Originally Posted by e6bpilot

I personally don't see any way AUS will ever be a base. It is halfway in between the two geographically closest bases in the system. It is the San Diego of Texas. Actually, it's even less likely than San Diego because both of those super close crew bases actually serve Austin. There are tons of departures and overnighting aircraft, but zero reason to base crews. It just became a maintenance location, it doesn't even have full time maintenance there. All these rumors are started by the many pilots who have lived there for a long time and are always super hopeful that they will get picked.

Stick with the usual suspects. STL and MCI are great mid-continent connectors with obvious infrastructure benefits.