Portland International Jetport | PWM

Portlander said:
I would say that the Burger King "Home of the Whopper" banner and the fixed hand sanitizer dispenser definitely puts you in the big leagues when it comes to modern terminals! Kidding aside, the high ceilings, use of glass, wood beams and a generous concourse area for an airport of its size.
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I was looking more at the gate-number signage and flooring that doesn't look like it was brought over second-hand from a dying Ames, but okay :) .
 
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Found my invitation from over 14 years ago.
 
Here is a spreadsheet I put together to show year over year. You can see that if covid did not hit, FY2020 started out the year with the 2 best months ever in Jan and Feb before the pandemic. The comparison I did is Jan-July 2024 compared to prior years. Any highlighted item in green is highest passenger count on record. We had 8 Airlines serving 36 routes with the majority being served on mainline aircraft. (737s, A319, A320, A321, A220 variants)
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Nice effort PWMFlyer! I do think we will see PWM's enplanements peak for this calendar year and should level off in the future until an FIS facility gets built which will hopefully lead to a few international flights. Our route map from Portland is just about maxed out with the exception of adding the east coast of Florida and possibly some flights to either PHX, SLC, LAS or California. Our terminal is close to reaching the saturation point (2 new gates will help) but I don't think we are in the position to add another airline with any consistent service at the present time. Expansion of the baggage claim area is a must and more attention needs to be given to the overall appearance of the interior of the terminal now that outside (runway/taxiway/apron) work is nearing completion.
 
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Indeed. The giant gap between the new ticketing hall and the inbound side, where the old ticket counters were, needs to be dealt with somehow. It's too wide for a low-use corridor and so it just seems creepy and awkward. Throw up some V-wall just to slim it down, and maybe someday when we have the FIS facility it can be space for a duty-free shop.
 
Actually, the FIS facility will take up a considerable chunk of the area you are referring to Mark and the goal is to make it more transit friendly and hopefully lose the corridor to nowhere vibe.
 
I’m hoping there’s a sense of urgency for the FIS facility to get going. Breeze has Portland on its short term target to go international out of (within the next three years). If this facility is not built, they very well may turn to Providence or even Portsmouth to run international. This would be a huge loss for PWM both with the opportunity for Maine and economically.
I hope the puzzle pieces get put into place in time for this opportunity. Along with Breeze, Iceland Air, Aer Lingus, JetBlue, Frontier, and Play Air are contenders for international service to Portland. Fingers crossed Portland gets it done in the next three.
 
I don't know if there's a published current estimate of how much it would cost to build the FIS; I know when I took the tour during the 2010 expansion open house, Paul said that, for historical reasons, Delta essentially had its own walled-off area "behind the curtain." and they were hoping to leverage that to reduce construction costs. The reason I bring that up is, I wonder how much longer Sugar Mama Collins will be in her leadership position on the Appropriations Committee. With Mitch McConnell retiring, I wonder if his replacement as Republican Leader will keep her in the spot to respect her long service in the Senate (and out of a sense of practicality in that she's there to do the work), or will they decide to pull her because she's not "conservative" enough.

Anyway, I keep hoping for a Federal grant to help get the FIS thing built.
 
FIFTY EIGHT departures (58) on August 30th, 2024. Going to 21 or 22 different airports. We have said it before, but we are so lucky to have this many options in a market and overall area of this size.

Also, 17 planes staying overnight tonight… crazy.
 
NR2Portland said:
FIFTY EIGHT departures (58) on August 30th, 2024. Going to 21 or 22 different airports. We have said it before, but we are so lucky to have this many options in a market and overall area of this size.
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Yes, definitely. I was in Shreveport, LA last week and needed a bit of courage to get on this United flight. I don't think I've ever been on a jet with this much chipping paint on the front. Is it lazy maintenance? And if so, what else are they not doing that's up to par? Portland is a good airport to fly in and out of. Count the blessings. (And Shreveport's airport has no real options for plugging in your phone! And there's more shortcomings too, but you get it.)

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TC_zoid said:
Yes, definitely. I was in Shreveport, LA last week and needed a bit of courage to get on this United flight. I don't think I've ever been on a jet with this much chipping paint on the front. Is it lazy maintenance? And if so, what else are they not doing that's up to par? Portland is a good airport to fly in and out of. Count the blessings. (And Shreveport's airport has no real options for plugging in your phone! And there's more shortcomings too, but you get it.)

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Ah, Commutair. They're the only operator of ERJ145s for UA, but want to be flying something bigger. Those 145s are old - they're all about 20 years old and tired at this point. That said, United actually owns the planes, they just lease them to Commutair. They started a fleet refresh in 2022 that saw some planes get new interiors and the new UA livery, but I don't believe they carried that into 2023 - a lot of the fleet that should have gotten that TLC didn't and looks it.
 
The new additional gates has been submitted to the Planning Board for approval. Looks like breeze has dumped HPN from the available cites.
 
Were there any updated renderings of the expansion in the planning board package? Do you mean the available cities served by Breeze out of Portland or are they pulling out of White Plains? If they are dropping HPN out of Portland no big loss and they will find another destination in the future.
 
The numbers are out for August, and they crushed it....
2024 August 316,746 vs
2023 August 279,971.00
2019 August 251,375.00
2018 August 255,330.00
Total for 2024 (Jan-Aug) so far 1,567,536.00 compared to (Jan-Aug) for the prior years:
2023 1,431,995 increased 135,541.00
2022 1,296,073 increased 271,463.00
2021 1,057,526 increased 510,010.00
2019 1,442,680 increased 124,856.00
2018 1,380,858 increased 186,678.00

All new records for June, July, August

If the Jetport used the same numbers as last year (Sept-Dec) no increases...
Looking at 2,353,982 for the year, a record year
 
The queues at the car rental counters looked like something seen in a much bigger metropolis over Labor Day weekend. I'd like to see comparative data on this metric with other airports around New England (sans Logan). I get to fly in and out of many airports around the country now, and the Portland Jetport is one of the best. Good job. The worst? Shreveport, LA, with a metro area population a little under Portland's, and there is literally no place to charge a phone! But that Concord Coach express bus to Logan is hard to ignore. (Never. Take. The Train.) If there wasn't that, probably a full 10-15% higher count in passengers for Portland, maybe? The days of taking someone to the airport are somewhat over, I think, and for a minimum ninety minute drive to Logan, definitely. That would take a special friend to do that. And I'm so glad the airport shuttle van thing is gone. Picking people up in the early morning while waiting for them to come out of the house with too much luggage are days I want to forget. 😖
 
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TC_zoid said:
The queues at the car rental counters looked like something seen in a much bigger metropolis over Labor Day weekend. I'd like to see comparative data on this metric with other airports around New England (sans Logan). I get to fly in and out of many airports around the country now, and the Portland Jetport is one of the best. Good job. The worst? Shreveport, LA, with a metro area population a little under Portland's, and there is literally no place to charge a phone! But that Concord Coach express bus to Logan is hard to ignore. (Never. Take. The Train.) If there wasn't that, probably a full 10-15% higher count in passengers for Portland, maybe? The days of taking someone to the airport are somewhat over, I think, and for a minimum ninety minute drive to Logan, definitely. That would take a special friend to do that. And I'm so glad the airport shuttle van thing is gone. Picking people up in the early morning while waiting for them to come out of the house with too much luggage are days I want to forget. 😖
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The train is great if you're actually going into Boston, and even better for a cocktail on the ride home. But yes, using the train if you're going to Logan is nuts. And indeed, there are few people in my life I love enough to pick up at Logan, let alone drive them there. Coming from this direction, with all the city streets with randomly-placed rotaries through Revere? Ugh.
 
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