So this news is BREAKING for me, and the few readers who are in the South Bend area, but how many times does your home town airport change from a regional airport to an international one? WNDU.com reported today in part:
“It was announced today that the South Bend Regional Airport is becoming the South Bend International Airport. South Bend is said to be just the second airport in Indiana (along with Indianapolis) that has federal permission to handle international flights of both the private and commercial variety.”
Now SBN is no where near as big as IND nor are we talking a bunch of flights. Plus, it is important for Delta flyers to keep in mind that our airline ONLY flies CRJ100/200 – 50 seat junkers into and out of SBN still. I doubt we are going to see any international routes ever from Delta out of SBN.
It looks like they are simply going to add on to the end of the new concourse and tie back in to the old Delta gate area to act as a customs area and at great cost. The piece went on to say:
“The airport plans to spend millions of dollars on new facilities needed to handle international flights, including a general aviation facility and a federal inspection station for U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.”
I am so tired of CRJ’s that I am later this year driving to GRR or Grand Rapids to have an MD-88 to ride to ATL or Atlanta and even out of AZO or Kalamazoo they have the better ERJ-145’s that for a regional jet is not 1/2 bad. Now I guess I have to say SBN Int. each time I talk about my local home town airport right – nahh! – René
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Who knows maybe SBN will have more international flights than IND, they only need……2
Just like where I live, it will be a title that doesn’t mean anything but probably opens them up to grant money. We have an international airport in my city but to my knowledge there’s never been an international flight here. We have 50-seat CRJ junkers only. Perhaps they could handle an emergency landing of an international flight at my airport, but that’s it.
Richard Anderson called me & said they were going to start an international flight between SBN and YQG (Windsor, Ontario)!
I’m in Lansing. We have nonstop flights to places like Cancun, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic on airlines like Sun Country. International (usually seasonal and destinations chang every year). It’s my understanding they are very popular (though very overpriced). Flights from smaller regional airports is a growing business. And, SBN has about three times the passenger volume of LAN, so I would expect one of these specialty players to be dropping in pretty soon.
Was in the AMX lounge in LAS yesterday what a nice experience
Great food and fantastic friendly table service right across from gate
D1 truly worth a stop when leaving Vegas!
we live near jax international airport but have not had int till recently now have flights once a week to san juan???? coming up in the world…
Delta will be flying 717s into SBN by years-end on the ATL run. Also, all 50-seaters are being phased out. Allegiant is the airline that is going to be running the Mexico flights. Nobody knows who the Bahamas flights will be on. It is expected that SBN will have an average of one round-trip flight a day internationally to start. As far as Canada goes several airlines have wanted to do this for about 20 years. USAir used to run two one-stop flights daily from YYZ to SBN with a stop in PIT for customs. Air Canada tried to get the ball rolling years and years ago but the US government didn’t have the ability to add a customs station at SBN then.
@Brett – really? 717’s? I LOVE YOU! Where did you get this news?
“Back of old Delta gate area”???? Have the new facilities been turning over to such a point that it can be considered “old” to a particular airline? I thought that gate was used by Alligent primarily since the facility opened.