The Trouble With the Memphis Airport: No Crowds

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Memphis used to be a regular transfer stop for business and leisure travelers, when Northwest Airlines was the dominant carrier and the airport was marketed as a “hassle-free” hub. But then Delta Air Lines gobbled up Northwest, and decided it only needed one hub in the South, its own base in Atlanta. The decision cost Memphis almost two-thirds of its passengers: From more than 11 million in 2007, the last full year before the merger announcement, the count fell to about four million last year.

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That has sometimes left the spacious three-concourse terminal looking staggeringly deserted, with most of its gates unused. The airport’s solution is to spend $219 million on what it is calling a modernization effort: closing and renovating Concourse B, and then consolidating operations there and essentially mothballing Concourses A and C. The plan is as much a push toward the future as it is an admission that Memphis — the sign at the entrance still calls it “America’s Aerotropolis” — is a lesser passenger magnet these days than Omaha or Columbus, Ohio, or even the second airport serving Dallas.

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In Memphis, there are direct flights to far fewer destinations than before, and only two to help justify the “international” in the name (Toronto and Cancún, Mexico). It takes no time at all to walk through the terminal’s three ticketing areas or to zip through the security line. A gate may be crowded when a flight is about to board, but others nearby will be idle, and finding a place to sit is rarely a problem.

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