Southwest Florida International Airport Tries Incentive Program

Airport Tries Incentive Program
The News-Press, FL

February 24, 2004

 
Southwest Florida International aims to dangle a
carrot in front of airlines, with a goal of gaining
new, nonstop service out West. 

Citizen advisers on Monday endorsed a plan to extend
the discount-based airline incentive program for
another two years. The Airports Special Management
committee also OK’d adding eight cities to the
program. Lee County commissioners sitting as the port
authority board will have the final say on March 8. 

Cities chosen for the enhanced incentive program are:
Los Angeles; San Francisco; Las Vegas; Seattle/Tacoma;
Phoenix; San Diego; Salt Lake City; and Portland, Ore.
Areas previously targeted for the incentives are:
Denver; Minneapolis; Milwaukee; Providence, R.I.;
Hartford, Conn.; Long Island, N.Y.; Washington, D.C.;
Jacksonville; Tallahassee; Toronto; Montreal; Mexico;
the Caribbean Basin; and Europe. 

Only cities in the airport’s top 20 origination and
destination markets are eligible. 

Here’s how the program works: 

For a 737-300 aircraft with 132 seats, total airport
charges would be $665.34 per flight, said Susan
Sanders, air service marketing director. If eligible
for the incentive program, the airline could save
$354.34 on that flight, for a net charge of $311. 

If an airline goes for the incentive, “the airport
gets the benefit of more people coming in, and
spending more on concessions and related things,” said
committee member Bob Taylor. 

The airport sacrifices some new revenue for the first
year of service. However, the total payoffs far exceed
the discounts — by about a three-to-one ratio, said
Ben Siegel, airport director of finance and
administration. 

An incentive doesn’t guarantee new service, Siegel
noted. It’s just another way airport marketers can try
to attract new air service. This is not a case of
“buying air service,” in which a community guarantees
a particular airline that a new flight will be full of
paying passengers — or that community will make up the
difference. 

“Ours is structured to attract an airline to come in,
and test what we think is a viable market,” Sanders
said, adding: “At the end of the test, if the market
was truly viable, the flight should be able to stand
on its own. If not, it should be canceled.”


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