Tag: Memphis airport

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News The Fly-By

MEMernet: McKinney Tribute, Eclipsed, and Burnt Out P

Posted to Facebook by Memphis Botanic Garden

Memphis on the internet.

McKinney Tribute

The Memphis Botanic Garden lit its new Youth Education and Tropical Plant House in blue over the weekend to honor Memphis Police Department Officer Joseph McKinney, who was killed in the line of duty last Friday, and his two injured colleagues.

Eclipsed!

Posted to YouTube by Memphis Flyer

Skywatchers donned glasses and cast eyes toward the heavens last week to watch the eclipse. Many watched in Memphis (like on the Greensward above), where it would reach only a partial eclipse. But many hit the road west to experience the total eclipse, snarling area traffic on the way home.

Burnt-Out P

Posted to Facebook by Keith Powell

“Anyone have a clue as to what happened to the letter ‘P’ at the Rental Parking Garage?” Keith Powell asked in the Memphis Airport Watchdog Facebook group.

Glen Thomas, the public information officer for the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, promptly responded that “there was an electrical fire in the light that caused this. We are working to get it replaced.”

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News News Blog

Airport Fires Back at New York Times Story

CREDIT: Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority - Facebook

Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority – Facebook

Memphis airport officials were stung Wednesday by a New York Times story that painted a “bleak, negative picture” of the airport in the days since the Delta de-hub.

Available flights to and from Memphis International Airport plummeted in the years after Delta’s decision to close the hub here in 2013. Since then, airport officials have worked to bring more flights and new airlines to its roster. Also, the airport just started a five-year plan to modernize and rightsize itself.

The Times story by Alan Blinder is headlined “The Trouble With the Memphis Airport: No Crowds.” It said the airport here was learning “how to shrink gracefully.” But instead of talking of the efforts made to grow flights back to Memphis, Blinder pointed to the empty concourses and “deserted corridors.”
New York Times

The descriptions chafed airport president and CEO Scott Brockman who, in a letter to members of the Memphis and Shelby County Airport Authority, noted the “the article paints a very bleak, negative picture.” 

Brockman said he spent an hour with Blinder and “what we shared with this reporter was much different than what is portrayed in the story …”

Brockman pointed to his team’s “relentless pursuit of frequent and affordable air service,” and the increase of enplanements (the number of passengers getting on and off of flights), that airfares have fallen, recruitment of new airlines, and more.

Brockman said the reporter and photographer were given tours of the still-open (and busy) A and C concourses and of the now-closed B-concourse.

Airport Fires Back at New York Times Story

“It’s an indictment of this article’s goal that when the reporter and photographer arrived at the A gates, passengers were backed up into the A/B connector and the gates were very full,” Brockman said. “Yet, the photo of the A gate that was used shows only a few passengers.”

To close, Brockman called the story a “gross misrepresentation of our airport.”

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Editorial Opinion

Taking Flight at MEM Again?

Along with the weather and whichever public official is judged most feckless or misguided in a given time-frame (the honor rotates), there is no target more susceptible to local misgivings these days than Memphis International Airport.

Sometimes it’s actually the former main proprietor, Delta, which famously (or infamously) shuttered its hub and pulled dozens of flights out of Memphis, that accounts for traveler malaise; sometimes it’s the fact that the big, new-ish parking facility obscures the long-cherished view of the MIA terminal; sometimes it’s something as simple as the fact that the number of fast-food outlets has shrunk, especially in the airport’s pre-boarding areas where people are used to dropping off their kinfolk.

And sometimes it’s the fact that, as has been widely reported, the facility is about to be downsized, with plans to demolish the airport’s A and C terminals — one of which used to be Delta’s bailiwick, the other of which is still bearing a good deal of traffic.

All of that is the bad news. So, you ask: What’s the good news? Well, to listen to Scott Brockman, the Airport Authority’s executive director since January, there’s a bunch of it, beginning with the fact that, along with the demolition of terminals A and C, the B terminal is about to undergo some impressive expansion and modernization, giving it not only a more spacious look and feel but a sense of being up-to-date, which the 50-year-old airport facility has heretofore lacked.

Best of all, the improvements-to-come, which will cost an estimated $114 million, can be accomplished without incurring any additional debt, says Brockman, who points out that the Airport Authority has a $691 million balance, has reduced its debt load by $300 million in the past decade, and maintains A-level grades with the top three rating services. And that aforementioned ground-transportation facility has upped revenues from parking four-fold.

The areas administered by the Airport Authority (including the FedEx property and DeWitt Spain and Charles Baker airport) still account for one job in four in these parts, Brockman noted in a luncheon talk to members of the Rotary Club of Memphis on Tuesday. And the Memphis facility handles more cargo on a daily basis than any other site besides Hong Kong. Locally originating passenger flights are actually up, not down, in recent months, and new nonstops have been added to Denver, Chicago, Houston Dallas, and Baltimore — not to mention Philadelphia, which Brockman said could become a connecting point to rival Atlanta.

For the record, these are the airlines that provide daily passenger service from Memphis: American, Delta, Frontier, Southwest, United, U.S. Airways, and Seaport. (Even Delta has upped its service somewhat lately, adding non-stops to Cancun on a seasonal basis.) Of these, Frontier and Southwest are the newcomers, and, as one might expect of newbies, they are determined to demonstrate their competitiveness to the traveling public.

We’re willing to take Brockman at his word when he talks of the Airport Authority’s “relentless pursuit of frequent, affordable air service,” but only time will tell. Still, if the former hapless University of Memphis football Tigers seem finally ready to soar again, then so, surely, can Memphis International Airport.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Reason To Smile?

CREDIT: Danziger

When editors of the next edition of this or that dictionary are searching for something to illustrate the word “irrepressible,” they need look no further than Jack Sammons, the newly named chairman of the Memphis-

Shelby County Airport Authority, who downplays his other considerable skills by referring to himself as a “salesman.”

But no Willy Loman is he. Sammons, a versatile businessman/entrepreneur and longtime member of the Memphis City Council, not only has the brightest Cheshire cat smile in our corner of the Western world, he has the most unquenchable optimism.

And therefore, when Sammons took his sales pitch on the future good prospects of the airport to a Memphis Rotary Club luncheon this week, he made no effort to ignore the airport’s “awesome challenges,” which he laid on the table as problems to be solved. Some of these problems transcend our local sphere. Sammons said the airline industry itself has diminished by 16 percent since September 10, 2001, the day before the attacks on New York’s World Trade Center transformed the nation’s commercial and personal habits.

That same number — 16 — also describes the number of airline hubs that have gone out of existence since 1990. We all know about the ongoing mergers, such as Northwest’s absorption by Delta, which has drastically downsized its inherited Memphis hub operation to a nominal presence.

Sammons offered a bit of good news on this latter point, saying he talked with Delta’s CEO last week and was assured that “no more Draconian cuts” are in the offing. For what it’s worth, Sammons also got himself invited to serve on the airline’s “Customer Advisory Board.” Hopefully, he will lobby forcefully on behalf of Memphians who have seen their available flights reduced while rates have continued to rise.

Sammons said he has also been engaging with officials of Southwest Airlines, the low-cost carrier that has become a national phenomenon among airlines and which, at long last, is due to initiate new service in Memphis during the coming year through its AirTran acquisition.

Sammons said he pushed for more flights and was told, “The more you take, the more you’ll get.” To Sammons, that meant advising his audience to join Southwest’s Rapid Rewards program to demonstrate a strong local commitment.

Unsurprisingly, Sammons touted the inestimable value of FedEx to Memphis’ air operations, in ways ranging from its contribution to landing fees to the company’s transformation of Memphis into “the Bethlehem of cargo aviation.” He also cited the value to the airport of the new, multi-decker parking garage, which Sammons considers a potential cash cow.

There’s big-picture stuff, and there’s good housekeeping to be taken care of. On the latter score, Sammons promised to pursue such improvements as internal rental-car decks, internet availability everywhere on the property, and more people-friendly attitudes everywhere — including, he assured the Rotarians, on the part of TSA inspectors.

It’s good that Sammons is smiling. Now, if he can only get the air-traveling public hereabouts to do the same, we’ll truly have something.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Elixir of Love

I’m sorry to point out that Opera Memphis’ recent production of Elixir of Love (“Elixir of Love is Tasty Snake Oil,” memphisflyer.com) was not LGBTQ-friendly. I loved the gender-bending costume of the heroine in the first act and thought that she was about to flirt with the women in the chorus, as well as the men. That would have given a little juice to a book that is puerile and misogynist even by 19th-century-opera standards. But no. Maybe the director thought he had already reached the limits of Memphis edginess with his cowboy costumes. Or maybe it was just a failure of imagination rather than courage. Not so serious either way, but a disappointing missed opportunity.

In the second act, though, the director chose to dress one of his characters in crude and offensive drag for comic effect. He got a couple of cheap laughs out of it too, at the cost of exposing our friends in the trans and queer communities to shame and ridicule. What is the message here? That it’s okay to make fun of trans and queer people? Now that blackface isn’t acceptable on stage anymore, does elite culture need easier, more vulnerable targets for its humor? As we move forward to a world of dignity and respect for all God’s creatures, it’s shameful that Opera Memphis should be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Andrea Spies

Memphis

Teens and Helmets

I was disheartened to read Derek Kelly’s statement, “It’s definitely common sense to wear a helmet for those of us with common sense, but teenagers don’t have that” (City Beat, January 31st issue). Not only is this statement disrespectful to teenagers, it is often untrue. I do not believe that demonstrating common sense in various situations has much to do with the age of a person. Further, common sense is not something that one either has or doesn’t have. It’s very subjective as to what one person considers sensible compared with another. Kelly should have focused his statement on why he believes there are health benefits to wearing helmets and left it at that.

Missy Robinson

Arlington

Moonbase Delta

I am from Belgium but regularly visit Memphis, because the headquarters of my company is located there. When I flew back to Europe last Saturday, after two weeks in Memphis, I noticed how empty the airport was. They tell me Saturdays are slow, but big parts of the terminal were totally empty. Anyhow, I had my camera with me and took some shots, added some thoughts to it, and I published “‘Moonbase Delta’ — The Abandoned Memphis International Airport” online (ulrik.be/moonbase-delta).

I hope it’s not too depressing for Memphians.

Ulrik De Wachter

Brussels, Belgium

No Difference?

A few years ago, I heard people say there’s no difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Some are still saying it. But after the past four years of Republican obstruction, gridlock, and holding the nation hostage to its regressive agenda, the difference between the two parties couldn’t be more clear.

Abortion divides the nation, and almost all Republican politicians are carrying the anti-abortion banner. Democrats, on the other hand, are mostly intent on letting a woman make her own choice about abortion.

The gun debate also divides the nation. Republicans and their Tea Party allies are saying no to President Obama and America when it comes to new laws regarding lethal firearms. Republicans are mostly toeing the NRA line and trying to stop any new gun control legislation.

There are many other issues where the line is equally clear between the two parties: global climate change, gay rights, immigration reform, voter suppression laws, the right to union membership, public education, and religious tolerance, to name a few. Anyone who says there is no difference between the two parties either isn’t paying attention or is being willfully ignorant.

William Wainscott

Memphis

Categories
Opinion

Snapshots of the Memphis Economy

Electrolux site

  • Electrolux site

How many Memphians do you think could find the Frank Pidgeon Industrial Park? That’s where the new Electrolux plant is under construction. I rode down there (it’s in southwest Memphis near the river) this week with a friend who is one of the site-preparation contractors. The site was swarming with heavy equipment and (mostly) guys in hardhats, shades, and yellow vests. It reminded me of the mid-1990s when the casinos were going up in Tunica. The main building will be about one million square feet. That’s a biggie, on the order of the car plants in Middle Tennessee and Mississippi.

The factory will make ovens. Right now it’s hard to put a face on this project, but it’s a big deal for Memphis and is good to see. To the south is the Nucor steel plant and to the north is the Mitsubishi Electric site, another big catch. If you want to see for yourself, go to Chucalissa, if that’s any help, and then keep going west and you’ll be there.

photo.JPG

On a different note, another friend and I took a driving tour of the Memphis airport last week, starting at the Greyhound bus terminal on Airways. The bus terminal looks overdesigned to me, like the one near the train station downtown. It replaced the old terminal on Union that got former mayor Herenton in hot water. I felt sorry for the people sitting in the terminal waiting for over-the-road buses or MATA buses to take them to some other terminal closer to their final destination. I don’t see much if any synergy between airplane passenger service and bus service, but we’ll see.

By the way, I am thinking of taking the Megabus to Nashville. Depending on when you go, the one-way fare is $1, $4, or $9 and the return can be as low as $1 or as high as $25. Round trip could be less than it costs to park in downtown Nashville these days. And the Nashville bus terminal is within easy walking distance of the Country Music Hall of Fame, arena, and lower Broadway honky-tonks. I would be grateful for some comments from readers who have made this trip or other trips by Megabus.

photo_1_.JPG

Right across the street from the new Memphis bus terminal is an abandoned hotel with curtains flapping in the breeze and mirrors still hanging on the walls. It looks like something William Eggleston would have photographed. I do believe in aerotropolis, I do believe in aerotropolis, I do believe in aerotropolis . . . because if you look a little farther east you see all those FedEx jets parked in rows. But our little circumnavigation of the airport was depressing because of all the blight, vacant office buildings and warehouses, and poor neighborhoods. Three cheers for Smith and Nephew and Medtronic, holding down the fort on Brooks Road.

Categories
News

Delta and FedEx CEOs Upbeat About Memphis Hub

CREDIT: image: lindauer-fly.ch

Aerotropolis lives.

The chief executive of Delta Airlines says the Memphis airport hub should prosper under the merger of Delta and Northwest Airlines, although high fuel prices are here to stay and will cut the volume of business.

Aerotropolis is the name for a massive long-range development around Memphis International Airport including FedEx, passenger airlines, and other businesses. The Memphis Regional Chamber of Commerce is betting heavily that Memphis has a bright future as America’s low-cost, hassle-free airport in an era of airline mergers and expensive fuel bills.

Delta CEO Richard Anderson told chamber members Thursday that the Memphis hub “will continue to be an important part of the combined network” after the merger is completed later this year. It’s expected to take 18 months to fully implement.

“The strength of a network puts Memphis and the communities we serve in a much better position,” he said, adding that the combination of the two formerly bankrupt carriers is “about addition, not subtraction.”

Meeting with reporters after his speech, Anderson said that if there are cuts in the number of airline employees and flights out of Memphis it would be “not as a result of the merger.”

He said “the issue of fuel is a separate cause” of lower passenger traffic that will likely reduce employment and flight count because flying is not as affordable as it used to be.

Anderson said he expects the merged airline, which will simply be called Delta, to keep all of its current Northwest and Delta hubs including smaller ones such as Memphis and Cincinnati. In general, there will be fewer flights to leisure markets such as Orlando and Las Vegas and small markets in states such as Texas that are served by regional carriers, Anderson said. He said post-merger Delta wants to increase international business to 50 percent from the current 40 percent. He said a new Boeing 787 airplane is “a game changer” on the passenger side that represents “a quantum leap” in technology that bodes well for Memphis and international service.

Anderson also spiked a rumor that airlines will start charging passengers by weight in the wake of surcharges for extra luggage.

“We’re not going to weigh passengers,” he said.

He said Delta’s decision to drop its contract with Memphis-based Pinnacle Airlines does not mean Northwest will do the same.

“The relationship between Pinnacle and Northwest is very important,” he said.

Pinnacle CEO Phil Trenary was in the audience but did not question Anderson. In a brief comment after the meeting, Trenary said he hopes to keep Pinnacle operating at the same level it is now.

Anderson was introduced by David Bronczek, CEO of FedEx Express, who was equally upbeat. He said Delta-Northwest will be “the biggest, most powerful airline in the world” and the Memphis airport is “the best of the best.”

One factor in favor of Memphis is weather, which Anderson said is the hardest thing about running an airline. He said he himself was delayed Wednesday by a thunderstorm in Atlanta.

Categories
News The Fly-By

The Cheat Sheet

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Developers want to spruce up the airport area, saying it gives visitors who fly into Memphis a bad first impression of our city. We agree, but let’s face it. There are no good first impressions of our city, unless you approach the city from the east and drive through Collierville and Germantown. Most of North Memphis looks pretty rough, too, and West Memphis … well, ’nuff said.

Several of the Tennessee Waltz defendants have gone on trial for bribery and other charges (with lots more scheduled soon), another trial is under way for a man accused of the stabbing death of Midtowner Emily Fisher, and two men are arrested for the murder of a Tennessee highway patrolman. Sometimes it seems everybody in town is behind bars or headed that way.

Mayor Willie Herenton continues to plead for a brand-new, multimillion-dollar football stadium but says we certainly don’t need a new $240 million jail. Oh, really? Mayor, please read the above item again. Maybe we could combine both facilities into one, and the inmates could play football, like in The Longest Yard, or any number of inmate-football-team movies.

A criminal court jury finds Greg Cravens

the so-called Hacks Cross Creeper guilty on all four counts of home invasion and robbery, with other charges pending. Willie Price had terrorized homeowners in the Hacks Cross area for months before police finally nabbed him. He now faces up to 40 years in prison. He was called the “creeper” because he snuck into homes so quietly, but he’ll always just be a “creep” to us.