No doubt, Kansas City.
You would only have YX and WN, both of them have interests elsewhere right now. The airport has major potential with prior hub occupents being TWA, Eastern, Braniff, and a short lived U.S. Airways jont ,not foregetting Vanguard. Vanguard was a failure from the beginning due to the fact that they were trying to target the LCC market with inefficiant aircraft from a city where the market was controlled by a dieing and desperate Legacy carrier that had a history of fighting wars with the largest carriers on the planet, and not losing. TWA wasn't afraid to throw weight around like water, and they sure did. That's why they ended up in the financial situation that they were in.
If you want to talk about city population (which dosn't play that much anyways,
San Antonio is a city full of young, poor citizens. Which cannot afford extensive air travel.
San Antonio 1,256,509
Median resident age: 31.7 years
Median household income: $36,214 (year 2000)
Median house value: $68,800
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio
Kansas City 1,947,694
Median resident age: 34.0 years
Median household income: $37,198 (year 2000)
Median house value: $84,000 (year 2000)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_...ropolitan_Area
LOTS of companies are allready HQ'd in Kansas City
The following companies and organizations are headquarted in the area:
American Century Companies, an investment firm
AMC Theatres, a movie theater chain
Andrews McMeel Universal, a syndication and publication company which represents features such as Dear Abby, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and Doonesbury
Applebee's restaurant chain
Aquila, Inc., a major energy company
Black & Veatch, Major engineering firm
Burns & McDonnell, an architectural firm
Cerner, leading supplier of healthcare information technology solutions.
Church of the Nazarene church
Commerce Bancshares, bank serving Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois
Community of Christ church (Mormon RLDS)
DST Systems, Inc., global provider of sophisticated information processing and computer software services and products
Ferrellgas, the nation's largest retailer and distributor of natural gas
Garmin, makers of GPS-based electronics
Hallmark Cards
HOK Sport + Venue + Event, world leader in sports architecture
H&R Block, financial corporation and former parent company of CompuServe
Inergy, LP, one of the nation's largest retailers and distributors of natural gas
Interstate Bakeries Corporation, makers of Twinkies and Wonder Bread
J.E. Dunn Construction Group, major construction contractor.
Kansas City Power & Light Company, a leading regulated provider of electricity and energy-related products and services
Kansas City Southern Industries, operators of a Class I railroad
Lockton Companies, the largest privately held insurance brokerage in the nation
Premium Standard Farms, provider of pork products, producing pork products for the retail, wholesale, foodservice, further processor and export markets
Russell Stover Candies
Sprint Nextel Corporation, one of the world's largest telecommunication companies.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States of America
Wolferman's bakery
YRC Worldwide Inc., one of the largest transportation service providers in the world.
Kansas City has a Federal Reserve Bank.
Other major employers are AT&T, BNSF Railway, Hallmark Cards, Harley-Davidson, General Motors, Honeywell, and Ford Motor Company.
Kansas City is the 27th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. at 2million, San Antonio is ranked 30th with 1.5 million
Furthermore Kansas City and St. Louis are far from "bible belt" cities, they have some of the highest crime rates in the country and are popular with the mafia. Kansas City proves to be 4x as dangerous as San Antonio, with St. Louis being 6x.
As far as Commercial operations go, Kansas City currently has 3 Airports avalible, I also know of some quiet talks on a fourth, which I could see becoming a reality in the future.
KMCI : two runways 9,500ft a piece, and a third just south of 11,000 then again if Airport X dosn't happen they will build a fourth at 15,100ft.
KMKC : right up on the city, dedicated terminal and little delays subject to traffic
KIXD : Building up slowly but surely, In Johnson County which is one of the wealthiest counties in the country, also in Olathe which is the county seat.
Now SAT, I only see 24 gates? A new airline would have to build it's own terminal which would be expensive for a start-up, as oposed to KMCI's 90 gates. Which are largly avalible.
Kansas City would be a clear winner, SAT might look good from a distance but close up their is no competition.
Oh and the clear point that it is in the center of the country, litterally!
my first post and $.04 (took awile the write)