USAToday reported the other day on the loss of service in St. Louis. Over the last decade, commercial airline departures have dropped nearly fifty percent. St. Louis has two airports: St. Louis – Lambert International Airport, the main airport, a former TWA hub and a focus city for American Airlines, and MidAmerica Airport, opened in 1998 across the river in Mascoutah, IL.
MidAmerica only has five commercial flights a week, operated by Allegiant Air from Las Vegas and Orlando Sanford. It cost $315 million dollars for a passenger terminal and a runway, which it shares with Scott Air Force Base. MidAmerica is searching for commercial prospects, as a deserted airport is not financially feasible.
Meanwhile, Lambert ranked as the tenth busiest airport in America in 1998, but was Number 32 by 2005. Construction of a new 9000-foot runway was approved in 1998, and it was proposed to spend it after September 11, 2001, but it was completed in April, at a cost of $1.1 billion. It was the largest public works project in city history, and displaced 6000 residents, yet only 5% of flights use the new runway. The city of Bridgeton, Missouri was reduced by one-third. Expansion of the airport was considered vital, as its two older runways are parallel and are too close together for simultaneous landings during bad weather.
But with reduced capacity, that seems like a bad decision, considering the excessive cost, in hindsight. The new runway has its problems as well. It is so far from the control tower that controllers cannot see planes approaching it without assistance. Also, airlines try to avoid landing on it to avoid taxiing over three miles to the terminal.
Airline officials are hoping for a change. The Wright Amendment has allowed Southwest to fly to St. Louis from its hub at Love Field, and now add through ticketing from there, which encourages not only St. Louis passengers, but Dallas passengers to pass through the airport. Lambert also has hopes of attracting additional service, including another airline prepared to declare it a focus city for Midwestern operations.