American Airlines plans to resume service to Lambert St. Louis International airport today after the facility was struck by a tornado on 22 April.
Damage includes blown-out windows in the main terminal and a portion of the roof being ripped off of the airport's C concourse.
American states its flights from St Louis will now depart from Concourse D, noting "it is not an easy task to restore service to an airport that was hit this hard".
As of 24 April, the airport stated that 70% of flights resumed 48h after the tornado struck the airport complex. Eleven carriers had scheduled flights on that date.
Lambert International has worked with carriers operating from the C concourse to move their operations, re-opening once vacant gates in Concourse B for AirTran and Frontier. Several gates in the D Concourse have re-opened for American and Cape Air.
Lambert airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge estimates the airport should reach 85% capacity today. During April, St. Louis averaged 256 daily departures per day.
Data from the US Department of Transportation show from February 2010 to January 2011 Southwest Airlines was the top carrier at St. Louis with a 43.5% market share. American followed with a 19.9% share and Delta was third with a share of 8.9%. American inherited the St. Louis hub of TWA when it acquired the carrier's assets in 2001. But in recent years it has scaled back St. Louis in favour of concentrating on its five "cornerstone" markets of Chicago, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles and Miami.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
