In-demand destination

Alluring Texas Hill Country one of fastest-growing vacation spots in U.S.

Texas Hill Country is one of the top tourist destinations in the country.

Photo courtesy of Vista Brewing

For years, the Texas Hill Country has been a go-to getaway destination for residents of Dallas and other Texas cities. Now, it appears travelers outside of the state have learned about the Hill Country’s allure.

Austin-based vacation rental marketplace HomeAway has named the Texas Hill Country one of the 25 fastest-growing vacation rental markets in the U.S.

HomeAway based the list on bookings made on its vacation rental network from 2016 to 2017. The Hill Country is the only Texas destination on the list.

Fredericksburg sits at the epicenter of the Hill Country, thanks in large part to the more than 40 wineries and vineyards in and around the quaint German-cultured town. Lodging in Fredericksburg and the rest of the Hill Country is dominated by B&Bs, guesthouses, and inns.

“The scenic beauty and the big, starry skies of the Texas Hill Country have been a favorite of Texan travelers for decades,” Ernie Loeffler, president and CEO of the Fredericksburg Convention and Visitor Bureau, said in 2016. “Now, the culinary hot spots, the museums and heritage sites, the nationally recognized art galleries, the upscale shopping, the burgeoning Texas wine industry, and the live music scene of Fredericksburg are being discovered by visitors from across the U.S. and the world.”

Texans make up about 70 percent of the overnight stays in the Hill Country, with non-Texans accounting for the remaining 30 percent, according to a report prepared for the Texas Economic Development and Tourism Division.

Within Texas, the Houston area sends the most visitors to the Hill Country, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Austin, the report says. The places sending the most out-of-state travelers to the Hill Country are San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York.

In 2016, the Hill Country attracted nearly 32 million visitors, according to the report. That’s up from 30.1 million in 2015 and 28.4 million in 2014.

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Airline News

American Airlines to take things up a notch at DFW Airport

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

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Fort Worth-based American Airlines is making changes at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), its largest hub and hometown airport, including departure times spread throughout the day.

DFW has an outsized impact on the rest of the airline’s operation and on the journeys of the nearly 700,000 customers the airline serves every day across its global network. More customers and more bags travel and connect through DFW every day than any other airport in American's network. What's good for DFW is good for everyone.

More banks
For more than a decade, American’s schedule at DFW has been concentrated across nine banks, or large clusters of flights across the operating day. As all airline bank structures do, this times large groups of flights together, coordinating arrivals and departures, and ultimately, coordinating quick and seamless connections.

Beginning in April — and visible in the airline’s schedules starting December 27 — American’s DFW operation is evolving to a 13-bank structure, providing more certainty to the airline’s average 100,000 peak daily customers traveling on the more than 930 average peak DFW daily departing flights.

With this structural schedule change, customers will find more departure options in highly desired time windows and fewer early morning departures to DFW.

American is also making an investment in block time for flights to and from DFW. (Block time is the total scheduled time between pushback from the departure gate to arrival at the destination gate.) The goal is more on-time departures, which lead to more on-time arrivals and fewer delays.

Connections
They're also working on improving connection times, making it easier to connect through DFW. The new structure should reduce the concentration of very short connection times.

Customers on the go such as business travelers can still book tight connections when time matters — but the schedule enhancements will now provide more options for a stress-free experience with more time between flights. Reflowing their schedule means fewer air traffic delays and more on-time departures and arrivals.

By spreading out its DFW flight schedule across the day, the airline is also spreading out customer volume, including everything from local customers arriving in parking garages, checking in at lobbies, and clearing security, to connecting customers making their way through American’s terminals to their next flights.

Terminals
Other improvements include modernizing American’s facilities and airport terminals, including Terminal A and C Pier extensions adding nine incremental gates.

They're also adding Terminal F to be completed in 2030, with 31 new gates that can accommodate increased widebody capacity, state-of-the-art baggage technology, dedicated premium lounges, Flagship check-in, and a new U.S. Customs facility.

New programs in partnership with the Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection include TSA PreCheck Touchless ID — allowing customers at DFW (and 16 other locations across American’s U.S. network) to use facial recognition technology for more secure and efficient identity verification.

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