2021 Oklahoma City Aviation Thread

[LakeEffect]

They've been fuller than you might expect

And then yesterday was the lowest TSA passenger screening since July. Up and down... flights may be more full but it's still primarily because the overall number of flights is down.

[gopokes88]

And then yesterday was the lowest TSA passenger screening since July. Up and down... flights may be more full but it's still primarily because the overall number of flights is down.

it's also January

[PhiAlpha]

Flying Southwest to Houston tomorrow morning, gonna be interesting to see how full of a flight it will be.

Just got back from SLC via Southwest and our flights were packed both to and from our connections in Denver.

[catch22]

Working in a hub kind of gives me a visual on a large number of flights. It's very hit or miss. There's not a lot of rhyme or reason to the patterns of full vs empty. Sometimes a flight to Riverton WY or Cody WY will have more people on it than a trip to OKC. Or OKC will come in completely full but a TUL flight next door will have 6 people on it. 150 open seats to Ft Lauderdale one day but overbooked the next.

Super frustrating for network planning.

[catch22]

Just got back from SLC via Southwest and our flights were packed both to and from our connections in Denver.

Shoulda stopped by Concourse B, I feel like I am at work 24/7 right now!

Now that United has insourced the united express work in Denver, I moved over to work Express. I typically work B80 and B82. if anyone is coming through send me a message and say hello. Nice working the small planes again - reminds me of working in OKC. Just a lot more flights. lol.

[catch22]

Also some good news. American is bumping OKC-CLT back to 3 daily in March. Still a long ways to go, however. But it is a good sign!

[brianinok]

Also some good news. American is bumping OKC-CLT back to 3 daily in March. Still a long ways to go, however. But it is a good sign!

Not that I can do anything about it (the understatement of the year/pandemic) but I wonder how far ahead AA will firm up their June schedule. I see the OKC-LAX flights are there now starting April 2, but that would be a really random time to re-start them. I assume April 1 was the end of the last schedule load that took them out. For instance, I would hate for them to take out the OKC-LAX flights for June on the next load, us to get re-routed through DFW for our June trip, then AA re-instate them before our trip because of a huge increase in travel bookings.

[catch22]

AA is publishing its actual schedule in 4 week chunks, approx 60 days out. April should be loaded this time next month. May in March, June in April. This is tighter than usual as usually they publish monthly updates 90 days out, with a final schedule (like flight number changes, change of equipment, moving times within 30 mins, etc) posted 60 days out.

[brianinok]

AA is publishing its actual schedule in 4 week chunks, approx 60 days out. April should be loaded this time next month. May in March, June in April. This is tighter than usual as usually they publish monthly updates 90 days out, with a final schedule (like flight number changes, change of equipment, moving times within 30 mins, etc) posted 60 days out.

Thanks. That's great info.

BTW, if we feel comfortable enough to make this trip to LAX (which is a big family trip) I bet we make a couple summer DEN trips on UA to get to mountains too. I think those flights are pretty much a given that they won't go anywhere. We also are looking forward to the SFO flights returning because it makes for a great getaway to the city or Half Moon Bay, one of our favorites. We are very much looking forward to traveling again. Our last flight was in December 2019.

[OkiePoke]

AA cancelled OKC-DFW through Wednesday. I have a flight connecting in DFW Thursday morning.

I have a feeling they will cancel the OKC-DFW portion to make space on the runways come Thursday and my final destination flight will be on schedule. It seems the weather in Dallas starts improving late Wednesday. Is my thinking out of line? Or does Thursday out of DFW look grim?

[Richard at Remax]

A massive gray plane heading SW just west of 150th and Western just went over my house about ~5 min ago. Anyone tell me what it was?

[catch22]

Italian Air Force KC-767 Tanker

My initial guess would be avionics work at Field Aero (former ARINC).





https://www.airliners.net/photo/Ital...Y-ER/6076947/L

[Richard at Remax]

Nice. Don't look up and see something like that so low that often

[catch22]

Nice. Don't look up and see something like that so low that often

Flightradar24 is a pretty useful app to have on your phone for things like that.

[catch22]

In unrelated news, looks like AA is going to make an attempt at resuming OKC-LAX beginning in April with 1 daily RT. We will see if that sticks in future updates. It is on the edge of the 60-day booking window so they have a few weeks to change their mind.

[brianinok]

In unrelated news, looks like AA is going to make an attempt at resuming OKC-LAX beginning in April with 1 daily RT. We will see if that sticks in future updates. It is on the edge of the 60-day booking window so they have a few weeks to change their mind.

Yay! I hope it sticks since I plan on that being my first flight since Covid in June.

[T. Jamison]

Flightradar24 is a pretty useful app to have on your phone for things like that.

Will it also work for military aircraft? I have seen a few B-1 Lancers flying around but the other day I saw something that had a similar silhouette, but I thought the engines were different. It was flying extremely low and extremely quiet. Like I saw it before I heard it.

[Celebrator]

Will it also work for military aircraft? I have seen a few B-1 Lancers flying around but the other day I saw something that had a similar silhouette, but I thought the engines were different. It was flying extremely low and extremely quiet. Like I saw it before I heard it.

Not always. Sometimes I can ID a fly over and other times it doesn't show up at all.

[PoliSciGuy]

I use ADSBExchange and they have a dedicated military filter (click the "U"), but yeah it doesn't capture B1s, B2s or any sort of fighter aircraft. Does a good job of capturing the tankers, E-6s, Sentries and trainers we see from Tinker and Vance though.

[Ward]

I use ADSBExchange and they have a dedicated military filter (click the "U"), but yeah it doesn't capture B1s, B2s or any sort of fighter aircraft. Does a good job of capturing the tankers, E-6s, Sentries and trainers we see from Tinker and Vance though.

Yes it does. I have seen many B-52's on ADSB. F16, F18, F35, A10,U2, F5, etc, and more. Some oddball stuff like old French Mirages, British Hawk Hunters, Israeli KFIR (these are all privately owned and operated), all the above flying over the USA. Did you know there are a few privately owned, not US Military owned, refueling jets on a DC10 and 707 airframes?

The trick is, they have to have their ADSB machine turned on and operating. I don't know how the laws and regulations work, but they, the military, can turn it ADSB off and on as they deem fit to do so.

[Ward]

If you go to ADSB RIGHT NOW, and click the "U" tab on the upper right area of the page, you will see a B-52 over the middle of Kansas, and you will see Two U-2's flying, one is in central Central California in the general area of Bakersfield, and another one flying in South Texas NW of Laredo. The one near Laredo keeps
turning his ADSB off and on, or something, it comes and goes on the screen, sometimes you can click the + and - keys to zoom in and out a bit to make it reappear.

Also you SAM 28000 and 29000 (Air Force One planes, when they want to identify as such) you can see them.

If you click on the icon of the U2 flying near Laredo, well that's interesting. Wonder if it's just a routine training flight, or he's looking for something specific. HMMM..

[PoliSciGuy]

Yes it does. I have seen many B-52's on ADSB. F16, F18, F35, A10,U2, F5, etc, and more. Some oddball stuff like old French Mirages, British Hawk Hunters, Israeli KFIR (these are all privately owned and operated), all the above flying over the USA. Did you know there are a few privately owned, not US Military owned, refueling jets on a DC10 and 707 airframes?

The trick is, they have to have their ADSB machine turned on and operating. I don't know how the laws and regulations work, but they, the military, can turn it ADSB off and on as they deem fit to do so.

Yeah BUFFs they definitely capture, kinda interesting to follow those long-range missions they did from Minot to the middle east and back in one flight.

I haven't seen any fighters or B-1s B-2s before but maybe I'm just not looking in the right areas. Anyways, it's a fun tab to keep open in the background and check out occasionally, especially if DFW has to send diversions our way.

[damonsmuz]

AA is bringing back OKC-LAX starting on April 4 .

[Plutonic Panda]

Thank god!

[PoliSciGuy]

Gonna be interesting to see how much of a rebound we see. I'd love to see summer 2022 matching or even exceeding our numbers from summer 2019