When we first moved to St. Louis area, back at the end of the 80's, St. Louis Lambert Airport was a hopping place. And it was dominated by TWA. I seem to remember hearing that TWA had 85% of the traffic through STL. So, when TWA "merged"with American Airlines back in 2001, well, the writing was on the wall. American already had two major mid-west hubs, in Chicago and Dallas. They would not keep a third. Consequently, traffic at Lambert fell from 30.5 Million passengers in 2000 to 12.7 Million in 2009. Not quite a 60% decline.
As a traveller, it used to be easy to get from St. Louis to any major US city. And the airport was always (anoyingly) crowded. Now? Planto change planes in a hub city. And large swaths of the airport are simply closed off. It is kind of sad.....
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