Richmond Review by Laura Jackson

I received my bachelor’s degree from the University of Richmond, a small private school located in the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is hard for me to believe, but this happened in the spring of 1995, 15 years ago. My, time flies.
Richmond is on my mind this week because on March 14 the men’s basketball team at my alma mater received an at-large bid to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) annual tournament. This is the first time in the history of Richmond athletics that the basketball team was actually invited to play in the tournament and didn’t simply win an automatic berth though a conference championship. Although I want to be careful not to jinx the team, it’s shaping up to be the BEST SEASON EVER for the Spiders. (And yes, Richmond’s mascot is a spider.)
Richmond is served by Richmond International Airport (RIC). The airport averages nearly 160 daily flights and served 3.3 million passengers in 2009. Like most airports around the world, RIC has seen declines in recent years – flights are down by more than 18 percent compared to 2005 levels, and passenger traffic has declined by nearly 10 percent from the all-time record set in 2007.
Two carriers account for nearly half of all RIC’s service – US Airways (28 percent) and Delta (21 percent). And although Richmond has some service by low-cost carriers – AirTran to Atlanta and Orlando, and jetBlue to Boston, New York, Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale – the local market has not enjoyed the same low-cost stimulation that other nearby airports have experienced. Richmond’s close proximity to a very large aviation market with low-cost service – Washington/ Baltimore – places RIC at a disadvantage. In addition, Richmond is less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Norfolk (ORF), a city served by Southwest Airlines. And low-cost carrier Frontier recently chose Newport News (PHF) as the site for its central Virginia service. Competition is tough in this region.
Passengers can reach 19 cities nonstop from RIC – 18 domestic and one international (Air Canada to Toronto). Richmond has good service to the east and midwest, but lacks serve west of Dallas. Richmond’s largest unserved domestic markets include Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Tampa, Denver and Phoenix; not surprisingly, four of the five cities are in the western USA.
Richmond has a lot to offer, and I have very fond memories of my time there. The metropolitan area is home to 1.2 million people, ranking as the state’s third largest. In addition, the region is home to six Fortune 500 companies and five Fortune 1,000 companies – quite a concentration for the 43rd-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the USA. The area also steeped in history – Civil War battlefields, museums, national historic landmarks and proximity to Williamsburg and Jamestown.
And, did I mention the Spiders? Richmond doesn’t have any professional sports teams, and so University of Richmond basketball is embraced by the entire community. Richmond will play its first-round game on Friday, March 18, against the St. Mary’s (California) Gaels. GO SPIDERS! (Note: Fans from Richmond can take nonstop flights to Boston – offered by both jetBlue and US Airways – and drive to the game which will take place in nearby Providence, Rhode Island).
Source: Official Airline Guide (OAG) Schedule Tapes for March 2010 and March 2005 only, unless otherwise noted; US Department of Transportation, O&D Survey; www.flyrichmond.com; www.visitrichmondva.com; news reports.