mattyt36

8 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

 

It's a common misconception, but Aldi and Trader Joe's are not owned by the same company.  Two brothers had a single family enterprise until a friendly division of assets in 1960. Since then they have been wholly separate, distinct and unrelated corporations and operations, one named Aldi Süd and the other named Aldi Nord. Aldi Süd operates the Aldi groceries in the United States. Aldi Nord owns Trader Joes.

Good Lord, another Adidas and Puma!

12 hours ago, CREguy13 said:

I hate to sound like a downer, but I am not looking forward to the new design... I imagine it will be seriously value-engineered, similar to the way they reduced the glass exterior at Arabella.  Especially with all the recent bad news surrounding the EB-5 program, which is how DC finances its projects.

 

I hope I'm wrong, but I really have a hard time thinking this design will be equal to or better than the original.

Well I suspect you must know something.

That shall prevent me from starting a GoFundMe campaign in the Fourth Ward for the $40 million required to make it super sexy.

I’d already got commitments for $83.

Ah well, that’s Houston. But that’s why I like it.

On 2/26/2019 at 9:41 PM, Luminare said:

 

For a city that has a very high employment rate and a very low unemployment rate, thats pretty impressive. Even if it doesn't correlate 1:1, the fact that nearly everyone is employed means that if companies want to staff their jobs then they will advertise outside the city which will bring new people here knowing that the employment rate is high meaning the odds of getting a job of whatever kind will be high.

Houston’s unemployment rate is 4.1%, essentially the same as the U.S. as a whole at 4.0%.  Would not say that’s “very low.” DFW added slightly more with 3.5%.

Still the recovery from the mini-recession (and the fact that it was mini to begin with) is better than I would have ever guessed.

22 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions.  I just wanted add some facts for consideration.

 

FACT:  Of the 13 largest combine metro areas (of which Houston is 9th largest), there are at least seven cities served by more then 2 commercial airports (airports with regularly scheduled airline service sold to the general public), with two more (not counting Houston) apparently working on a third airport.

FACT: Of the 10 largest MSAs, 4 are served are by more than 2 airports of any meaningful size: NYC, LA, Miami, and Boston.

Annual one-way O&D passenger traffic (i.e., excluding connecting traffic) to those markets (a much more relevant metric than population) is:

NYC: 52m

LA Basin: 40m

Miami: 32m

Boston: 22m

Houston's is about 15m.

If you want to bring CSAs into this, fine.

Same numbers for DC is 25m.

And for SF Bay Area is 33m.

The fact of the matter is Houston punches horrendously below its population weight for domestic O&D traffic.  (Only Detroit and Philadelphia are as bad of metros of any significant size.)

But, sure by 2025 Allegiant or "New Allegiant" may set up shop at Conroe or Ellington or Sugar Land and the 15m may grow by 50k because of horrendously cheap fares that no other airline will really compete with on a couple of flights 3 days a week from a tilt-up building with no jetbridges.  They'll be doing that not because of the population of the metro area, or severe driving times from Conroe or League City or Rosenberg to IAH or HOU, but rather because they don't want to pay the fees charged at IAH or HOU.

I guess that's good.  But the real dynamics are missing from the original article and the subsequent posts.

21 minutes ago, baalManche said:

 

Ethiopian Airlines is scheduled to start Houston service this year with 787. It will be IAH-LFW-ADD. They chose Lomé and not Lagos as a stopover, not sure the reasoning behind it, but hope it becomes a success.

I'm sure their stated preference is still IAH-LOS-ADD but the problem is getting the authority from the Nigerian government.

That's not a problem with LFW.  I think ACC is also a backup.

5 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

The list is intended to provide the information it provides. The criteria was clearly stated and hardly arbitrary.  Relax.

Your original conclusion:

"So, comparatively, the idea of Houston having three commercial airports is not unreasonable, especially considering nobody is talking about tomorrow, but about a minimum of 5-10 years down the road, likely more -- as we approach a population of 9 - 10 million."

The "data" clearly show it is as unreasonable as it is reasonable, i.e., they show close to nothing.

14 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Goodness.  I didn't mean for anyone to get their panties in such a wad over this.  I just tried to put together a list showing how many airports serve the largest combined metro areas. I attempted to include all airports that have flights that operate on a published schedule and are sold to the general public. Nothing disingenuous about it. 

I don't think the average customer cares what part of the Code of Federal Regulations they operate under.  For what it's worth, my "loose" CSA standard is the standard of the US Census Bureau and its based on economic interaction between counties. It would probably be reasonable to consider larger areas, but I wanted to use an objective standard.

 

I stand corrected on Athens.  But Boeing and Dekalb-Peachtree both seem to qualify; both offer regularly scheduled air service sold to the general public.  So, I happily amend my list to correct my mistaken inclusion of Athens.

 

NYC CSA 23.9 Million:  7 commercial airports (CSAs seems like a better comparison for airport purposes than Metro areas)

LA CSA 18.8 Million:  5+ commercial airports

Chicago CSA  9.9 Million:  2 commercial airports currently

Baltimore Washington CSA   9.8 Million:  4 commercial airports

San Jose-San Francisco CSA  8.8 Million:  4 commercial airports

Boston CSA  8.2 Million:  4 commercial airports

Dallas Fort Worth CSA   7.8 Million:  2 commercial airports ( but Meacham Field expects to add commercial service soon)

Philadelphia CSA   7.2 Million:  3 commercial airports

Houston CSA   7 Million:  2 commercial airports

Miami Ft Lauderdale CSA   6.8 Million:   3 commercial airports

Atlanta CSA  6.6 Million:  2 commercial airports

Detroit CSA 5.3 Million:  2 commercial airports

Seattle  CSA  4.8 Million:  2 commercial airports

It's disingenuous because it implies some sort of "rule" and "relationship" based on arbitrary selection criteria.

So Dallas has 2 airports, 1 with about 32,000,000 enplaned passengers, 1 with about 7,500,000.

Houston has 2, 1 with about 22,000,000 and 1 with about 6,500,000.

Detroit has 2, 1 with about 17,000,000 and 1 (located in another MSA in its own right 85 miles away mind you) with about 400,000.

Atlanta by your definition also has 2, 1 with about 50,000,000 and 1 with about 3,000 (in other words ~0.006% of the traffic served by ATL) that doesn't have a Part 139 certificate from the FAA (the same one, mind you, that the CXO guy is talking about obtaining in the article from the OP) and therefore can't accommodate scheduled service on aircraft with more than 9 seats.

You really see no need for (one hell of a) big asterisk next to these comparisons?  

The Atlanta CSA therefore has 95% of the population of the Houston CSA and also has 2 airports.  So what, exactly, do we take away from your list?  Houston is fine?  Houston is underserved?  What exactly?  I suggest it's a meaningless and hollow comparison.

Actually you can increase LA to 7 as this outfit (no different really than the air service provided from PDK or BFI) flies from Hawthorne.

https://www.surfair.com/us/destinations/los-angeles/

The truth of the matter is this isn't service that the "man off the street" would consider commercial, and, by extension, that Hawthorne was a commercial service airport.  If that's what CXO's manager is getting at, well, I suppose that's fine but that's not much to write home about.

19 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Answer your questions/comments in order:

 

Because CSA is much closer (although still inadequate) to covering the air travel catchment (market) area.

 

I don't know "since when", but here they are:  Hartsfield-Jackson, Dekalb-Peachtree and  Athens Ben Epps; all in the Atlanta CSA

 

Yes. You've apparently overlooked Hagerstown Regional Airport

 

You've apparently overlooked Bishop International in Flint.

 

Boeing Field

 

Of course I included Atlantic City; I was looking for all commercial service areas in the combined metropolitan area. Of course I never suggested ACY was a good corollary for Conroe.  Merely clarirfying the record regarding the number of "cities" with more than 2 airports.

 

Alrighty then.

Absolutely perfect (!) and totally appropriate comparisons.

PDK's air service is on-demand air taxi/public charters, Part 135.  PDK does not have a Part 139 certification from the FAA allowing for scheduled operations (neither does CXO).  Located in Atlanta MSA.

AHN is 85 road miles from ATL and last had service in 2013.  (Although it does have a Part 139 certification.)  Has its own MSA as defined by OMB with 165,000 residents.

HGR is 75 road miles from BWI.  Also has its own MSA as defined by OMB with 260,000 residents.

FNT is 80 road miles from DTW.  Also has its own MSA as defined by OMB with 425,000 residents.

BFI is in the same boat as PDK, having service only from Part 135 carriers.  Their historical battle to allow the type of service that most people would consider constitutes commercial service is well known: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/business/the-little-airport-that-said-no-to-southwest.html (Although in fairness PAE is about to get scheduled service on AS and UA.)

CXO is 35 road miles from IAH.  Classified as a principal city in Houston MSA.

I'd say by your loose CSA standard you might as well include BPT as an airport serving Houston considering it's 85 miles from IAH, and why not CLL considering it's 90 miles.  At the end of the day, what does it matter if they're in the CSA or not?

The LAX CSA has 6, BTW--you forgot PSP.  Probably because you realized including it wouldn't make much sense?

It's really a disingenuous listing.

LH has been flying the 748 to IAH during the past 2 winter seasons in place of the A380 and is scheduled to do so again (but I wouldn't read too much this far in advance).

In any case, I wouldn't be surprise if the next major Nigerian upstart flew one here in 2025.  So I wouldn't count out the Queen just yet.

Sad to see the KL blue leave (often rotated on the AMS-TPE route, hence the common sight of an aircraft with "KLM Asia" titles on the tail).

Surprisingly the 789 has slightly more seats than the 744 it replaced as that aircraft was a half-cargo "combi."

The Atlas Air flights were not government charters . . . at least not the Government of the US charters.  They were public charters to Luanda, Angola managed by this outfit http://www.sonair.co.ao/en/Pages/SonAir-Home.aspx.  Operated by Atlas Air, which was also the operator of the 763 for Amazon Prime that went down in Trinity Bay on Saturday.

On 11/6/2018 at 12:16 PM, Houston19514 said:

 

Do you have a source for that information?  It seems highly likely that if there was any such case to be made, American (and other airlines) would be aggressively making it. (Airport lease terms and federal regulations address these sorts of things.)

Go to 

https://www.fly2houston.com/newsroom/media-kit/traffic-and-statistics/

Divide AA’s passenger traffic on A by the number of gates they lease (I think 5, but maybe 6). Do the same with UA and the gates they lease (4, I believe ... you don’t have to include the A icehouse). Granted, utilization has gone up with the rebanking of schedules, but all of the real capacity on Terminal A is on the UA gates for how they’re utilized at least ... everyone of those gates can accommodate a standard narrow body aircraft (A320/737) with twice the passenger capacity of the aircraft they’re currently accommodating. The terminal itself is very imbalanced between the south and north side because of UA’s underutilization and DL’s much lower gauge. The AA gates are pretty intensively utilized and you can be guaranteed they’d lease 2 more gates if it were a real option and didn’t require splitting their operation ... and most importantly the simple fact that AA, DL, and UA don’t pick fights at each other’s hubs since the last round of mergers for very salient reasons. (If you are really concerned about utilization, calculate the same ratio for Spirit and say with a straight face that UA isn’t squatting on gates. That said, it’s nothing new and is the case at any major connecting hub as the marginal cost of leasing the gates is de minimis compared with the revenue implications of allowing a competitor to build a real foothold.)

The federal regulations you refer to are absolutely toothless, although maybe there will be some real challenges in the industry soon thanks to Spirit, Frontier, and JetBlue. It’s a long time overdue. Airport lease terms? Well I suggest you read the HAS leases and tell me exactly what you’re getting at there.

You’re also wrong about the A icehouse, that was completely done by CO and was a long-term exclusive lease. Certainly not at the request of HAS. If it was packaged with leases on other gates that was purely for disingenuous optics (but if so Exhibit A that they worked). Not sure the lease is exclusive anymore as I know AA has used it regularly enough before for the early morning LAX flight (but I don’t think they do anymore). That said AA could very well have paid UA and not HAS directly for access to that gate. 

The B and C leases are a different matter. But UA is paying full freight for those facilities as well, which is more than you can say for the hub airline at many other large connecting hubs. 

On 1/23/2019 at 3:23 PM, Houston19514 said:

 

I don't think I've ever seen that particular projection.  The IAH Master Plan 2035 forecast says 13.55 million international enplanements (so presumably about 27 Million total international). Of course that includes United, which, at least currently, uses Terminal E for its international arrivals.

 

In the most recent Fiscal Year, Terminal D handled about 2.8 Million international passengers (out of about 10.4 Million total international passengers).  If we assume the same percentage (27%) of international traffic being handled by the new Terminal D, that would be about 7.3 Million annually using the new Terminal D . . .  20,000 per day?

I think the better question is why do you ask? Building a new terminal is not going to increase demand overnight. Are you asking for the new Terminal D’s design capacity?

6 minutes ago, Ross said:

In the early 80's I flew on Metro Airlines a number of times from Sugar Land to connect to Eastern Airlines flights. A quick Twin Otter flight to IAH, easy check in, etc. It was a great option.

10 flights/day to IAH

http://www.departedflights.com/HY110184p4.html

15 flights/day to the Clear Lake STOLPort

http://www.departedflights.com/HY110184p2.html

Unfortunately no contemporary examples for a long list of reasons.

If you don't increase the gas tax this means taking away billions in funding capacity for future highway projects as the State would be required to fund the ongoing maintenance for toll roads.

The idea of toll roads being "paid off" after 30 year revenue bonds are paid off is rather ridiculous unless you don't intend on maintaining them.

24 minutes ago, Nate99 said:

The EFD-IAH route went on for a while, can't imagine the how the business case for that was justified the first time around. Something out of the west side of town makes the same (or more) sense, but that would require United buying into the idea.  

I have no doubt it lost money considering the airfares were the same as they were from IAH, i.e., there was no business case other than to take business from Southwest.  It was the easiest way for CO to remain competitive enough to air travelers on the south side after abandoning what was at one time a large enough "focus city" operation at HOU until 1990ish.  (Of course it replaced an HOU-IAH route, the Houston Proud Express.  And at various times again CO served HOU-IAH, including 737 one-stops to LGA to compete with the AA nonstops.)

On 2/23/2019 at 1:35 PM, Houston19514 said:

 

NYC CSA 23.9 Million:  7 commercial airports (CSAs seems like a better comparison for airport purposes than Metro areas)

LA CSA 18.8 Million:  5 commercial airports

Chicago CSA  9.9 Million:  2 commercial airports currently

Baltimore Washington CSA   9.8 Million:  4 commercial airports

San Jose-San Francisco CSA  8.8 Million:  4 commercial airports

Boston CSA  8.2 Million:  4 commercial airports

Dallas Fort Worth CSA   7.8 Million:  2 commercial airports ( but Meacham Field expects to add commercial service soon)

Philadelphia CSA   7.2 Million:  3 commercial airports

Houston CSA   7 Million:  2 commercial airports

Miami Ft Lauderdale CSA   6.8 Million:   3 commercial airports

Atlanta CSA  6.6 Million:  3 commercial airports

Detroit CSA 5.3 Million:  2 commercial airports

Seattle  CSA  4.8 Million:  2 commercial airports

 

So, comparatively, the idea of Houston having three commercial airports is not unreasonable, especially considering nobody is talking about tomorrow, but about a minimum of 5-10 years down the road, likely more -- as we approach a population of 9 - 10 million.

Not sure why CSA is a better measure for this than MSA considering Montgomery County is in the MSA.

Since when does Atlanta have 3 commercial airports?!

Wash-Balto has 4?!

Detroit has only had 1 for many years.

Seattle is only now about to have 2.

That is unless you're counting service by Part 135 carriers, which I'm pretty sure CXO already has.

I guess you can say Philly has 3 if you include ACY but that seems like a crazy corollary for Conroe.  IAH is just as close to The Woodlands as is CXO, and even in traffic, if IAH is farther, there's no way CXO would offer competitive enough nonstop service and schedules to make the +/- 15 minutes matter.

In any case whoever said Allegiant would be the only likely airline is right . . . they USA, 30 miles outside of CLT, which is about as good of a corollary as you can get.  Surprised they haven't set up shop at EFD, to tell you the truth.

SGR reopening for commercial service would probably have a better business case.

21 hours ago, bobruss said:

I have proposed a special Calatrava bridge at Montrose and an observation tower(Claus Oldenberg Flashlight) with its beam of light shining into space, to  tie Houston to the space exploration.

Fantastic idea on the tower!

Let's find someone besides Calatrava . . .

51 minutes ago, Luminare said:

 

This actually looks like sketchup. I can tell from the lines and the textures applied. Revit is more complex in terms of texturing and lines.

 

Its not necessarily cheap, but definitely lazy.

 

I know for me personally I would never release an image like this to the public. Hell the firm I work for would never let an image like this outside the doors of our firm. My boss would have my head on a pike. The visual representation of architecture is just as important as the building itself. This company thinks that its just fine letting an image like this into the wild, but its a bad representation of themselves (this is how all of their images look like too). In this image you see exactly what they care about most, quantity of projects as opposed to quality of projects, the quantity of money as opposed to quality of money. Just pump it out and move on. As I'm saying this though, I take no offense to this. If this is their business model then so be it. However, its possible to get a lot more financing for a project it if you dress it up a little bit, and response to the average layperson if you do as well.

 

I've come to learn during my journey through the biz just how important visual representation of architecture is, the hard way. It might be quick and easy to just do what these guys are doing, but I promise that at some point it will get stale and be a bad reflection on their business model. Direct computer images just don't age well, and at some point it will make their products look...dated.

Thanks for the perspective . . . and they're not just releasing it to the public but advertising it on their own website as a work product!

Oh well they seem to be getting plenty of work nevertheless! 

Every time I see an EDI International rendering that looks like it was done on a 386 computer in 1995 I wonder why on earth people would hire them.  They must be cheap beyond cheap.

4 hours ago, Naviguessor said:

I think the "Damn Decade" has to do with the I-45 realignment and 45/69 trenching. 

What does the I-45 realignment have to do with guest room renovations?

1 hour ago, DrLan34 said:

This looks like The Shops might have significant changes.

 

If so, why keep under wraps at the grand unveiling and the initial distribution of the marketing materials? It usually works in the opposite direction.

Page 4 of the PDF DrLan posted mentions nothing specific with regard to the Shops, which is strange when combined with lack of renderings.  I would've thought that would be one of the most prominent components given its uniqueness, but maybe they don't see much opportunity there.

I can't copy and paste but maybe someone will have better luck than I.  Synopsis:

-New central plaza and greenspace

-Renovation of LBT and 2 HC lobbies

-Reclad pedestrian bridges

-"Reshaping the retail and dining experience throughout Houston Center"

-New shared space design

-Conferencing and co-working venues

I must admit I've been surprised by how many people I've seen at Finn Hall after hours.

Anyone else find the renderings a bit uninspiring?

Surprised they didn't also release renderings of the public spaces, which is where a lot of money is usually spent in these renovations.  They're doing something to the structure connecting the hotel and 3 (?) Allen Center.

https://www.chron.com/life/article/Swank-female-bent-C-Baldwin-hotel-debuts-in-13523592.php?ipid=hpctp#photo-16752021

Doubletree to be independent hotel named C Baldwin. Name is weird to me.

Not sure if independent means it intends to become independent within a chain grouping like Autograph Collection or Curio or entirely independent.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/01/09/downtown-houston-doubletree-to-become-independent.html?ana=e_ae_set1&s=article_du&ed=2019-01-09&u=0tGNxpvpNFPnDWo9NL1ZKQ09e4f6f2&t=1547072417&j=85953981