Purdue Airport Experiences Final Days of Commercial Flights This Week

February 11, 2004

Airport Experiences Final Days of Commercial Flights
This Week
Purdue Exponent, IN

On Saturday, the commercial airline at the Purdue
Airport — the third in three years — will fly its
final flight, and the departures are taking a toll.

American Airlines’ Corporate Airlines announced in
January that it will no longer be servicing Purdue due
to lack of profits.

Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, airports across the U. S.
have been seeing a decrease in air travel. Since 2002,
the number of takeoffs and departures per year at
Purdue has fallen from 130,000 to just below 115,000.
This is bad news for the airline because if its
attendance falls beneath 10,000 passengers a year, it
will only qualify for $150,000 in federal funding
instead of $1 million.

Betty Stansbury, director of the Purdue Airport, said,
"(The airport’s) primary mission is to provide service
for the University. The loss of the commercial flights
won’t change things much." 

Out of the total airport operations in 2003, Aviation
Technology students piloted 90 percent of flights, not
the commercial pilots.

Purdue isn’t giving up. Airport officials are still
willing to talk to any airline that would consider
flying out of their facilities.

"In the long term, we will get commercial service
back," Stansbury said. "Maybe not in the next year or
two, but in five or more."

While the number of Purdue Airport patrons has
decreased, the Indianapolis International Airport is
seeing an increase. With the lack of commercial
service from Purdue, students will now be forced to
fly into Indianapolis or Chicago and drive to Purdue.

Dennis Roseborough, Indianapolis Airport’s public
affairs director, said that for Purdue students,
Indianapolis Airport is definitely a viable option.

Before Sept. 11, Indianapolis was seeing around 200
daily departures. Afterward, however, the daily
departures went down to 146. 

Now that the economy is doing better and people are
feeling safer with the new security precautions,
Indianapolis is back up to 176 daily departures.
Passenger traffic has risen from around 6.9 million in
2002 to 7.4 million in 2003, a 7 percent increase,
according to Roseborough.

The Purdue Airport is hoping to have another
commercial airline as soon as possible. Officials
believe that an improved economy along with the new
Discovery Park will cause an increased demand for air
traffic out of Purdue.


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