90. Taking Off: What’s Next for San Antonio’s International Airport

Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. This week's guest is Jesus Saenz, the director of the San Antonio International Airport, as well as the Stinson Municipal Airport, which not everybody realizes. And, that's a position he's held for 5 years next month. Jesus, congratulations, and welcome to big city, small town.

Jesus Saenz [00:00:28]:
Thank you so much. Excited to be here. It's it's amazing to hear that it's already been 5 years. It went by pretty fast.

Bob Rivard [00:00:35]:
Well and let's let's hope the next 5 years are just as exciting and and momentous for you and the city. I wanna just say before, we get started that, we launched Monday Musings, our weekly newsletter this week. It's free and we hope all of you that, listen or watch on YouTube will sign up for the newsletter. Just go to bigcitysmalltown.com and scroll down to the right hand side where you'll see, the prompt to put your newsletter in. We won't spam you. We don't share your email with anyone and we look forward to you reading our newsletter. Well, Jesus, welcome to Big City Small Town. Before coming to San Antonio 5 years ago, you were in the leadership at the Houston Airport Systems.

Bob Rivard [00:01:19]:
You were there for quite a number of years and that included leadership positions at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. So, I'm just curious after 5 years, what's it like been working in the shadow of Houston and DFW in a much smaller market competing with Austin certainly and fastest growing city in the United States, but still an airport having to do a lot of work to get the nonstop flights we want.

Jesus Saenz [00:01:46]:
Well, the adage hold holds true in the aviation industry. If you've seen one airport, you've seen one airport. It was an incredible tenure that I had there with the Houston airports around 25 years. But spent a lot of time building up George Bush InterContinental when there was just a terminal a, b, and c. Now there's terminals d and e. And then growing, William P Hobby as well with the expansion that we did there in 2015. But overall, it's really about managing the expectation of the of the passenger and the customer and what they need as you look at what services you have to offer, what is the size of the asset, how well is the asset performing. And it's it's very similar to what we, you know, have begun to do here at the city of San Antonio.

Jesus Saenz [00:02:38]:
I think back to my days with the city of Houston when we were moving 28,000,000 passengers a year, and we were super excited. And when I left there, we were moving 60,000,000 passengers a year. So you look at that footprint and the engine that these airports are for the cities, it's incredibly important that we do the work that's necessary, that's important, and that we prepare those airports for the future. And as we look at what happens here in Texas, there's a lot of growth happening here, too. So that's been my focal point, as I've, you know, I have adjusted. I've, for many, many years, I've always long longed to be in the San Antonio area, in the San Antonio region. Everyone asks me, hey, why San Antonio? And I said, because it's closer to Con Can, Texas. So that's why I'm I'm here in San Antonio.

Bob Rivard [00:03:27]:
That's the hill country for people that may not know Con Can. And people may not know, Jesus, that you're actually a Laredo native. You're from the border. And, there's obviously a lot of synergy between San Antonio and Laredo. So true. Right? Born in in Laredo, Texas, spent

Jesus Saenz [00:03:43]:
a few years there. My dad, you know, was enlisted in the army and left there to go work in in General Motors up in Toledo, Ohio and said, heck no. It's too cold here. And came back to Texas, but didn't go all the way to Laredo and landed in Houston, Texas. And that's really where I was raised. So my parents, you know, are still there and reside there. I still have a lot of family there. But have family in Laredo, have family here in San Antonio.

Jesus Saenz [00:04:09]:
So just really love the south central Texas region.

Bob Rivard [00:04:13]:
Well, our passenger numbers may pale in the shadow of Bush Intercontinental or DFW, but we do continue to set records for passenger traffic every year, and we are one of the fastest growing cities in the United States. If you look back at 2024, what were the the highlights of that year? And and and then I want you to look at 2025 and and talk to our audience about the you know, $1,000,000,000 expansion plans that are on the drawing board are actually underway and and and what people can expect in the way of change

Jesus Saenz [00:04:45]:
at San Antonio International. Yeah. The question certainly reminds me of what I went through when I was preparing myself to come to be the director here for the city of San Antonio, I could not say enough about, you know, how incredible the leadership is here as it relates to our city manager, Eric Walsh, you know, the mayor and the city council. All of them have been incredibly helpful. I arrived, you know, in early 2020, unbeknownst to any of us, what we were gonna experience with the COVID situation. So my 30, 60, 90 day plan went to trash really, really fast and, started to focus on the importance of everyone's health, safety and well-being. So we focused on that. But during that period, and Carlos Contreras was the assistant city manager at the time, you know, we started to focus on what's gonna happen immediately after the pandemic, and how do we prepare and strategize ourselves.

Jesus Saenz [00:05:44]:
And that's really what we have begun to execute and put the processes together as it relates to the terminal complex, the development of the new terminal complex, as it relates to the airfield and preparing the airfield for the future. There's so much commercial and land development that we're doing in and around the airport. So those are the strategies that began to be put in play, in parallel with, you know, our city manager, our deputy city manager, and the team that works tirelessly to ensure that we are focusing on the future of our airport.

Bob Rivard [00:06:19]:
Well, let me ask you first, how many airports report to a city manager or to municipal government? And that's to say that you're a department of of the city of San Antonio. You're not an independent entity with your own independent board of directors and your own taxing or bonding authority. That's different, isn't it, from other airports that you're familiar with certainly including DFW? I don't know about, about Houston.

Jesus Saenz [00:06:44]:
Yeah. A lot of different, you know, many of the airports across the United States are municipalities, right, as you reference the way this one is. And then some of them are, you know, city manager led and some of them are mayoral led. So, a lot of them are very different. We here at the city of San Antonio are an enterprise fund led by everything that we're doing. We are self sufficient. I like to tell everyone that unless you're using the airport, you're not necessarily paying for it because, you know, we have to be very, you know, self sufficient, and we have to be very fiscally responsible on what we do as we think about the future and what we're doing. So those are the parodies and the work that had to be, you know, put together for us to work with the city of San Antonio, the leadership, as I mentioned, and, you know, the future of the airport, and how much we could do, and how fast we could get some things done as it relates to the overall development and the future of the existing asset the way it exists today.

Jesus Saenz [00:07:48]:
And what do we want it to look like in the future as we prepare for the fastest growing city in the United States? And what are those passenger expectations as they're coming in, and the number of movements. And some so much of that has to work in alignment with the airlines, who are our customers as well. We've gotta make certain that we work closely with them. So there's so many moving pieces. And then as you look at the city, the administration of the city, you look at the airlines, and then you have so many federal agencies and the regulatory framework, whether that's the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security, Association, or whether you the administration, or you're looking at the customs and border protection as we bring in international passengers and the movement of passengers being screened inside the terminal complexes. It is a I I always call it it is a beast. And we have to make certain that every day we turn on the lights and turn them off and passengers take off and passengers land safely. And that's where our focal point is.

Jesus Saenz [00:08:55]:
So just to get down to some specifics, you started in the pandemic.

Bob Rivard [00:08:59]:
Are we a 100% recovered in terms of airport traffic from where we were before the pandemic and continuing to grow? Where do we stand versus, let's say, 2019?

Jesus Saenz [00:09:10]:
We have done better than most. We're doing incredibly well. We have exceeded, as we look at the total number of passengers in 2019 was 10,400,000. We are finalizing the numbers now, but we should be exceeding 11,000,000 passengers for the first time ever here at San Antonio International Airport.

Bob Rivard [00:09:29]:
And that's For 2024 or in an incoming year? For 2024. Okay.

Jesus Saenz [00:09:34]:
So that's the first time we've been able to accomplish that, attributed to the number of new nonstop destinations that we've been able to attract and the international growth that we experienced in 2024 was phenomenal. And that's just, as I mentioned earlier, those are specific, strategic efforts, whether you call them activities or initiatives that we were working on, to ensure that we prepared the airport for the future as it relates to air service development.

Bob Rivard [00:10:04]:
So I want you to paint a picture for our listeners who are familiar with the fact that we're a 2 terminal airport. Most of them have used the, I won't say new anymore, but the the parking garage that was created when Cheryl Scully was city manager. There's been improvements to, cargo loading and and and passenger loading. But what's it going to look like when, the new terminal is finished? Is it still 2 terminals, or is it 3, or does it all become 1? And and when does that happen? And what what does it look like for the person who who is just a sort of casual traveler and not somebody that's at the airport all the time?

Jesus Saenz [00:10:43]:
The best way I could give it to you is that it's going to be transformative. And it's not gonna be transformative to one singular terminal. Our efforts are to transform the entire asset. So as we look at the footprint of what we have today in terminal a and terminal b, our movement is to expand the number of gates that we have in the existing terminal b, which is 10 gates today. And adding an additional 17 gates to that terminal complex, which is terminal b. So we as as we look at the overall terminal development program, it's a little over 850,000 square feet that we will be adding to the existing terminal B with up to 17 gates, with close to 35,000 square foot of additional concession space. So that entire footprint will change within itself. We do want to get what we call into a central terminal area, a central processor area, which is where we're moving towards a singular processor for all the ingress and egress.

Jesus Saenz [00:11:49]:
As we look forward

Bob Rivard [00:11:50]:
Everybody would come in and out in the same place.

Jesus Saenz [00:11:52]:
Of a central location. It's difficult to do that with the configuration of the existing assets, but long term, that's where we want to get to. So we have, you know, an x amount of dollar associated to working on existing terminal b to improve that entire footprint. We have an x amount of dollar associated to terminal a to improve that footprint. That will transform not only the internal components, the the amenities that are available, whether we're talking about restrooms, whether we're talking about the ticket hold rooms, the ticket counters, the baggage claim areas, the baggage system. All of that is going to be transformed for each of those terminal complexes, and that will happen over the next, 3 years to 5 years that we're gonna be working on. And it and it is purposeful and intentional because we don't want you to come into 1 and feel like, there was no consideration given to the entirety of the complex. So that is what we're working towards.

Jesus Saenz [00:12:56]:
So it's gonna take, you know, a scheduled phased approach in what we're doing. The first of those phases is to build out the new terminal complex. It's gonna give us a little bit of levity to be able to shift and balance the utilization of, you know, all of our arrivals and departures and balance out the way we do business today. And more importantly, balance out the growth that we're experiencing. So we'll go through that process and then come back and do a lot of upgraded work into the existing terminal b, the existing terminal a. So that's what happens at the terminal complex now.

Bob Rivard [00:13:35]:
When does all that start?

Jesus Saenz [00:13:37]:
It's already started. It is. So we started that, you know, a lot of the early earth work began in 2024. We did the groundbreaking in the early days of December. So we've got all that complete, and we are moving forward with that.

Bob Rivard [00:13:51]:
So is it fair to say that passengers are going to experience 3 to 5 years of, I don't wanna use the word chaos, but disruption while while we expand, and yet at the same time, you're keeping operations going, and 11,000,000 people are coming in and out of the airport while you at this very same time that you undertake these massive capital projects?

Jesus Saenz [00:14:13]:
I think it's fair to say that they will have an experience. I think it's fair to say that there will be chaos, but we would like to separate those a little bit as we move forward. And the reason I say that is the way we have strategically put this together, in all of our We have planning documents, design documents that we are putting together. There is a very purposeful effort to separate what we're doing with the new terminal complex. So what that means is, we will enclose that entire area for the new terminal complex, and try and minimize the impact we're gonna have on the passenger for the terminal, where we will experience the construction area, zone areas, and a little bit of chaos, is on the roadway. So you look at the existing footprint of the ingress and egress of the terminal complex. That is a 4 lane roadway that is gonna be expanded to 6 lane roadways. So we will remove a lot of that commercial vehicular traffic that exists today, that creates all of that backup.

Bob Rivard [00:15:15]:
You mean like taxis and buses? Taxis,

Jesus Saenz [00:15:18]:
You know, all of our what we call TNCs, which is Ubers and Lyfts, the commercial, shuttle zones that are being picked up and dropped off. We want, you know, grandma and Willita to be picked up and dropped off without any issues. So whether you're being dropped off on the upper level, or whether you're being picked up on the lower level, as we expand those from 4 to 6 lanes, we are preparing the overall footprint for the future of the airport, so that as we look at what we call the overall passenger activity levels and the level of service that we're providing, we want that to be a very premium level of service. So as you drive into our airports, your experience is pleasant and it's it's without, you know, very much, negativity as you come into the airports. So that's really what we're focusing on.

Bob Rivard [00:16:08]:
Will, departing passengers being dropped off via taxi or or rideshare be able to pull right up to the curb the way they are now, or are they gonna be dropped off somewhere else? And then in turn, will arriving passengers take a long walk to a point away from the main terminal to to pick up a taxi or rideshare?

Jesus Saenz [00:16:28]:
That is a great question. It's one of the things that we look at the dynamics and the users of our overall, what we call our passenger persona portfolio of are how are the citizens of San Antonio and the citizens of the San Antonio region utilizing the airport. And we have a 5050 split. Some people come in and they wanna be dropped off, and some people wanna be on their own, and they want to park their own vehicles. As we look at some of our expansion, we're in the process of building out a brand new, what we call, ground transportation center. It was in the original design documents that we did for the terminal complex. So there will be a specific location for all of that commercial vehicular traffic to occur near the airport in close walking distance for all of the passengers to use that. So we we remove a lot of that congestion from that roadway and shift it so that whether you're being picked up or dropped off, you're in close proximity to the airport complex to be able to to to be picked up and dropped off by a commercial vehicle operator.

Jesus Saenz [00:17:36]:
Or if you're gonna come in and park, you've seen some of the changes that we've done with the Now Service offering of short term, long term, and then, of course, economy surface lot parking. And now, we we have begun to offer valet.

Bob Rivard [00:17:49]:
I've seen that.

Jesus Saenz [00:17:50]:
Right, the valet service. And that's been an incredible addition. We started with 40 spaces. And I can tell you here in the fall of 2024, we were parking in the excess of 700 vehicles for some days as as people have begun to really like that service. So we wanna continue to grow that. It's for convenience and for people that wanna utilize, the changes that we are experiencing, inside of our airport complex. At the end of the day, it's it's really, really simple. It's about listening to the passenger and what their wants are and ensuring that we adjust and shift the overall complex to what those wishes and wants are of our passengers.

Bob Rivard [00:18:31]:
What about listening to your to your, tenants, the airlines? Help us understand what's going on with Southwest Airlines, which is unhappy with where it is being positioned by the city in in the expanded, terminal. For people that have been in the city a long time, they know that Herb Kelleher was a resident and started Southwest Airlines or at least the concept of it here in San Antonio before its corporate base was established at Dallas Love. So there's a fondness for Southwest Airlines. I think it might still be the number one passenger carrier out of San Antonio and yet we're at loggerheads with them. For a lot of people, it's a surprise that there is this disagreement that's, you know, been elevated to the level it has been.

Jesus Saenz [00:19:18]:
Yeah, well, I'll start with 2 quick comments on it. First and foremost, nothing good comes easy, right? So we're going to work together. And the second comment is we care genuinely about all of our carriers and Southwest Airlines. We care genuinely about the history of Southwest Airlines here with the city of San Antonio. So we continue to work with them. We've had a number of discussions with them. I can only say so much because obviously there is, you know, a lawsuit in place. So I can't say too much.

Jesus Saenz [00:19:49]:
But I do want everyone to know that we are continuing to work with them. We want to work with them. And we'll get this sorted out, is is the way we look at it. And and we want to we want nothing more than for Southwest Airlines to continue to grow here in the city of San Antonio. They are very meaningful to all of our passengers, and we know how important they are to our passengers.

Bob Rivard [00:20:15]:
So even with the lawsuit filed, are the two sides in constant and positive communication, or is there a standoff? It seems that with litigation involved that it gets pretty complicated.

Jesus Saenz [00:20:29]:
Well, as I as I prefaced, right, it's a lawsuit. So I I all I can share with you is, yes, we're having conversations and we continue to work with them.

Bob Rivard [00:20:38]:
Okay. Well, let's keep talking about both challenges and opportunities with carriers. And for me, the greatest opportunity is I'm very excited about this nonstop flight to Washington Reagan to where we could finally fly directly from San Antonio and not have to go to Washington, Dallas or Baltimore, to to get to the nation's capital? And tell us about that flight, when it starts, when it, how its frequency, I think it's American Airlines, isn't it? And and, what that means.

Jesus Saenz [00:21:08]:
It is. You know, as as many people love to listen to, you know, your podcast, I think that's almost a podcast for all by itself to discuss the DCA as I've been here for, you know, close to 5 years now. It was one of the the the most important items on the agenda for me to work on from city manager, Eric Walsh, and and the mayor, of wanting to get this to the finish line. You think back to the number of, FAA reauthorization efforts that have occurred, at least 2 or 3 are dating back to 2,010, 2012 when these FAA reauthorizations are put into place. And really trying to get, you know, whether it's an exemption or a permanent slot that you're trying to establish, we were able to accomplish that, you know, in 2024 through the bill that was passed and and and the finalization of the FAA reauthorization of 2024. So we're excited to tell everyone, you know, go purchase your ticket. Effective on March, 3rd, 2025 will be the inaugural flight that will launch from SAT direct to DCA. We were, you know, given the 2 slots, one there and one back.

Jesus Saenz [00:22:25]:
We are in partnership with American Airlines and excited for the future of what that's going to mean, not just for the citizens of San Antonio, but for so many people in and around the region that wanna connect, centrally into that DC area, as you look at the importance of being able to connect there without having to have much commute time or without having to connect into other airports. It was incredibly important for us. And the last piece that I would add to that is the impact it's going to have, of course, for all of our military servicemen and women that are are are very a very predominant user of our airport and consistently travel back and forth between San Antonio and Washington DC and wanting to get into the Pentagon. So it it it there are so many positives that have come of this. I can't thank enough people, whether it's the team that works with me and the work that they have done, the administration here for the city of San Antonio, all of the members of our congressional delegation that has worked tirelessly, you know. Obviously, you know, Senator Cruz had a big piece in carrying this to the finish line and ensuring that this happened. But everybody, you know, all of our congressional members, the bipartisan effort of them working collectively together to get this to the finish line, setting all things aside and saying this is important for our city, is one of the biggest accomplishments that, you know, we can all be happy about of the way we have worked together to get this to the end. Because for so many years, so many different efforts that were passed historically where it did not happen and it really put a dent to this community.

Jesus Saenz [00:24:08]:
But now, we are gonna change that footprint and are super excited for that inaugural launch on March 3rd. So go buy your tickets, go purchase the flight and, you know, connect direct from here to to DCA.

Bob Rivard [00:24:24]:
Bipartisan cooperation. What a concept. Is that flight, Jesus, going to be, daily or multiple times a week? What's the, schedule?

Jesus Saenz [00:24:34]:
So it will be 7 days a week. It will, depart here early in the AM, little little over 6 AM, 6:30, and then come back, you know, in the evening. It will remain overnight here, the aircraft will, and then depart the next morning, 7 times a week. Super excited about that.

Bob Rivard [00:24:54]:
And do you have a high level of confidence that we have the passenger traffic specifically to to DC? And do you think American Airlines agrees with that that we have that to sustain it?

Jesus Saenz [00:25:05]:
Well, the one, the confidence, I would say, is absolutely there when you look at what we call passengers departing each way. When you look at the number of people that start their journey every day out of San Antonio to try and get to DCA, yes. The confidence is there. As it relates to the second question, I think American Airlines is elated to be able to provide this service to the city of San Antonio as we have worked with them about this flight and they too have been very helpful and have assisted quite a bit with our congressional members in ensuring that we got to the finish line on this. I think they're elated over the effort of of being able to provide the service to our city.

Bob Rivard [00:25:47]:
I asked that, Jesus, and I'll play devil's advocate here a little bit. Regional cities or regional airports, like San Antonio all over the country struggle to get airlines to establish various nonstop flights to different destinations where it's unclear whether or not the host airport can justify with the levels of traffic necessary to sustain a nonstop service and we saw that with the budget German airline Condor which established the nonstop flight to Frankfurt from San Antonio, but we weren't able to sustain that and when I say play devil's advocate, cities including San Antonio, not just San Antonio, but various cities often induce airlines to experiment with those non stops by paying subsidies, which is to say paying for in the event that there's empty seats. And some would argue, if I can take that point, that that's money that's not well spent. That if you've got to subsidize an airline route, it probably doesn't deserve to be there and airlines will try it for a while, but if in the case of Condor where there just wasn't the traffic to justify the flight, you end up announcing something with a great fanfare and everybody gets very excited and then months or a year later, it's gone. So I wonder how much we're engaging in that and whether we had to engage in that for the nonstop to Washington.

Jesus Saenz [00:27:21]:
No. So I mean, your references to the transatlantic flight, the first transatlantic flight that we were able, to obtain here for the city of San Antonio. When I arrived here, we had 37 nonstop. We are now at 46. As it relates to the sustainability of Condor Airlines, it is it has, maybe a little to do with performance, but it has that's not why the the flight will not be operating in the summer of 2025. It's not because of sustainability. We had a 70% load factor overall average for that flight on passengers departing each way.

Bob Rivard [00:28:05]:
Is that good? 70%. What's the industry, metric?

Jesus Saenz [00:28:09]:
For a flight that has never existed, that's outstanding when you look at, the way we were performing. Are there investments, whether you call them subsidies or incentives that are being given to work with the airline? You have to stimulate the market because everyone's not aware that San Antonio historically has never had an international transatlantic flight connecting San Antonio to Europe. So the excitement, the fanfare was warranted and necessary so that we can begin to, you know, tell the entire, you know, customer base that utilizes our airport, we had, we now have service into that. Now, the German government has made a decision that they do not want Condor to continue to connect passengers past Frankfurt. And for that reason, Condor Airlines will not be servicing San Antonio in 2025. We are instilled, negotiations and discussions with them about the future, whether that be Condor or any other carrier that can provide service for transatlantic service between San Antonio and Europe. So, we will continue to work on that. It's very, you know, hurtful.

Jesus Saenz [00:29:21]:
I know everyone was incredibly excited. When you see the number of people that were utilizing that flight, when you look at the price comparison of being able to get into Europe out of San Antonio for that flight, it was very encouraging where we were going. That is part of doing business. It is about stimulating the market and making everyone aware that we can and we will continue to work on that. So, we've been in a partnership, whether it's the city of San Antonio, visit San Antonio, and the Greater San Antonio group that have all been working tirelessly together as one unit to ensure that we continue to create those opportunities because with the impact in the expansion of those flights, whether it be Condor going to, you know, Frankfurt, Germany or whether it be the connection of SAT to DCA, all of that are economic impacts to this entire region. When you look at the question that you asked me earlier, how are we doing in comparison to 2019 and have we, you know, rebounded successfully, we had a 5.2 $1,000,000,000 economic impact to this airport when the study was performed in early 2019. We just did a study here recently in 2024, summer of 2024, and we are now at $7,400,000,000 economic impact to this region for what this airport does. So, we are creating jobs.

Jesus Saenz [00:30:50]:
We are creating opportunities. And for those reasons, we continue to work on not only, you know, establishing good, solid, direct service, nonstop service to a number of different locations domestically. But more importantly, we continue to work tirelessly on trying to establish additional routes internationally.

Bob Rivard [00:31:12]:
Well, and the macro numbers are impressive. I don't dispute those at all. For the individual traveler, though, that wants to go to Europe or Asia, all they care about is how am I gonna get there? How much is it gonna cost? What's the shortest number of hours I can be in transit? Austin Bergstrom's first transatlantic flight, if I'm not mistaken, was the British Airways nonstop to London. And in in my own anecdotal experience, it seems to me that more people I know that go to Europe go to London than any other of the major European capitals, Paris, Rome, Berlin, etcetera. So people have become accustomed to going from San Antonio to to finding their way up to Austin Bergstrom and taking that flight. Is London a possibility? And as you look at the competitive marketplace, let's just say Texas being the marketplace and people's choices being to fly to DFW and connect or to Houston, Bush InterContinental and connect, or to go to Austin, do you do you think we have a realistic chance to, sustain a transatlantic flight here? And would it be, in a perfect world, more logical to make that destination London rather than Frankfurt?

Jesus Saenz [00:32:18]:
Yeah. I think those are those are great questions, Bob, with regards to why we are doing what we are doing. 1st, Most people don't know this, but Austin started their service with Condor going into Frankfurt.

Bob Rivard [00:32:30]:
Oh, is that right?

Jesus Saenz [00:32:31]:
So they they did that for several years before they were able to attract a carrier like, British Airways. So it is for that reason that I tell you earlier, you know, it is a crawl, walk, run mentality that we have to take as we move forward. To answer the question as simple as possible, yes. We do have the number of what we call PDUs, passengers departing each way. You know, over 300 people start their journey every day out of San Antonio International Airport wanting to connect into Europe. The purposeful reason we went to Frankfurt is because more people were going that way than to London. So it was advantageous for us to move in that direction first. Do we wanna have connectivity to Frankfurt? Do we wanna have connectivity to London? Do we wanna have connectivity to Spain? Whether you're in Central or Middle Europe, the answer is yes.

Jesus Saenz [00:33:23]:
And we know that we can do that. It just takes a little bit of time. It is why we put the efforts forward in 2024 to begin to stimulate the market share so that people begin to look at San Antonio as today a medium hub. And I would say a large medium hub, but preparing ourselves to be a large hub over the next 3, 5, 10 years. How do we prepare ourselves for that? So, we did a very, you know, a very vigorous, I would say, a very, you know, concrete look at our overall 36 month air service development strategy and wanted to focus on some specific areas we wanted to target. And as you look at our footprint of what we've been able to do, whether it's important market shares domestically, whether it's the feature of trying to get into Canada, we are the largest medium hub in the United States with connectivity into Mexico now. That was not the case 24, 36 months ago. And that is purposeful because we understand as we talk about business or commerce, the servicing goods, the automotive industry that moves in and out of Mexico and comes into San Antonio, we know exactly why it's important for us to be able to connect, you know, via flights into specific central parts of Mexico and we wanna expand that to leisure markets as we continue to grow into 2025.

Jesus Saenz [00:34:54]:
And then the future of that is focusing on South America and Central America, you know, the announcement of Spirit going into Puerto Rico into the Caribbean. So we will continue those efforts. Things change, things happen beyond our control. I'd love to have, to be able to pick up the phone and call the German government, you know, in Germany and say, hey, please don't put this on Condor Airlines and prohibit us from connecting because we were excited about what was gonna happen. It doesn't stop us from doing what we know what we can do. And when we look at the number of passengers coming in and out of our airport and growing. You know, an interesting stat as you mentioned what we were talking about in Austin when I arrived, everyone would talk about the difference in the fare. As you mentioned, people wanna get there as quickly as possible, and they want they want to get the best possible fare as they connect, you know.

Jesus Saenz [00:35:49]:
We were probably 60, $80 above the fare in in Austin versus in San Antonio. That separation is only a dollar or 2 now as we continue to grow our market share. So you can look up flights. When you do the overall average, we're only a dollar or 2 above Austin now. So, we are creeping in. We are continuing to work as as hard as possible to reduce the fares, increase the number of nonstop and direct flights that we have in and out of our airport.

Bob Rivard [00:36:20]:
Switching from international to domestic, what's your number one city that you wish, we had a nonstop flight to or a daily nonstop flight to that we don't have now and that might realistically, be on the drawing board?

Jesus Saenz [00:36:34]:
Yeah. I mean, as I look at the the numbers speak for themselves domestically, we wanna go into Raleigh Durham. We wanna go into Sacramento. Those are probably the 2 on the top of my list that I wanna make certain we connect to as quickly as possible. Because those numbers speak for themselves. People are connecting into those cities, and we don't have direct service into those. The one that was before that, which was the top 3, was SAT to DCA. And that's got a check mark next to it now.

Bob Rivard [00:37:02]:
What about Miami?

Jesus Saenz [00:37:04]:
Miami, you know, yes. You look at what we've been able to do with, Spirit Airlines and the connectivity into the Florida region as it relates to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. I think we will continue to see some of that expansion service happening there. Miami is there, but it's not at the top of the list when we look at passengers that are departing each way out of San Antonio. It's in there, but it's not at the top of the list.

Bob Rivard [00:37:31]:
Jesus, we're almost out of time, but I wanna ask you before we go, what else is in the near term future in terms of your aspirations for the airport that we haven't covered?

Jesus Saenz [00:37:42]:
Well, the way we'd like to look at it is a lot more growth, improvements of any way by which we can improve the level of service that we provide to these airports. And, you know, if Bosman were to be in here, the city manager is Jesus. Let's go execute. Let's get it done. For so many years, there's been so many planning documents that have been put together, but we haven't been able to execute. And that's really what we've been able to focus on over the last 24, 36 months under the leadership that we, you know, work with, our overall city administration. So I'd share with you, we're gonna start building out the new terminal complex. We're gonna start transforming, terminal a and terminal b.

Jesus Saenz [00:38:23]:
We will be finalizing in the summer of 2025 the new ground load facility that will add additional gate capacity for us to have as we continue to grow out this complex. We're gonna finalize, the planning documents for a brand new, almost 2,000 space parcel for parking garage to improve the parking spaces. We're gonna start the work that's gonna go underway for the new roadway system. And, we're gonna start bailing out a new terminal complex. All of that goes in alignment with, you know, trying to chase 50 to 60 nonstop destinations for this airport complex to provide the best level of service possible, not only domestically, but internationally for all of our passengers. So air service development is always at the top. The the the overall terminal development project is is underway. We wanna continue to execute upon that.

Jesus Saenz [00:39:13]:
And I don't leave without saying the important. We have to continue to listen to our passengers every single day. There's so many things I could tell you as it relates to the speed of when an international passenger comes into our customs and border protection area, our federal inspection services. You know, it's less than a 15 minute wait time compared to other airports here in the state of Texas. They're all my friends. We are all good friends. So I will talk, you know, as much smack as I can about them to say, hey, when you come into San Antonio, we're leading. And that's purposeful because of the relationships we've built with Customs and Border Protection.

Jesus Saenz [00:39:48]:
And then when you look at the Transportation Security Administration, when you fly out of San Antonio International Airport for several years now, the last 3 to be exact, we're sitting at either 1, 2, or 3 in the entire United States for the speed of throughput through our TSA checkpoints. And those are things that eliminate the anxiety, the uncertainty that people have when they come into our into our airports. Whether you're coming into San Antonio International Airport, Austin Bergstrom, DFW, or IH, in any of those airports as you come into them, San Antonio is the future. It's the reason why I came to be here in San Antonio. DFW is who it is, right? Moving, you know, close to 75,000,000, 80,000,000 passengers a year. I spent 25 years going toe to toe, at George Bush InterContinental between, you know, the Houston Airports and DFW. I am now sitting here in San Antonio because I wanna be here, going toe to toe with Austin Bergstrom every day. We're all good friends and we compete for the level of service that we provide to our passengers.

Jesus Saenz [00:40:55]:
So in 2025, we're gonna continue to do that as we move forward, showing our passengers that we provide, you know, a very good level of service. We have a very competitive fare and continuing to grow our overall air service network with our airlines and building those relationships for the future of our city because it's an engine to our city and it's a it's a big economic impact to our overall growth.

Bob Rivard [00:41:19]:
Alright. Jesus Saenz, director of the San Antonio International Airport and Stinson Municipal Airport. Thanks for coming on

Jesus Saenz [00:41:25]:
to big city, small town. Yes, sir. Thank you for having me.

Bob Rivard [00:41:31]:
Well, that concludes this episode of big city, small town. Thanks again to our sponsors, Westin Urban, building the city our children wanna call home, and here at Geekdom, our sponsor, where startups are born. Thanks to our producer, Corey Ames, Moira Bobbitt, our in studio production, Erica Rempel for video and social media, and Alfie de la Garza of Sound Crane Studio. We'll see you all next week.