We need a new airport!!!

[KCPowercat]

If it has indeed rotted away, then there IS an intentional reason for it...

how much in taxes are you willing to pay for the level of maintenance needed to keep up everything?

because we're not doing this with thousands of buildings

If we spent our collected taxes the right way to begin with, we wouldn't have this problem.

Does the airport turn a profit? Does any of that go to the city? If so those funds should be directly used to maintain the facilities. Zero added taxes. See how easy that was?

You've talked for this many pages and haven't heard this answered 100 times?

[LenexatoKCMO]

A better analogy than the AC is someone with an old high mileage car. It is still getting you to work but it runs rough, gets 12mpg, the head gasket is going and you know it is going to need a new exhaust to pass its next inspection. None of your friends will ride with you and u can't go on dates because it is so ugly but your family has a weird, irrational attachment to it. Do you:
A) trade it in for a nice new Camry? You will take on payments and your crazy family will be pissed, but you will get better mileage and you can go on dates again;
B) instead dump a down payment worth of cash getting the gasket and exhaust fixed and still have the same 12mpg clunker? Your crazy family will be happy but you will still be riding rough; or
C) trust the shady mechanic who is telling you that you just need to top up the fluids and change the wiper blades and it will be good to go for another 100k miles?

[flyingember]

decent example

Add to this the fact that 100% of reinforced concrete MUST be replaced. sure, better maintenance will extend it's life but no amount of maintenance will change this fact

look at what the terminal roof is made of. imagine the cost of replacing that roof with the airport still open!

[flyingember]

The aviation dept had a total operating revenue of $106,000,000 last year.
The aviation dept had a total operating expense of $76,600,000 last year.
http://www.flykci.com/_FileLibrary/File ... EVISED.pdf

End of year net position was +$514,003,715...

I guess you didn't notice that the operating expenses are split across four pages. that number is that page's total.

their 2013 expenses were $153 million

[im2kull]

A better analogy than the AC is someone with an old high mileage car. It is still getting you to work but it runs rough, gets 12mpg, the head gasket is going and you know it is going to need a new exhaust to pass its next inspection.

A better analogy is someone with an old high mileage car, who did proper maintenance along the way for the fraction of the cost of ignoring that required maintenance in lieu of buying a new car every few years. While this old car may be slightly less desirable than a Ferrari by today's throw-it-away-and-replace it society, it runs as smooth as the day it was bought, still gets 30+ MPGs, and doesn't leak a drop of oil.

I have two vehicles that fit this description. Turned 198k miles and 147k miles on them just recently. Running full synthetic oil and they don't burn, or leak a drop. Of course, I've actually maintained them along the way..so this is all expected. My sister on the other hand has gone through 3 new cars in 6 years, two of which had massive engine failures because she failed to change the oil and the result was oil starvation eventually ending in implosion of 2 cylinder walls. I estimate I have spent $6k on maintenance for my 2003 147k mile car, hardly the cost of full blown replacement.

[im2kull]

Add to this the fact that 100% of reinforced concrete MUST be replaced. sure, better maintenance will extend it's life but no amount of maintenance will change this fact

look at what the terminal roof is made of. imagine the cost of replacing that roof with the airport still open!

Why must all this concrete be replaced? This is the first I've heard of concrete at the airport needing replacement. The walkthrough they did awhile back was nothing but (Minor) leaky pipes and stuff like that. The de-icing issue used to be the hot topic, but that was fixed with funding allocated across the last 3 years to build new facilities.

PS - A roof replacement is a fairly standard procedure, even on a concrete structure like that. You don't literally tear out the concrete and replace it, just the roof material!

[flyingember]

an old car is a great analogy if you're honest about it

you sometimes replace a car because it no longer fits your needs. like if gas prices go up and your huge SUV gets 15mph you may replace it with a new sedan that gets 30mpg.

[shaffe]

I really need to quit reading this thread until something new happens.

[grovester]

I really need to quit reading this thread until something new happens.

+1

[im2kull]

an old car is a great analogy if you're honest about it

you sometimes replace a car because it no longer fits your needs. like if gas prices go up and your huge SUV gets 15mph you may replace it with a new sedan that gets 30mpg.

Needs, or wants?

Sure, if it's your own money then you can afford to throw it around and go into debt over various illusions of "need". If it's not your money then you do what the person funding you (IE: The Taxpayer) wants...which in this case is to continue using the huge SUV getting 15mpg, because obviously that is still cheaper (For now..) then buying a spanking new car that only cuts your gas consumption in half (Let's say from $400 to $200 a month) while making you pay multitudes more for the car (Let's say $35,000 vs $0)..which easily offsets any gains you get by lowering the monthly gas bill.

So if we're being honest with each other, the original "Car" is still useful and your example doesn't make much economic sense (Just like the "Replace the terminals and build new..right now!" proposals. What are we replacing the terminals for again..to get more vending machines and bathrooms for those people with no common sense?

[brewcrew1000]

New Service to Miami starts March 5th, this is a good route to have especially if your flying to Latin America. Hopefully the flight sticks around for awhile, It will be nice to be only one stop away from oddball locations like Barbados, Manaus, and other places in Latin America only flown in and out of MIA

[herrfrank]

New Service to Miami start March 5th, this is a good route to have especially if your flying to Latin America. Hopefully the flight sticks around for awhile, It will be nice to be only one stop away from oddball locations like Barbados, Manaus, and other places in Latin America only flown in and out of MIA

Wow, you beat me to it!

The new daily Miami service will be AA mainline, on the new 737-800s with 16 F, 48 Main Cabin Extra, and 86 Economy. Departure from MCI is early morning at 6am with a return from MIA at 8pm, arriving around 10pm.

This is a great additional method to get to KC from points east, as flying to MCI on AA from secondary markets in the east tends to get caught up in ORD problems or requires connecting through DFW, which is an overshot.

Related: TSA needs to introduce better line handling at the newly combined AA/ US checkpoint (gates 81-87). The line moves fast, but it needs to be better mananged so that the outside cluster stays in a clean line.

[brewcrew1000]

New Service to Miami start March 5th, this is a good route to have especially if your flying to Latin America. Hopefully the flight sticks around for awhile, It will be nice to be only one stop away from oddball locations like Barbados, Manaus, and other places in Latin America only flown in and out of MIA

This is a great additional method to get to KC from points east, as flying to MCI on AA from secondary markets in the east tends to get caught up in ORD problems or requires connecting through DFW, which is an overshot.

Related: TSA needs to introduce better line handling at the newly combined AA/ US checkpoint (gates 81-87). The line moves fast, but it needs to be better mananged so that the outside cluster stays in a clean line.

Once US/AA merge I would think PHL and CLT would be the much easier way to connect east. MIA is really far south, having the new plane will be nice, i just hope it stays filled so the route isn't dropped or turned into a regional jet.

[herrfrank]

Yes, on US, CLT is the best connecting point. After the AA-US merger finalizes, that should handle a lot of the MCI-bound traffic. MIA however is a nice backup -- it has an inbound bank of traffic that will make the 8pm departure to MCI fit in well with, say, a 4pm origination in the coastal South (CHS, JAX).

From STL, I used to use MIA as a late evening connection even to New England. Late flight left STL around 4pm, connected in MIA to the late bank of 9pm flights to BDL and BOS If the traffic on this first flight pair is positive, KC may get a second flight which would probably be a 5pm to MIA and a morning return to interface with the red-eye banks (particularly South America) at MIA.

[ZaEry]

A tiny piece from a very long and boring house committee meeting transcript about TSA oversight. It came up that maybe the reason KCI did so well on security screening is it's layout. This is really a tongue in cheek post but wouldn't it be funny if KCI becomes the prototype that all airports will be designed from in the future. It also occurred to me that KCI is one of the most convenient, wired, and safest airports in the nation yet it still gets ridiculed because it's not like a big city airport.

Washington Transcript Service; 5/12/2004




Washington Transcript Service

05-12-2004

HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY: SUBCOMMITTEE
ON INFRASTRUCTURE AND BORDER SECURITY HOLDS HEARING ON
TSA OVERSIGHT
MAY 12, 2004

And briefly, lastly, at Kansas City, it is true that they found
that the screeners at Kansas City were better for us providing security
than federal counterparts at a few other airports they compared it to.
They didn't compare it to all Category One airports. They compared it
to a sample.
They found that the TSA and federal and private screeners are
pretty much the same at other airports. Those of you who have been to
Kansas City know it is a very different airport. It's a very unusual layout.

And we're very proud of the work that the screeners there did to
get that result. But I think we probably need to drill down to a little
bit more detail as to why we got that result there.
It can be layout. It might be training. It might be motivation.
There's a lot of things we need to look at.

I thought I heard at one point that Kansas City was going to build a new airport. I'm not sure if we could expand our current KC airport because the city has grown into that area.

[pash]

.

[LCDSI]

here is an unscientific ranking of the nation's worst airports.

http://gizmodo.com/the-worst-airports-i ... 1662565765

i'll have to admit the comments for MCI are pretty funny.

[Highlander]

here is an unscientific ranking of the nation's worst airports.

http://gizmodo.com/the-worst-airports-i ... 1662565765

i'll have to admit the comments for MCI are pretty funny.

Unscientific as it may be, I found it odd that KCI was the only small city airport in the group. Most of the others were the big hubs.

[im2kull]

I found it odd that KCI was the only small city airport in the group. Most of the others were the big hubs.

KCI has a high PAX/Air Traffic to Actual population number. I think our PAX rating was 25th best in the country, yet our population is like 37th or so? I quoted and cited the actual numbers somewhere else earlier in this thread. We have a good amount of PAX traffic for a city our size, and that should be a clue that our airport is not the detrimental growth-stopper that some people want you to believe that it is.

[flyingember]

I found it odd that KCI was the only small city airport in the group. Most of the others were the big hubs.

KCI has a high PAX/Air Traffic to Actual population number. I think our PAX rating was 25th best in the country, yet our population is like 37th or so? I quoted and cited the actual numbers somewhere else earlier in this thread. We have a good amount of PAX traffic for a city our size, and that should be a clue that our airport is not the detrimental growth-stopper that some people want you to believe that it is.

it also could mean we're heavily reliant on air travel to get to other places and an improved airport is critical for our transport system

Megabus from KC serves Columbia, St. Louis and Chicago

Neither Greyhound nor Amtrak serves any cities to the north without going through Chicago.
many destinations to the south are the same like Amtrak doesn't go to Dallas from KC while Greyhound does.

So there's a large number of smaller regional cities that you have to drive or fly to or be prepared to take way longer to get there.

The airport is a lynchpin for KC, that's how important getting it's future right is.