Business took me to Memphis once a month for many, many years and I feel as though I have a pretty good feel for the city. The problems Memphis faces are much for systemic than just having a decent airport. There is a multigenerational cycle of poverty that I am not sure is fixable at this point. The climate is terrible. In terms of quality of life, there is nothing close. Mountains, ocean.
Memphis grew in an era of population shifts from the farm to the city. What Memphis never figured out is that the population kept shifting, making Memphis just a stop along the way.
14
For another example see St. Louis. Sent
6
These small regional airports make no sense. A typical commuter jet gets 0.3 miles per gallon and creates noise which renders the surrounding area an undesirable and unhealthy place to live except for the poor and minorities. If fuel costs and ticket prices reflected the true cost of air travel, we wouldn't be wasting our land and money on small airports.
Memphis isn't a small regional airport a la Madison, WI. It's the largest cargo airport in the United States. FedEx rotates their flight patterns so that the same neighborhood isn't always subjected to the noise from the 100+ flights that land between 9p-12 and take off between 3a-6a Sunday-Friday.
11
"Memphis International Airport"
My deepest empathy to these Italian or German pilots who have to eat McDonalds for the next three days after landing.
7
Maybe instead of closing down terminals, they could hold gun shows there. Every other weekend, they could have have remote controlled car races — the RC community is huge in Memphis. During the week they could open it up to roller blading aficionados. Millions of uses.
4
There was a time when I loved to fly. I would find inexpensive fares to variously American cities and jot away for a weekend of fun. Now ... I hate to fly. The security, the long waits, the exta fees. And with open carry and stand your ground laws, I fear visiting lots of places. Bottomline, I don’t spend much traveling these days.
8
How bizarre to read about this. Flying in and out of Memphis a few years ago was -- a smaller airport being a novelty for me at the time -- part of a giddy, long weekend spent on Beale, at Graceland, Sun records, even a nearby drive-in movie theater. As airports go, there was a charm, dare I say intimacy in the smallness of the place. I remember it so clearly -- the tiny bottle of Jack Daniels I was able to sneak through security. My memory of that weekend most definitely includes the Memphis airport as a significant part of the complete package, and to consider its demise ... for those of us who remember it fondly, a bit of a heartache.
7
Same thing at the St Louis airport after American Airlines took over TWA. Over half the gates shutdown, entire parts of the terminal now closed off. Thank you Carl Ichan, he bled TWA dry.
8
Hubs should go away. More point to point like Southwest does. And from smaller cities with upstart airlines offering cheap airfares. But I am talking about personal travel, not business travel
2
This column only discusses the airport but has not mentioned anything about Memphis and its relationship with the city. Logan of Boston has many direct flights to several major cities in the Far East like HKSAR and China. Why? Because the demand is there.
So, here is the case of putting the cart before the horse. For instance, in the column, it points to airline consolidation as one of the culprits. Delta chose to use Atlanta instead of Northwest's old hub. But you don't fly for flying sake, hub notwithstanding. Once Memphis is a destination, people will come
3
The airline mergers of the 2000's (NW-DL, CO-UA, US-AA) were absolutely essential in ensuring the viability of the US airline industry, particularly for legacy carriers. Today, airlines are investing in lounges, the customer experience (more-so in first-class), are paying out profit sharing to employees, and are actually making money.
The old model of 6 legacy carriers was unsustainable and moving away from cities like Memphis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and St. Louis is frankly good business. Today, our US carriers are global carriers. The alternative was our airline industry continuing a carousel into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And for the most part, airfares are still reasonable enough - the consolidation of hubs meant connecting passengers on 150 seat planes in Atlanta instead of unprofitable 50 seat airplanes in Memphis. My cost per mile for an airline ticket is much less than UBER or other forms of transportation. Not saying that this isn't difficult for Memphis but for the whole industry, consolidation was needed.
5
Consolidation has been good for airline managers and shareholders, not customers. We have less competition, fewer options, virtual (software-driven) collusion on pricing and the divvying up of fortress hubs, a more Spartan and miserable flying experience, and higher prices outside primary trunk routes. All this is great if you own stock in these companies, or live in a hub city AND engage in a lot of subsidized, high-priced business travel; in that case you have nonstops at your disposal plus frequent-flyer status, which can make things a little less grim. But for most customers, and many cities, the overall picture is worse. Memphis is far from the only town to suffer from the cartel-ization of the US airline system; for more part-dead airports see also STL, CLE, CMH, PIT, CVG, and the many smaller cities and towns who are down to just one airline and a handful of crazy-prices regional flights daily.
5
To quote Pogo (always a good thing to do), "Non compost Memphis."
1
I have a solution: Amazon's new HQ! On Amazon Airlines, of course . . .
8
And where is DJT and his MASSIVE infrastructure plan? Anyone? Anyone?
5
it will be "massive" and "beautiful" just like the Trump Condo, Trump Steak and Trump Vodka I will be selling my credulous #MAGA Muppets
2
They should convert those areas to housing and other destination concepts.
Get creative with the $219 million.
6
Nothing new for Delta.
Delta built the Cincinnati mega hub, and destroyed it in favor of Detroit and Minneapolis after the Northwest merger.
4
that's what mergers do - create "Synergies" i.e. layoffs - i.e. don't count on that blue chip job paying your mortgage - because two execs playing golf can decide over a put to wipe out 50,000 jobs by consolidating. The safe job is never safe - find demand and satisfy it
3
Yet, I will do whatever is necessary to avoid flying thru Atlanta when I am traveling. I really dislike that airport. Memphis, on the other hand, is a nice airport. I hate they are having this problem.
10
American , United, and Delta, have great influence over what airport your routed through.
3
Arrange your life so you don't have to fly. It is easier than you think.
The problem is, flying makes people think they are very important, that what they have to do is important and that their time is important.
None of that is true, especially when it comes to the business traveler, for whom 80% of his flying is totally unnecessary.
6
I laugh when I hear about all the tech execs flying to meet their "teams" in China and India - wasn't technology supposed to eliminate distance - the Caveman Principal prevails
3
Compared to Los Angeles International, Memphis sounds like my kind of airport. I won’t go anywhere near the one here at home.
4
Boy those pictures brought back memories. The Memphis airport has looked the same for a long time. I remember my father would park on some street near the airport and we would watch the planes take off over our car. When I was teenaged, we would sometimes go to the airport to play video games (yes, we were uncool nerds). My father, a photographer, did artistic photos of the airport: the colored lights illuminating the 70's modern pillars.
And flying off to college in Baltimore, alone, in a backless floral print sundress with matching shoes and purse. I would never wear any of this again because it made me look like I had just gotten off the bus from Mississippi (close).
I was desperate to leave Memphis and the backwards South to go where things were happening. And after 10 years of that I was happy to move back to Tennessee.
20
MEM is a story similar to STL (TWA), Cincinnati (DL) and others. What was tough for the airports helps keep the airlines running high load factors and remaining in business. STL and MEM will be back - they are in the middle of the country and are perfect for cargo or some type of distribution hub. Watch the Chinese buy them for peanuts and unlock the value!
6
When I first flew commercially in the 1970s, travel was exciting, and travelers dressed up for the trip (some men still wore hats).
Now, it is a zoo, like waiting for a bus at rush hour.
What happened? Why did the economical flights to many areas suddenly cost a month's salary?
The cry of many small towns is that they needed an airport and a feeder airline to make access easier.
Since those demands are less, I can only assume that fewer people are travelling, not because they have no place to go, but the cost in dollars and stress has outpaced the benefit.
21
Memphis is going to explode with growth at some point over the next decade. It has too much going for it in terms of geographical location, culture, cost well as tourism potential. The regional economy that includes West TN, Eastern AR and Northern MS is vibrant. TN is one of the most physically responsible states (even if the Memphis city governance has much room to improve).
11
Nope, it is a dead city, so racially divided and tense we draw straws to see who has to go there on business trips.
4
Do they exercise a lot to stay physically responsible?
10
Not a dead city, only napping. Totally disagree with you in spite of the current/historical issues which certainly are multitude.
2
Once Delta merged with Northwest Airlines, they closed the hub in Memphis. A friend who frequently flew there from Atlanta to visit nearby elderly parents saw fares go so high that he started driving the eight hours. It was cheaper to fly to California from Atlanta than nearby Memphis.
Midsize cities lost the most from the merger of the carriers. Since i moved here seven years ago, I find more bargains to fly from Europe than I did in Atlanta with Delta and its partners controlling over 80 percent of the takeoffs and landings.
14
It was the same story in Cleveland. As soon as it was announced that Continental and United would merge, I knew that the combined airline would dehub Cleveland. The airline did not need two hubs in the Midwest. Now, Cleveland has an entire terminal empty, and there is rarely enough traffic to crowd the remaining terminal, despite a nice renovation.
12
Millions to shrink an airport?
An airport should already have lots of hotels around it. They always do. So, if you have a half empty airport and you want to get people to come, why not spend some of that money and have weekly concerts at the airport? Get the local symphony to do shows here or their opera or theatre. Turn the airport into a destination of its own rather than shrink down and give up jobs...and easy tourist money
For a few decades, Memphis relied on Graceland for tourism. But how many people today still listen to Elvis or would take vacation time to visit? Time to repaint the city and come up with a new reason to visit.
Back in the 60's the mayor of Seattle decided to pour a ton of money into the Pike Place Market to get tourists to come. It was quite a gamble to turn a rainy city into a destination but today, that marker is packed 365 days a year with tourists. Later mayors added to the nearby Seattle Center where the monorail/Space Needle is at. Along came the Seattle Aquarium in 1977. Paul Allen came along and added the EMP. Today, there is quite a bit for a family to do and see in walking distance of a downtown hotel and tourism is hopping. So much so that they are now expanding Paine Field twenty miles north in the city of Everett to handle all of the incoming traffic.
7
As a former resident of Seattle, I have to say it's totally unfair to compare Seattle with Memphis. The Seattle area has Microsoft, Starbucks, REI and Costco. Boeing, while not having its official HQ there any more, is still a major presence. Paul Allen, once the third or fourth richest man IN THE WORLD, not only brought in the EMP (so ugly that a critic said it "looked like something that crawled out of the sea and died"), he got the whole South Lake Union area developed. He bought the Seahawks and got the stadium built for them. There's the Mariners for 81 home games. Seattle also had grunge rock, a well-respected opera and a good classical music scene. Combine this with an outdoorsy lifestyle and it made Seattle a hip, happenin' place to be. Memphis has Graceland, which I visited on a drive through the South, but otherwise, what is it known for? A decent song from back in the 60s. I'm sure it's a pleasant place, with good people and lots going for it, but it's just not going to have the cache that Seattle does. You might as well compare Seattle with New York or Paris and ask what can and cannot be done in each city.
9
Excellent suggestions!!!
Susan
I agree it’s unfair to compare Memphis to Seattle. Memphis is a much older city with innate, uncontrived character. It didn’t just have one hot decade for music production, but is a stones throw from the birthplace of the blues and consequently a breeding ground for blues, soul, rock, and rap (dirty south!) You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a musician in Memphis. In addition to Graceland, there’s Stax, Gonerfest, BBQ, Grizzlies, the pyramid, casinos, death week, hot days, hot nights, and way more fun outside of an audio walking tour of a 1960’s mansion and the view from your car window.
2
Also happened in Cincinnati. That airport is demolishing Gates. Don’t tell me we need more runways and airports. We have more than we need.
8
Hmm - two differing dialogues
Capitalism in action, economic Darwinism, call it what you will. The upshot is that choices have become limited and more expensive.
From my Econ 201 class (1964) four ideas taught still resonate:
1. Within my lifetime there would be 3-5 participants in every type of business: airline, auto, TV, movie, agriculture, etc. Government oversight and regulation would decline. Wages would decline. Quality and choice would decline. Consumer cost would rise. The über rich would not be effected and would be catered to
2. Businesses hate competition. Businesses want to avoid competition. Competition is expensive and fraught with danger: One could lose.
3. Businesses like laissez faire, free market capitalism. It can lead to monopoly. Businesses, when left to their own devices, will aggregate to their own best advantage, create cartels at best and monopolies at worst. Monopoly is the ultimate goal of any business. A small cartel is not a bad second prize.
The airline industry has become a classic example...
97
it is not Capitalism. It is crony capitalism...
4
What is it about airports in the Midwest/South?
In St. Louis, they spent more than $1 billion adding a third runway to the airport even though everyone knew that TWA, the prime tenant, was on the cusp of going under. Sure enough, the airline went under, and St. Louis is stuck with a billion-dollar boondoggle--you can practically bowl in that airport on a lot of days. Twenty miles or so to the east, and even as they were adding the billion-dollar runway to the St. Louis airport, they built Mid-America Airport in Illinois, a full-blown airport that was empty on the day it opened and remains nearly so today. There are fewer than ten scheduled flights each day.
A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there. Pretty soon, it adds up to real money.
34
I question the timing on this. St Louis began the expansion in 1985 after years of planning. TWA was not on the cusp then. Carl Ichan took the airline private in 1988 and piled on debt which lead to restructuring several time in the 1990s. The final blows were from 9/11 and the hub ended in St Louis in 2003.
3
Delta is the poster child for why airline mergers are horrible ideas.
They just flat out don't care.
And in many markets there is no other choice.
If we had a congress that wasn't so busy sniffing the President's behind they might take on the issue...
Oh well...
72
Yet another example of the wonders of monopoly Capitalism. Oops, I don't mean 'wonders', I mean 'wastes'.
24
Memphis has long held a special place in my heart, as I've had family living there all my life. Midtown used to be pretty nice, though we just passed through that on the way to the eastern suburbs, where my family lived. Now, 35 years later... midtown Memphis looks largely like a war zone. Up until just recently the impressive glass pyramid right over the river bridge was in moth balls, which was odd. East Memphis used to be a really nice place to live, but now it's choked with traffic and blight. So it's somehow not surprising to me that the airport is shrinking now. What a shame.
4
Midtown isn't a war zone at all, it really looks nice, beautiful older homes with great yards, a lot of effort has been taken to rehabilitate the area, however south Memphis is still pretty bad, as is Frayser.
5
I could not disagree more with your comments about midtown Memphis. It is lively, growing and a great place to live. Crosstown Concourse just opened in a beautifully reimagined Sears catalogue store and is a beautiful vertical neighborhood with retail and seven floors filled with tenants. Cooper-young (highlighted in American Way this month) and Overton Square can't find enough space for the restaurants, businesses and people who want to be there. The zoo is a huge draw. Property values are through the roof. And downtown, just a stones throw away (including the Pyramid redesigned as a great Bass Pro Shop) is being remodeled and developed at a fast pace. Sure there are pockets of blight. Maybe more than in other cities. But midtown Memphis is fabulous. I invite you to visit. You won't be disappointed. As for the airport, well, it is sad.
6
Everything comes to an end. Everything. Why cry over it? Rather, plan for it. To do anything else is to set up for failure...incompetence at its finest.
3
Hindsight is always 20-20. You are suggesting that Memphis should have planned for its operations to go from boom to bust. How do you do that with an airport? NOT build up facilities when the ones you have are crammed? That would encourage whatever airline you have based there to leave, a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one. NOT put in new runways? So would you want to fly into an airport with not enough runways?
Large capital projects are a gamble. They lost. But as long as it wasn't due to some major problem, crashing airplanes or passengers unable to get on flights in time, it's rather simplistic to blame Memphis officials for not predicting the future. If it was easy, we'd all be wealthy.
The Bangor, ME airport-- well-endowed runway-wise-- was clearly underutilized when we were there in August 2014. A
3
Bangor has those large runways because it is the first major airport one would encounter when flying west from Europe. If a plane needs to make an emergency landing, it will stop at Bangor.
1
yep - in the old days when my folks emigrated from Ireland, they stopped in Newfoundland on the way to NYC, today, they would have flown direct.
I would (foolishly) hope elected officials would look at their real assets and find a way to accentuate them (since the young consumer generation is apparently in love with authentic, local experiences). Copying other cities is a recipe for disaster. Manage your expenses, operate efficiently, embrace your local identity and assets, and you will prosper. As the old saying goes, "growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of a cancer cell"
Partially correct. Formerly a military installation known as Dow Air Force Base, Bangor International Airport remains home to the 101st Air Refueling Wing of the Maine Air National Guard, although most of the Air Force's aircraft and personnel left in the late 1960s. BGR covers 2,079 acres (841 ha) of land.
I've never understood why the NYT takes such pleasure in bashing Memphis, as it has a long and storied history of doing. Read some of the ones it published around the celebration of MLK50, for example. Even the articles it writes that are mildly complimentary have to accentuate the negative aspects. C'mon, NYT; lighten up.
14
I agree with you on that. Although there was a pretty cool story on Kimbal Musk and the Crosstown Concourse.
4
I get your point. As a Memphian (for life), reading negative press can be disheartening. At the same time, this kind of press also gives me hope & a vision of how the city can be better. To have a spotlight shown on the ugliest parts of Memphis (be it the airport, MLK50, etc.) can be really helpful for those of us trying to "fix it". Now we just need a few articles about how darn affordable it is to live here (in the meantime, we can do a little house-cleaning)!
4
This is a prime example of the costs of deregulation in the airline market.
Memphis was once a hub for many airlines and one by one they have consolidated down to a few. It is only convenient for the airlines, as any pretense of customer service has long gone away.
If geography was the determinant Atlanta would just be some random mid-sized city, but that city has been on a 50 year plus drive to steal everything from everywhere else in the south. Nashville has more recently followed the same pattern.
Memphis is going through a transition after years of losing things it once had and is becoming home to many things with a future. Sometimes it is not always evident until seen after the fact, but the city has attracted a large contingent of Millennials from elsewhere.
As resources become more scarce, a sunbelt city on a major river with solid rail, ground and and air transport will be in a good place. Add in a plentiful supply of high quality drinking water (remember when Atlanta was running out of water) and some of the least expensive electricity in the US. Add in a state known to be friendly to business. Add in a city with a fairly low cost of living.
If all you know is Elvis and the Lorraine Motel- you do not know the city. The worm will turn for the city of good abode.
29
Although Memphis still has a lot of crime problems in predominantly ethnic neighborhoods, the middle class neighborhoods are a model of multiethnic living. I can't believe what I often see; blacks, persons of arab descent, spanish speakers, and whites living alongside working together and getting along. A huge park and series of trails have been developed and are widely used, you see people of all ethnicities using these facilities equally.
4
It happens with airline mergers every time:
Continental + United = Cleveland & Houston lose
Delta + Northwest = Memphis & Cincinnati lose
US Airways + America West = Pittsburgh loses
US Airways + American = Phoenix loses
Other cases such as St. Louis (TWA down the tubes) or Raleigh (American focused on Miami and didn't want the competition from Charlotte) happened for other reasons, but in general any city other than NY, Chicago or LA that gets in bed with an airline for a hub is putting itself at risk of cutbacks like this. It could easily happen to Denver (especially once SFO is finally done renovating), Minneapolis, or a few others.
16
IAH hasn't lost. Any drop in traffic is likely due to the challenges in the Oil & Gas Industry.
5
The abandonment of the Memphis airport as a major hub should be used as a prime example of how the whims and vagaries of business can critically affect cities across the country. Here today gone tomorrow and cities, towns, and taxpayer are left holding the bag and the debt.
39
Taxpayers do not fund Memphis International Airport.
2
Elvis is out of the building. So does Memphis even need an airport.
5
Re NNI Peekskill, NY
I don't know. Ask International Paper. They abandoned New York for Memphis years ago. Seems like it worked out very well.
Next, Memphis is busier than any other US airport from 7PM to 7AM. You have heard of Federal Express, right?
The drop-off is passenger operations- not the amount of plane traffic.
9
Mergers that should have been stopped through anti-trust action hurt people far beyond the employees losing their jobs. Does anyone seriously think there's sufficient competition in the domestic U.S. airline industry?
41
On a smaller scale, this happened in Milwaukee after Midwest Airlines when under.
3
Flying is more than an ordeal now, it's more like running the gauntlet. Make it any worse, and this is what you get.
20
Times change; small cities in the United States are looking for reasons to justify their existence. Memphis is just one example of a city that is not vibrant enough to attract enough passengers. Life is a continuous tradeoff. While there may be many reasons to want to live in a city such as Memphis, the drawbacks include not being able to occupy a large airport with multiple direct destinations. C'est la vie.
3
Who wants to go through the Atlanta airport, its a mess--too big and overcrowded.
1
Memphis has another issue - its decline as a tourist destination. On a "road trip" from NOLA to Memphis. NOLA had a PG rated party vibe with lots of senior citizens getting into the spirit, street acts to entertain and great food to sample. Plus other activities to keep tourists interested (swamp and plantation tours, a great WWII museum, gardens). Memphis was a huge disappointment - downtrodden, a sleazy R-rated vibe in its main tourist area, not much to do besides Graceland. Although this article is about the airline hub issue; towns like Memphis need to revitalize to become a destination city. Memphis's highlight was ducks getting off an elevator to march to the hotel lobby fountain; that is a problem!
16
You must have been hanging out with the wrong tour guide. Yes, Beale Street is a tourist trap as is Bourbon Street and any number of other places coast to coast.
4
Next time you're back in Memphis visit the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel - the site of MLK's assassination. Saw it once in the '90s and again more recently after an extensive renovation. Worth a journey.
4
I would argue that you didn't know where to go, or picked up an old guidebook. There are so many hidden gems in Memphis--nightlife, music, restaurants, festivals and history. Also, there is more vitalization going on in Memphis right now than any time I can remember. Crosstown Concourse as one large example.
6
The economics of the industry has changed dramatically with the current pilot shortage, backlog of new jet orders, industry consolidation, and the LCC's and ULCC's being opportunistic by utilizing mini focus cities and point to point service to maximize revenues by adding more seats than regular legacy carriers configurations and shrinking seat pitch and width. Spirit and Frontier will remain niche-market carriers utilizing a strategy by announcing 12-17 new flights out of a city and then downsize the number of routes on profitability after 6 months of flying them-look back at their new service announcements in CLE and how they changed them within months. The only hope for former hub cities like CLE and MEM is for Alaska or jetBlue to expand their networks and making investments in additional hub cities.
2
When we landed our small plane at Memphis, the controllers made us use the north-south set of runways even though the winds favored the east-west set. Reason? The east-west set had a steady flow of FedEx aircraft, and this was in mid-morning. Another commenter pointed out the similar situation at Cleveland. That place looks like a ghost town when you fly by at low altitude.
3
Nashville was around $200 cheaper for me to fly from there to Los Angeles last month than Memphis. To a lot of people that's a sizable difference, and has got to be a contributing factor to the downward trend of Memphis' airport.
11
Nashville is a mess to fly in and out of. The traffic there is murder, trying driving to the airport.
1
A few years ago our son was in grad school in Memphis, and so we visited. Memphis had a lot of things going for it, among them, the National Civil Rights museum, a surprisingly good zoo, and of course, fabulous barbecue.
However, the weather was far too exciting for my taste. The tornado sirens went off several times while we were there. It rained more during our visit than we normally get in an entire year here in Nevada.
3
I can appreciate the exciting weather perception. We get some wild storms in the spring/summer, but I love them. I do know folks that are afraid of storms do not enjoy it.
Almost anywhere gets more rain than does Nevada or Arizona...
1
There is a lot less competition in the air travel industry today than there was a decade ago, and at many airports in medium sized cities like Memphis, far fewer flights and destinations served. Flights have been shifted to a smaller number of remaining hub cities, and those hub cities have become crowded. (But, at least you can find a flight.)
Overall, this has been a bad thing for the many intermediate sized cities affected; residents have to spend much more time traveling, there is the risk of missing a connection, and local economies suffer.
This occurred because of the major airline mergers that occurred during the last decade. The deleterious effects of the industry consolidation enabled by these mergers has been great. Even those served by the remaining hub cities get poor service. Competition in the airline industry is defined by many small markets, between one city and another. And there's a whole lot less of it today.
There are clear culprits here: President Obama and AG Eric Holder, who were asleep at the wheel, and who allowed these mergers to take place. The country would be in much better shape if the DOJ had done its job and enforced our antitrust laws.
13
The Delta/Northwest merger was approved by the DOJ under George W. Bush, 6 months prior to Obama taking office. Please know your facts before you wrongfully accuse someone or is that just the Indiana way?
47
President Obama was not in office when the merger between Delta and Northwest discussed in this article was approved. It was before his first term.
However, I agree with your general point. He should have challenged the USAirways and American merger in 2015 but did not. Anti-trust enforcement has been too weak and neither party seems to take it seriously, much to the detriment of American consumers.
23
Agree with this, DOJ under Holder was abysmal at preventing consolidation. But that's capitalism, it always tends towards consolidation. And in industries with insane barriers to entry like energy, air travel, and pharmaceuticals, nothing good comes to the consumers when too many companies merge.
11
As mentioned throughout these comments, Memphis is only one of many airports to see this phenomenon. Sometimes this is temporary, but more often it reflects a different time and inflection point.
The airline industry has consolidated and hubs once occupied are dismantled. St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Raleigh.
Hubs were closed because they were too close to more profitable ones with higher levels of O&D traffic. Plus, airlines could now profitably serve smaller markets with direct flights with new,, far more fuel efficient aircraft.
San Jose went through shrinkage about 15 years ago, when American absorbed Reno Air then started eliminating destinations. Now, the airport is teeming with multiple international flights; increased traffic from Southwest, Alaska and the others, so there may still be hope, but I am not optimistic.
I traveled almost daily for 25 years. There were airports I loved to change planes in and those I worked very hard to avoid.
4
Overbuilt airports seem like a great opportunity for tenants of the many collapsing malls. Brick and mortar retail needs foot traffic, parking and security. An airport rates extremely well in all three.
4
I've lived in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and the Memphis areas(actually 2 hours away but it is our closest airport choice) and passenger traffic has collapsed in all three. (Be careful when I move.) Memphis is therefore a mixed bag of bad and good. Bad if one wishes to go most places (DFW or ATL first stops for me not ORD) and good for waiting in lines. The trusted traveler program is not really necessary to move quickly in the security line at MEM and I feel less like a cow lining up for slaughter. Do not hang around the airport from 1130 PM till about 6AM though because the air is heavy with jet fuel and partly burned fuel from the Fed Ex and and lessor UPS traffic. The planes seem to come and go on the minute,challenging FAA limits.
Oh and my home town Pittsburgh is with an H- a pet peeve of people from the 'burgh.
6
Actually, the experience has been much more positive in Pittsburgh. After it lost the USAir hub, traffic naturally cratered. But the number of nonstop destinations has doubled in the past 3-4 years, and traffic has been increasing each year. Nine million people used the airport last year, up from less than 8 million when USAir pulled out. It will never be a hub again, and there are plans to downsize the concourses, similar to what's being done in Memphis, but the airport authority has done a good job in attracting new airlines and flights.
5
Your statistics are misleading. Passenger count when Pittsburgh was a hub was 14.3 million in 2003. Passenger count has only gone up 1 million in the last few years...which is good. But Pittsburgh still lacks the frequency of flights to key destinations most major businesses require. I lived in Pittsburgh during the hub days (it rocked) and then after until 2015. As a business traveler, it was horrible. Lots of regional jets and low cost airlines (Spirit, etc.). I was always connecting through some airport to get my destination. And few places to eat...things shut down early. I miss what PIT was...it will never be the same.
1
A huge problem for Pittsburgh is the lack of mass transit from the airpost to downtown.
This is really just another symptom of more fundamental problems in Memphis, the city where I was born and raised.
Eventually the city will turn around but no time soon. In the meantime it sounds like airport officials are acting prudently. It is a beautiful airport just minutes from Graceland, Home of the King!
1
The best thing Memphis could do would be to move Graceland to Mississippi and get on with life. Writing 6 miles from Downtown.
2
The same thing happened in St. Louis after American Airlines bought the remains of TWA.
But the real culprit is patterns of trade and economic activity. Whereas being located in the center of the United States was once a positive characteristic, because you were closer to all points within the country, now it has become a negative one, because you are farther away from international destinations than cities located closer to the coasts/borders.
Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston are all closer to Latin and South America than Memphis or Houston. NYC and Washington DC are closer to Europe. Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are closer to Asia.
The bottom line is that links to international destinations are now much more important to links to domestic ones, and that hurts cities located in the center of the country.
19
Best part is that this airport almost never closes. Thanks to FedEx.
If you are stuck somewhere, try to route yourself to destination through Memphis.
4
I've been in many areas of the South for work, education, vacationing, etc. There is no place in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, or Virginia, I would return for any reason. And if I were thinking of returning to the South for any return, Memphis TN definitely would be at the bottom of my list.
47
How about Arkansas, the one ex-Confederate state you left off of your alphabetically ordered list? FYI, Northern Virginia today is more diverse than the United Nations and is home to huge numbers of people from Korea, Vietnam, and Ethiopia in particular. It bears no resemblance to stereotypical views of "the South." As a suburb of Washington, it has much in common with wealthy suburban areas outside of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Re Memphis, the poverty and violent crime sound really bad. I know one person who lived there, and that person apparently gained a lot of weight because he drove his car everywhere rather than walking even very short distances. This was due to the unsafe streets.
11
Stay classy Jay
Too bad everyone moving to Atlanta and the Research Triangle did not talk to you first
10
No worries, since you would undoubtedly at the bottom of our list to return.
18
With fertility rates falling across the globe and population declines looming in several countries as well as work moving online, we better get used to empty and ghost infrastructure. Public officials are still used to an environment where more infrastructure was never enough. The new reality may be that we do not need that new highway, airport or that college campus. Japan has been grappling with reducing its human footprint for over a generation now, other countries with the same predicament are Russia where the population is falling since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Italy which is in permanent economic crisis and having one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. The environmentally conscious may find that population decline is not the panacea that is made out to be as it also runs concurrent with economic decline and blight, whether it is urban or rural. Another truism with fertility and population decline is that it is an irreversible process once it starts.
6
"we do not need that new highway"
Have you driven in LA or SF area recently?
7
lol, I miss the local L.A. commercials that I used to watch when I lived there.
"Take the 101 to the 405 to 5 to the Cayahuga Canyon Highway (made up) to the 110 turnoff to the Sepulveda Blvd exit and we are right there!"
Once those silicon valley unicorns have died after digesting all the venture capital dollars and cannot get funding anymore, you will be surprised how quickly the highways clear.
1
See Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. They nearly doubled the size of the airport for a Continental Airlines hub, then Continental merged with United promising savings and improved service.
The result? Half the airport is closed and a ghost town. The escalator down to the new terminal has a makeshift wall in front of it. United has terrible service (see passenger being dragged off incident) and prices are no better for customers.
All around these merges shrink competition and are bad for travelers and the local economy. But the big corporations lobby to get their mergers pushed through. Terrible.
100
What happened in the airline industry with mergers is also why I am opposed to Sprint and T-Mobile US tying the knot. We'll be left with three major carriers and bad service at high prices with few alternatives.
74
Similar issues in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
16
Incorrect.
I fly PHX to CVG 5x a year and used to live there. The airport is growing incredibly fast.
https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/04/23/cvg-continues-tor...
Delta used to own 70-80% of the volume, prices were high. They brought in low-cost carriers to break Delta's grip. Now, they have Frontier, Allegiant, WoW and Southwest, along with all the other staples. It used to be 22 million a year, then down to 5 million, but it's on track to get back up to 8 or 9 million simply by lowering costs, expanding directs and introducing competition.
They're doing more passengers than Columbus and Cleveland, and are almost on par with Indianapolis. Mind you, these are 900k population cities vs a 300k.
Hello, AMAZON:
Looking for a new site where you can have air cargo easily?
Here is an under-utilized place
44
It makes no sense to put a second Amazon hub in a landlocked city. Air cargo is part of the package (pun intended) but you should see how many cargo ships come into Seattle everyday from Asia. And Seattle has quite a few trains going back and forth.
4
Why don't other airlines take advantage of this unused potential. It could be an option rather than Charlotte, Atlanta, and those other monsters down there. Maybe it is not a tourist destination so much, but certainly, there has to be a way to use this infrastructure rather than just destroy it.
20
The Blues and Rock & Roll; music that Memphis helped to sustain, create and then sent out to profoundly, internationally impact planet Earth now knows that was a one-way ride.
Perhaps that won't console or make up for their now quiet airport, but, what precious cargo Memphis sent out to the world.
8
Delta would be smart to move most of its operations to Memphis, given that the legislature in Georgia took away some tax concessions in view of Delta's stand on guns. I am willing to bet that Memphis would foot the expenses. It's that or spend 200+ million dollars to mothball parts of the airport. The choice should be clear.
50
Delta will never leave Atlanta.
9
The workforce in Memphis is horrible. No businesses are moving there.
1
As a former Memphis who has grown up with the airport over many decades, I still regard it as one of the most stunningly gorgeous in the world, with its champagne glass columns lit white at night, and red and green at Christmas. The concourses are wide and clean and smell deliciously of barbecue. Stop by there if you have a chance.
9
There are actually a lot of flights going in and out of Memphis. These are the Fed Ex planes.
Yes the airport is pretty empty which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Soon or later companies will have to leave the West Coast and find cheaper options for their employees. Try to buy a house in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco or LA. Not everybody can afford to buy a $350,000 tear down or a basic 1200 sft home for $1-2 million.
25
I grew up in Memphis. CBHS '81. Memphis was a podunk town then and when I left. Other than low housing prices what sort of cultural, educational, natural/environmental amenities are going to lure people from the West Coast? Blues and BBQ ain't gonna cut it - you can get that anywhere now.
11
They were saying that when I lived in S.F. in the early 90s and the average cost of a house was like $300,000. Not surprisingly, what you suggest didn't happen then, and it probably won't happen now. There's only one Silicon Valley, and it isn't in Tennessee. There's only one Hollywood, and it isn't in Ohio. There's only one New York Stock Exchange, and it's not in Chicago. For the most part, when California companies look to save money by having people in cheaper places, they still look to western states, not exclusively obviously. But Denver, Nevada, Arizona, Austin come up a lot. But they rarely move the whole company. If a big bank hasn't yet moved from S.F. to Charlotte, it's probably not going to happen now.
2
If you can afford to buy a house in Seattle, you probably work for Amazon or Microsoft and money is not much of a concern.
Also, just checked the real estate section and I found swanky digs in the best neighborhoods for $750,000 or less.
Important to remember, also, that Memphis's history as a commercial aviation hub predates even Northwest. It was originally the hub for Southern Airways. When Southern merged with North Central in 1979 to become Republic Airlines, Memphis remained one of its hubs. Republic merged into Northwest in 1986. At the time, Republic and Northwest had overlapping hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis, making Memphis a very valuable asset for Northwest--it could better compete with Delta, American, US Airways and United, all of which had also hubs in the South (Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, and Houston, respectively). The merger with Delta definitely was the death-blow, and everyone knew it. Memphis and Atlanta were too redundant to keep both, and Delta will never leave Atlanta. To me, it ultimately will come down to marketing Memphis as a destination. There's nothing wrong with right-sizing an airport, but what they have is valuable infrastructure that an ambitious airline (like Southwest or Frontier) might get, well, for a song.
12
Sorry--I meant to say Continental had a hub at Houston, not United. United didn't have a Southern hub. (Continental and United sadly merged a few years ago, much to the detriment of Continental's legacy.)
4
From someone who worked with the airlines for many years your comments are accurate. Memphis fell because of mergers, much like St Louis with TWA and Pittsburg with US Air..
13
There are always underlying factors apart from the ones most glaring. Yes, Delta pulled out leaving a vacuum. But other economic factors are the one noone likes to address because of the insinuations attached to those factors/questions. Is the local economy flourishing like the rest of the US. Are there new companies coming in to build manufacturing plants and offices? Is the healthcare system healthy enough to provide and support existing needs? No, it is way behind the best healthcare systems in the nation. This is one area where TN is way behind the national curve; as is its education system (yes, it has Vanderbilt and Bellmont etc. but are there other reasons people would want to move to TN? Apart from that, there is a general waft of a not-so- inclusive local population, encouraged by the current WH, which may not make it so attractive for those who are not of a lily complexion.
35
I would just say that Memphis does not equal Tennessee. Memphis is a pretty unique destination in a tri-state area with a large economic draw and resurgence. St. Jude and FedEx are huge draws to Memphis.
10
I spent a couple of years at UTenn just after my PhD. It was a shambolic operation and that is saying something as most universities are not exactly Swiss clocks operationally. I didn’t receive my contractually obligated laptop until the second semester of my last year. I had already resigned and was headed to greener pastures in the Northeast. I asked if I should even unbox it and the IT guy said “sure.” When I went to turn in my keys and do my exit procedures, I brought my laptop to them and asked where I should leave it, still unboxed. “We don’t do that. Ask IT. I took it over to them. “It is still in the box? That means it was never inventoried. Looks like you got a free laptop.” Over a decade later, it sits in my faculty office still in the box, waiting for someone to ask for it back. Purchase price: over $2000. I guess the moral here is that it’s actually heartening to see some facet of that desperately dysfunctional state thinking through a problem like mothballing the airport terminal.
31
You have apparently never been to Nashville.
7
Going to be more such vacancies when we finally get our act together and create hyperloop and high speed rail options.
13
One way for people to feel better about the money we
have wasted on airports is to compare it to the money we have wasted on passenger rail service.
5
The country is much bigger than high-speed rail routes can handle. Think Lisbon to Moscow--it's a similar distance from Miami to Seattle.