BWI

Bob Hausler write from Catonsville: "What month has the most snowfall for the sate of Maryland?" During the 30-year stretch from 1971 through 2000, January saw the most snow at BWI, averaging 7.0 inches, followed by February (6.4 inches) and December (1.7 inches). The snowiest month on record for BWI was 40.5 inches, in February 2003. The average seasonal total is 18.2 inches. We're overdue

Icelandair became the latest international carrier yesterday to pull its service at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, another blow to the airport's efforts to bolster its international service. When Icelandair stops its Baltimore flights Jan. 13, six international carriers would remain at BWI. Icelandair will keep its North American headquarters in Columbia. The airline said the departure of thousands of Americans from a NATO military base in Iceland, coupled with escalating costs and decreasing revenues, prompted its decision.

M&T Bank to open branch at BWI BAA Maryland, developer and manager of the AIRMALL at BWI Marshall Airport has announced that M&T Bank will open its first full-service branch at BWI this year, near the Southwest Airlines Terminal. The new branch, which is to be in an area accessible to passengers before they pass through security screening, will offer the opportunity to open new accounts, service existing accounts, cash and deposit checks, apply for loans, buy insurance, make investments and obtain financial advice.

Sorry, kids. Summer is half over this weekend - at least the meteorological summer (June, July and August). How are we doing weatherwise? BWI has reported 11 days in the 90s (June 1 through July 13). It's been warm, about 1.7 degrees above average. That's boosted cooling degree-days (demand for cooling energy) about 6 percent above average. Ouch! Heavy rain at BWI July 10 left official rainfall near average, but most of Maryland remains dry. The good news? No tropical storms since Barry expired June 2. Knock on wood.

AirTran Airways said yesterday that it plans in May to begin flying five times a week to Seattle from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. It will mark the airport's only nonstop flights to the Northwestern city. The airline also said it would resume seasonal service to Dallas-Fort Worth and Milwaukee, in April and May, respectively. It also will add service to Charlotte, N.C., beginning in May. The news comes on the heels of an announcement that the airline would launch service to Portland, Maine, and fly daily to BWI, beginning in June.

The number of people flying from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport has surpassed pre-Sept. 11 levels for the first time, thanks in large part to Southwest Airlines, which now carries more than half the airport's passengers. BWI this week reported that a record 20.7 million passengers passed through the airport last year, bumping the previous high set in 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks. The initial downturn in travel that followed the attacks, plus a weakened economy and spiking fuel costs, caused financial havoc in the airline industry in general.

January dawns on Tuesday. It's our coldest month, averaging 32.3 degrees at BWI. But in the last decade only 2003 and 2004 were colder than that. The latest sunrise is at 7:27 on the 5th. Average highs at BWI drop to 41 degrees, lows to 23. But both rise again by month's end as days lengthen. The record high is 79 degrees, last reached in 1950. The record low was minus-7, most recently on Jan. 22, 1984. It's also our snowiest month, averaging 7 inches.

A new accord between the United States and the European Union could help bolster BWI's fledgling international business, with low-cost carriers providing much of the service, a panel of government and industry officials and consultants said yesterday. The officials were commenting on the latest "open skies" agreement at a symposium yesterday in Annapolis sponsored by Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. As evidence, they pointed to Ryanair, Europe's largest discount carrier, which announced it would launch service to U.S. cities including Baltimore around the time the latest open skies accord was signed.

Yesterday marked the end of the three-month meteorological winter, and we got off easy. December and January each averaged about 6 degrees above normal at BWI-Marshall, with less than an inch of snow. That changed in February. We managed only a few days of above-normal temperatures, suffered steep utility bills and 8.5 inches of snow at BWI. That's barely half the average winter's snowfall, so we've escaped the worst. So far. Remember, March has produced two of Baltimore's 10 deepest snowstorms.

An airport shuttle bus at Baltimore-Washington International Airport went up in flames yesterday morning, destroying or damaging 11 cars, forcing the closure of a satellite parking lot, and sending airport passengers scrambling for parking spaces.The bus driver and the five passengers aboard the airport's Super Shuttle were not injured, and managed to grab their luggage before bolting from the smoking bus, which was consumed in flames in two minutes."It was pretty much a meltdown," said Chuck Holm, a shuttle passenger who boarded another bus with his fellow passengers in time to catch his flight to Detroit.

If temperatures at BWI remain below 50 degrees through Sunday, we will have seen five consecutive days of record-low daily high temperatures. It would tie the record for consecutive record-low daily highs, set Feb. 9-13, 1899, when the warmest readings were 8, 3, 11, 11 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit. That 3-degree high remains the coldest high temperature for Baltimore since record-keeping began in 1871.

James Chwirut writes from Baltimore: "We were debating in the office today about past temperatures for the summer ... When was the last 100-degree day of actual temperature - not heat index - in and around Baltimore?" Thankfully, we haven't been that hot at BWI since Aug. 8, 2007, when the mercury reached 102 degrees, setting a record for the date. It was 106 degrees that day at the Maryland Science Center.

AirTran Airways is looking to make Baltimore a major stop in its flight plan and moved a little further in that direction Tuesday by adding daily flights to New Orleans and Indianapolis. They were the latest of a number of new flights the airline has announced will come to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. In December and February, it will begin flights to the Caribbean, including to Nassau, Bahamas, and Montego Bay, Jamaica. For the first time this year, it will also begin operating flights to Los Angeles year round instead of seasonally.

For those with cherished memories of the golden days of air travel, there's a new indignity to stomach - no more airport-wide paging at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. At the end of the month, the state is eliminating the eight-person communications center that steered travelers to the appropriate "courtesy phone" and connected passengers with their parties. There are worse services to lose, of course. In this age of cell phones and text messages, it's slightly shocking this didn't fall under the budget ax earlier.

The voices that ring out across Baltimore's airport terminals, paging lost travelers and steering foreigners to a meeting spot, will be a service of the past starting next month. And if you want to get a live person on the line when calling the airport's toll-free number for general inquiries, forget about it. The Maryland Aviation Administration is closing the communications center at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, a move prompted by state budget woes that will save $450,000 a year.

Need to know how cold it was on Jan. 4, 1979? You can find hourly weather data for BWI-Marshall on The Baltimore Sun's weather page, MarylandWeather.com. Just scroll down to the daily temperature data, below the WJZ video forecast, and click on "Detailed History and Climate." The airport records, with some gaps, go back to 1948. (The low reading at BWI on Jan. 4, 1979, was 9 degrees, at 4 a.m.)

Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport has two big things going for it: It's cheap and convenient. Sure, you don't get a lot of international flights, and it's no match for Reagan and Dulles when it comes to the big carriers. But it's a virtual palace for Southwest and its low-fare rivals, and it?s easy to get to and easy to leave. That's why news that the airport will now charge $2 for the previously free halfhour of parking in the hourly garage is such a disappointment.

BWI Airport officials have agreed after years of wrangling to allow a politically connected Prince George's County businessman to participate in a program for minorities at the airport, according to audit findings obtained by The Baltimore Sun on Thursday. Sandy Roberts, who runs Olympic News, one of the biggest retail operations at BWI, had not previously been counted among the minority-owned businesses at the airport because officials said he was not running the company himself. Airport officials said souvenir giant Hudson News, which recruited Roberts as a minority partner, was behind the operation.

With days to go, this is already one of the wettest Mays since record-keeping began here in 1871. The airport total through Tuesday was 7.1 inches, drowning the long-term average of 3.89 inches. The record is 8.71 inches, set in 1989. The second-wettest was just last year, when 7.77 inches fell at BWI. The third-wettest was 7.26 inches in 1894. This month's dunking has tied with May 1960 for fourth place.

The rest of the world may be in a recession, but it doesn't seem like it at AirTran Airways. The Florida-based airline recently posted its best-ever profit after heavy losses last year and is expanding service by 13 flights to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where it is the second-largest discount carrier. The airline, which turned a first-quarter profit, expects to remain profitable through the rest of the year. This all comes as people are spending less on travel because of the weak economy and other airlines are losing money, including Southwest Airlines, AirTran's biggest competitor at BWI. AirTran executives said their good fortune is the result of heavy cost-cutting last year as it anticipated the slowdown in the economy well ahead of other airlines.