Originally Posted by
flyguy81
Good, people running that place are the dumbest people ever. Back in 2009 the clowns running that place decided they wanted more revenue. So they told all the airlines their landing fees would be raised.
AA was the largest airline at the airport due to TWA and told the airport to pound sand, they’d move most of their operation to ORD. STL said, “yeah right, sure you will”. AA put out a press release listing all the flights that would no longer exist. STL said, “uh, you can stay with the same landing fees you were paying before”. AA gave the airport the finger and moved shop in 2010. AA crew base closed soon after.
SWA said they’d pick up the slack but they also weren’t paying the increased fees. STL said, “yeah that’s fine”. Which is why we fly to TUL, ICT, MSP, etc out of STL. Those were all old AA Connection routes that were cancelled when they moved operations to ORD.
Pilot base closed in 2018. I think it coincided with the draw down of the MDs.
FA base was 2021 but I think STL still technically has a satellite FA base still. I think it’s attached to DFW.
The airport basically runs a flat budget. Fees went up because AA kept pulling flights, by 2009 they were basically dehubbed and they had to pay the bills somehow. Whatever costs are is what the fees work out to be. Less flights means higher fees per flight, more flights is less fees. It’s pretty easy math. It isn’t like they charge extra fee and have a surplus they just pocket. If they end up with extra money at the end of the year it gets credited back to the airlines.
The airport director, who I actually think has done a decent job with what she has had to work with is retiring in August. So if she happened to be a sticking point for anything she will be gone after that. I assume they will bring in someone from the outside, which I also think isn’t a bad idea. It’s been about 20 years of the same director and she worked for AA and TWA before that. So it would be nice to get a fresh face in with outside ideas.
Southwest is basically running the show on the new terminal so whatever happens they will get what they want from it. They will be paying for a big chunk of it anyway.