris, I think), which blew the tire, when then penetrated a fuel tank and resulted in a huge fire and subsequent crash.
Back in the 1980s, HSV had two concourses (blue and gold, as I recall) but not nearly the passenger count it has today. There were no jet bridges at the airport at the time.
I didn't see the Concorde at the airport, but saw it do its flyover as it was leaving. Pretty impressive and very loud. Not sure how long after that it ran over a piece of metal on the runway (in Paris, I think), which blew the tire, when then penetrated a fuel tank and resulted in a huge fire and subsequent crash.
Back in the 1980s, HSV had two concourses (blue and gold, as I recall) but not nearly the passenger count it has today. There were no jet bridges at the airport at the time.
That had to be pretty awesome. When my brother and I went to London with our parents, my brother and I looked at the price--$5k/ticket on the Concorde vs $2000 for first class on the regular. So crazy expensive, but it would have been an experience to get door to door across the pond in under 4 hours. Recently I was able to see an exhibit at the SFO museum on the Concorde and one of the volunteers there had been a passenger and described the experience. There was lots of cool stuff in the exhibits including an original ticket and whatnot.
I saw a documentary on the Paris crash--it was bad--really, really bad. I personally think it was a bit harsh to ground the Concorde, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. And today we only get close to supersonic and that's it. Maybe some of the planned hypersonic ventures might change that, but it won't be the experience of Concorde.
Thank you for details on the old concourses! I remember it was a vastly different place, but that's I remember since I was so young. The 'old airport' off of Airport Road was not turned back to the FAA after the new airport was built because of a letter the Twickenham Auto Club submitted to the FAA. So the FAA let the City of Huntsville have the property for TAC as well as the Jaycees that also reached out to the FAA. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the city finally booted TAC off the property and since then has profiteered off of it while removing a legitimate recreation needed in Huntsville. I saw the city's contempt for the automotive community firsthand and how one lady in office for 20 years was planning this coup. Sad to see political garbage like this. I think this type of political garbage has only accelerated in recent years as the 'feel' of the town and culture has really changed. Not the same airport, not the same city for sure. But HSV still isn't busy as an airport, haha.
That had to be pretty awesome. When my brother and I went to London with our parents, my brother and I looked at the price--$5k/ticket on the Concorde vs $2000 for first class on the regular. So crazy expensive, but it would have been an experience to get door to door across the pond in under 4 hours. Recently I was able to see an exhibit at the SFO museum on the Concorde and one of the volunteers there had been a passenger and described the experience. There was lots of cool stuff in the exhibits including an original ticket and whatnot.
I saw a documentary on the Paris crash--it was bad--really, really bad. I personally think it was a bit harsh to ground the Concorde, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. And today we only get close to supersonic and that's it. Maybe some of the planned hypersonic ventures might change that, but it won't be the experience of Concorde.
Thank you for details on the old concourses! I remember it was a vastly different place, but that's I remember since I was so young. The 'old airport' off of Airport Road was not turned back to the FAA after the new airport was built because of a letter the Twickenham Auto Club submitted to the FAA. So the FAA let the City of Huntsville have the property for TAC as well as the Jaycees that also reached out to the FAA. Fast forward a couple of decades, and the city finally booted TAC off the property and since then has profiteered off of it while removing a legitimate recreation needed in Huntsville. I saw the city's contempt for the automotive community firsthand and how one lady in office for 20 years was planning this coup. Sad to see political garbage like this. I think this type of political garbage has only accelerated in recent years as the 'feel' of the town and culture has really changed. Not the same airport, not the same city for sure. But HSV still isn't busy as an airport, haha.
No, it's not busy but has a fair amount of cargo traffic. It's currently ranked as 109th in passenger traffic in the US. It's considered a "small" airport, and I believe the criterion for that designation is fewer than 5 million passengers year. HSV last year had just under 1.5M passengers so it's very unlikely be anything beyond "small" in the near future. The same holds for all airports in Alabama. There are other designations as well, one being a "small hub" which is a little more fluid in that it's defines as having between 0.05% and 0.25% of the nation's total traffic (the total number is the fluid part since it varies year to year).
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