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Originally Posted by Rynetwo
I would rather connect through Dallas or Houston with a 1 hour layover WAY before dealing with a drive to Austin or their airport.
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I agree with you but people from SA do enjoy flying out of Austin. The pandemic really killed Austin's momentum but I expect it will recover quickly. SA on the other hand has a lot of work ahead of itself. Here is an article from the express news...last December.
https://www.expressnews.com/business...y-14939373.php
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Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is quickly scoring direct flights to Europe, adding routes to Amsterdam and Paris next year on top of recently launched service to Frankfurt, Germany.
The additions are striking. Austin landed its first direct service to Europe — a British Airways flight to London — just shy of six years ago. By May, travelers will board four flights a day from Austin to Europe.
Austin’s trans-Atlantic flight schedule sharply contrasts to the offerings at San Antonio International Airport.
“We are the one of the largest markets in the U.S. without trans-Atlantic service,” said Brian Pratte, chief air service development officer at San Antonio International.
Pratte, who joined San Antonio International in 2016, said the airport didn’t begin aggressively courting carriers for European service until a few years ago. Relationships with foreign carriers, he added, can take years to build.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” he said.
Pratte said he is negotiating with airlines for direct service to London and Frankfurt, the two overseas markets for which airport officials say there would be the greatest demand. He’s optimistic the airport will launch such service in the next year or two.
Convincing British Airlines that the Austin market could support the trans-Atlantic routes was a multiyear effort, said Kevin Schorr, vice president of Campbell-Hill Aviation. Austin-Bergstrom officials hired the firm to convince an airline to launch European service.
“There’s no question — getting that first route is always the hardest,” he said.
In 2016, two years after British Airways started its Austin-to-London route, Condor Airlines began offering seasonal service to Frankfurt.
In 2018, the competition in Austin between international carriers heated up.
Low-cost carrier Norwegian Air added three-day-a-week service to London, competing with British Airways on the route. Meanwhile, German flagship carrier Lufthansa announced round-trip service from Austin to Frankfurt five days a week, starting last spring.
Condor pulled out, deciding not to resume seasonal service for 2019 in light of the competition from the bigger Lufthansa.
Dutch airline KLM was next. Three months ago, it announced it would begin service from Austin to Amsterdam three days a week, beginning May 4.
Chief executive Peter Elbers said KLM will cancel routes in its long-haul international network to free up gates at Amsterdam’s crowded Schiphol Airport for the Austin flights.
The announcements have continued. Two months ago, Norwegian Air said it will add a seasonal flight from Austin to Paris starting May 6 and increase its London service to four days a week.
Norwegian spokesman Anders Lindstrom said the airline is also considering launching service from Austin to Barcelona or Rome in 2021.
British Airways’ success helped set the stage for the additional routes, Schorr said.
“British Airways taking that first step into the market really helped prove the market for everyone else that was looking at it,” he said.
British Airways started five-day-a-week service in March 2014 on a smaller trans-Atlantic plane, the Boeing 787 with only 214 seats. Two months later, the airline expanded to seven days a week and added planes with more seating.
San Antonio International, meanwhile, is struggling to build its European service.
Asked about the possibility of San Antonio service, Norwegian Air’s Lindstrom put it bluntly: “It is not a destination we’re currently considering as there’s not enough demand, especially with the proximity to Austin.”
Norwegian flies to Europe from 13 cities in the U.S. in addition to Austin, the airline’s only Texas service.
Pratte said one of his challenges is convincing airline officials that San Antonio and Austin are separate markets.
Most area residents traveling to Europe do so out of San Antonio International and then catch connecting flights at hub airports, he said. Approximately 200,000 residents a year start their European journeys in San Antonio, he said.
Austin’s airport is a popular option for San Antonio-area residents, regardless of where they are traveling.
Last year, about 7 percent of travelers in the San Antonio metro market traveled to Austin for lower fares and more nonstop options, according to San Antonio International statistics.
Austin-Bergstrom data show San Antonio-area residents make up a solid segment of travelers flying to Europe from the airport, Schorr said, though he declined to provide numbers.
Nevertheless, he said, the San Antonio airport can make the case that its market is big enough to support European service. But the city’s proximity to Austin “definitely makes it a little tougher knowing that there is all this competitive service right up the street.”
Jesus Saenz Jr., the newly hired San Antonio aviation director who will start Feb. 3, said air service development will be one of his top priorities. Saenz was chief operating officer at the Houston Airport System.
Local officials also face a demographic challenge in convincing airlines to offer service to European cities because San Antonio has the highest poverty rate among major U.S. metro areas.
Austin residents, on the other hand, have higher-than-average incomes, a factor airlines look at when deciding whether to launch international service, said an airport consultant who is familiar with the airports in San Antonio and Austin.
The consultant pointed to San Antonio International’s own air forecast study last year, which found the average 2017 per capita income in Bexar County was $43,670, compared to $58,700 for Travis County, home of Austin. It was the highest per capita income in any county in Texas.
“Airlines are not going to launch routes until they determine that they can make a profit,” said the consultant, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. “There is concern that per capita income isn’t large enough in Bexar County and San Antonio to support European service.”
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the U.S. with more than 1.5 million residents. Austin’s population of more than 960,000 makes it the 11th largest.
Lindstrom said Norwegian picked Austin in 2018 for European service after analyzing all airport opportunities in the United States. He said the airline “saw that Austin was an overpriced market with limited European service but with great demand, both from the U.S. and among Europeans.”
The booming Austin economy has clearly spurred European air travel, boosted by tech companies, including Apple and Dell.
“Austin has the advantages of tech business,” said business travel guru Joe Brancatelli, who runs the business travel website JoeSentMe.
Schorr said tech firms initially planted the seeds for the Austin-to-Europe service, but the diversification of the Austin economy has attracted other industries from around the world to Central Texas.
European visitor interest is also up, Schorr said.
Austin has become much more of a tourist destination over the past decade, piquing the interest of Europeans.
“They know about South by Southwest, they know about barbecue — and these are things we didn’t see as regularly about 10 years ago,” Schorr said.
Norwegian’s Lindstrom said the airline is resuming its seasonal London flights on March 3 to capture visitors from Europe to South by Southwest, which starts March 13.
“South by Southwest has grown to become a large global event that attracts thousands of international visitors,” he said.
Austin is an intriguing destination for young, affluent Europeans, said Sharon Garcia, a San Antonio resident who worked in the travel industry for several decades.
“Austin is not just a secondary city anymore,” she said. “It has become a music capital and has a booming art and culture scene.”
The European routes aren’t the only ones growing at Austin-Bergstrom. For several years, the airport has experienced one of the strongest passenger-growth rates among all airports in the U.S., said Gary Leff, an Austin resident who writes the blog “View From the Wing.”
“Planes are simply full,” he said. “Airlines are making money, so they add more service when they’re making money.”
For the 12-month period ending Oct. 31, the Austin airport saw around 17 million passengers, up from 10 million before the British Airways flight launched five years ago. San Antonio International saw fewer than 11 million passengers in the same one-year period.
New flights at Austin aren’t limited to European service. Brancatelli said American Airlines and JetBlue are adding Austin-to-Boston nonstops. They’re competing with Delta Airlines, which has named Austin a focus city, adding more domestic flights.
San Antonio, on the other hand, has been unable to convince an airline to launch direct flights to Boston, offering carriers incentives worth more than $1 million.
Brancatelli calls Austin airport the “nation’s new flight hot spot.”
Flying from Alamo City
For the foreseeable future, San Antonio-area residents traveling to Europe must make a choice.
Flying out of San Antonio International, without any direct European flights, often means lengthy waits to change planes at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston or Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Travelers returning from Europe usually need to give themselves at least three hours for their connecting flight to San Antonio at Bush Intercontinental. That’s because they need to go through U.S. Customs with their bags and then return through security for their last leg to San Antonio.
“It can be a nightmare,” said Alice Petry, owner of Petry Travel in San Antonio.
Traveling to Austin for European service or connecting from San Antonio in an airline hub with international service, she said, is “just a reality of life.”
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