Quote:
Originally Posted by Karthik
Large? Indianpolis International is ranked 39th in America based on number departures and 49th based on number of passengers. I've found St. Louis to be hard enough to get reasonable flights into, Indy would be even worse. There are plenty of reasons as to why Indianapolis would be an amazing city to host the Championship, but the airport is not one of them.
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Wow I get to tell Karthik that he's wrong.
Indianapolis has the advantage of not being dominated by any one airline. Not being a major hub makes our passenger traffic look small but because of that flights are reasonable and easy to find. We even get folks driving here from Cincinnati and Louisville to get reasonable flights. This is one of the reasons we book many large conventions (the FFA convention makes FIRST look small.)
Our biggest problem is access from the convention center to the dome. There is no way to get from one to the other without using stairs or an elevator. This makes getting a 140lb robot from pits to the playing field problematic.
Also I fully expect FIRST to exercise at least one of their option years for St. Louis just like they did for Atlanta. With districts not being really expanded until 2014 and until a whole new qualification system is in place, I would be surprised to see a RFP for a new venue until after 2014.