"Mid-Continent keeps luring new travelers"

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Mid-Continent keeps luring new travelers
Bucking national trends, the airport reports its 15th consecutive month of
higher passenger counts. That bodes well for the future, experts say.
BY MOLLY MCMILLIN
The Wichita (KS) Eagle


The second-highest number of passengers on record passed through Wichita's
Mid-Continent Airport in July.

Last month, 140,942 passengers flew in and out of the airport, up 1 percent
from a year ago. It's the 15th consecutive month that traffic has shown a
year-over-year increase at the airport.

The only month with more passenger traffic was July 1992.

Traffic has been up since low-cost carrier AirTran Airways began business in
Wichita in May 2002. Frontier JetExpress and Allegiant Air soon followed.
For the first seven months of 2003, traffic is up 12 percent.

It's a development that bucks the national trend of a decline in air travel.
And that bodes well for Wichita, airline consultants say.

With the arrival of the discount carriers and more competition in the
market, fares have dropped.

The passenger increases are "very good news," airline consultant Terry
Trippler said.

In the long term, higher traffic numbers may help persuade airlines serving
Wichita to expand service. It also will help Wichita grab the attention of
other airlines as a potential market, Trippler said.

Rather than attempting to recruit new carriers to town, airport officials
are concentrating their efforts on supporting and sustaining existing
carriers and keeping them healthy, said Bailis Bell, director of airports.

"That's our approach now," Bell said. Eventually, "we will hopefully get
bigger as time goes along."

The discount carriers serving the Wichita market are helping to stabilize
airfares in Wichita, said airline consultant Mark Sixel, with Sixel
Consulting Group.

"The fares right now are really good," he said.

Lower fares give Wichita an economic advantage when businesses look at
communities in which to do business, Mayor Carlos Mayans said.

AirTran is encouraged by the number of passengers using the airline,
spokesman Tad Hutcheson said. AirTran flights in Wichita in July, for
example, averaged 85 percent full.

Last month AirTran officials said they had decided to restore a third flight
from Wichita to Atlanta. The airline dropped from three flights a day to two
in February, citing low ridership.

The third flight, at midday, will begin Oct. 4.

AirTran's focus is making that third flight -- which Hutcheson calls a
"major investment" -- profitable.

On a flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Atlanta, Trippler sat next to a
man from Wichita who decided to give AirTran a try after the carrier dropped
the third flight from Wichita.

It's great news, Trippler said, "if the people of Wichita responded to a
reduction of service by supporting that airline."

As cities on AirTran routes have developed, AirTran has added flights or
additional cities.

"We always look for the best market opportunities," Hutcheson said.

For Frontier JetExpress, the Wichita market is "pretty stable," spokesman
Joe Hodas said. However, "I wouldn't say it's a necessarily dynamic market
for us."

Overall growth in traffic in Wichita is higher than at airports in Kansas
City, Mo., Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The number of passengers flying in and
out of Kansas City and Tulsa is down so far this year compared with last
year, and ridership is up only slightly in Oklahoma City.

The growth is important to Wichita, airport director Bell said. But in the
big scheme of things, Wichita is still small compared with other airports in
the nation.

Mid-Continent Airport is now the 92nd busiest in the nation, up from 102nd.

"We're coming up the ladder," Bell said, "but the ladder is long."


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