At MSP, the snow may be deep but the outlook’s sunny.
It is the winter of our collective discontent: recession, layoffs and T&E budgets but a shadow of their former selves. While corporate travelers have taken a hit, so too those that cater to them — not the least, airports. (See Air Insight)
Consider Minneapolis/St. Paul, four years ago the seventh-busiest airport in North America. “We’ve slipped from our peak ... both in terms of passengers and operations,” says Jeff Hamiel, director of the entity that runs the airport, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC).
Now, MSP ranks 16th in passenger volume, 12th in takeoffs and landings. “That’s the result of a lot of factors,” says Hamiel. Northwest’s bankruptcy, the Twin Cities’ hometown megacarrier’s merger with Delta, and — of course — the anemic economy.
“A sign of the times,” says MAC’s main man. But not, he insists, a sign of what lies over the snow-shrouded Minnesota horizon.
MSP is in the midst of looking ahead to 2030. By then Hamiel expects the now 117-gate airport will sport 37 new places to park airplanes, this as passenger traffic soars to 55 million flyers per year. For comparison, 32,500,000 econo-shocked folks flew through the airport in 2009.
The Delta Deal
One of the things that leads the Twin Cities to believe better times are ahead is a talk Hamiel had recently with Delta Air Lines CEO Richard Anderson down in Atlanta. Now that DL and NW are one, there’s angst in some quarters that the planet’s largest airline simply can’t support its current array of hubs. Minneapolis/St. Paul and Detroit Metro (DTW) are within a hockey puck slapshot of one another. Neighboring hubs, classically, haven’t worked.
Still, Hamiel says Anderson was reassuring, telling him MSP would remain “a growing part of a new Delta Air Lines.” That’s key, because Delta controls between 70 percent and 80 percent of the action at the airport.
Despite the fact passenger traffic has plummeted at Minnie, international service has stayed relatively stable. Where NW once flew once daily to Tokyo Narita (NRT), so too will DL. Where Northwest/KLM linked the Twin Cities twice daily with major Eurogateway Amsterdam Schiphol, so too will Delta. Hamiel says he’s even arguing “aggressively” that seasonal service to Paris Charles De Gaulle (CDG) should become year-round. Seasonal service on Icelandair to Keflavik (and thence to much of Europe) seems solid too. The Scandinavian heritage of this part of the country almost guarantees ridership.
The only immediate missing pieces of the international: nonstop service to Mexico and Latin America. Hamiel says MAC is working on it, talking with both Aeromexico and Mexicana.
What domestic flyers to the Twin Cities are already aware of is the burgeoning of low-cost lift to the land of lakes. Southwest’s there, AirTran too. Then there’s hometown Sun Country. Altogether, Hamiel says, low cost carriers comprise about 6 percent to 7 percent of the lift. In the heyday of Northwest, the airport was all but bereft (with the exception of Sun Country) of LCCs.
Most of that lift lands, and takes off, on time — despite the reputation of the Northland for snow and such. “In a typical year, we end up with about five significant snow events,” says MAC’s executive director. Still, “We probably have the best reputation in the country when it comes to not being closed.” In the last two years, the place has been shut off to air traffic a cumulative six minutes. So sanguine are Minnesotans about the superiority of their airportal to Chicago O’Hare that they boast ORD aircraft — not infrequently — have to divert to Minnie. “They know we’re always reliably open,” contends Hamiel.
Cost-conscious Alternatives
Also open a significant slice of the time is one of the best in-airport business centers in the country. The MSP Airport Conference Center in the Lindbergh Terminal. Hamiel says bookings are consistent and pricing competitive. Corporate travel managers eager to avoid car rental and hotel fees often book day-trip meetings at the center. Folks fly in in the morning, and out in the afternoon. Zoom, zoom. Facilities are post security, so there’s no waiting for TSA, at least on the Minneapolis/St. Paul end of the daytrip. The center offers food and beverage catering.
What MSP does not offer is free Wi-Fi. It’s pay for play. MAC’s executive director says the airport may look at either “cutting costs, or providing it free,” but that hasn’t happened yet.
If the airport is well connected to the international and domestic grids, access to the greater Minneapolis/St. Paul area isn’t bad either. The region’s LRT (or Light Rail Transit) is a gem. It gets you from MSP to downtown Minneapolis in 28 minutes, and at a cost (depending on time of day) of $1.75 or $2.25. Taxis charge about $30.
The Twin Cities is one of those enlightened places in the country where SuperShuttle has chosen to set up shop, so cabbies have a double-dose of competition. As for driving, the airport boasts some 20,000 parking spaces, and one under-used cell phone lot.
Although it doesn’t yet run to St. Paul from the airport, LRT is still the fastest way to get around. It’s a mere four minutes from the biggest shopping complex in the nation, the mythic Mall of America. If you’ve got a couple of hours between flights, hop the train, do some serious shopping, and head back to the airport. Mall of America, in effect, is an extension of the shops and eateries already extant at the airport itself.
At the latter, you can get some upscale luggage at Bric’s (located in MSP’s own in-house Mall in the Lindbergh Terminal), or purchase infant accoutrements at Fly Babies by Radio Road, also located in MSP’s onsite mall.
Among the better places to eat and grab a brew: Skol Café & Bar near gate A-10, and Rock Bottom Brewery & Restaurant at the junction of Concourses C and D. Both are in the Lindbergh Terminal.
Favorite Sons
MSP sports two terminals, the Lindbergh and the Humphrey. The former is named for native Minnesotan Charles Augustus Lindbergh; the latter of Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Their legacies are connected by a quick, free and frequent ride on the LRT.
The Lindbergh Terminal is, by far, the airport’s largest. While flights are split between the two facilities, Hamiel says the Lindbergh will eventually house all Delta operations. Everything non-Delta will be in the Humphrey.
That’s’ not going to happen for a while, however.
First, the airplanes have to come — come in enough profusion that the airport can justify actually building new gates. Hamiel is optimistic. With Minnesotan understatement, he says “We’re having a bit of a slump right now.” But the airport anticipates regaining its annual 2.5 percent growth rate before long, perhaps in 2010 or 2011.
Once that happens, “We’ll see significant change.”