American Airlines Cuts Leave Vacancy in St. Louis, Mo., Airport

Posted on Mon, Mar. 01, 2004 

American Airlines Cuts Leave Vacancy in St. Louis,
Mo., Airport
Miami Herald, FL


Mar. 1 - St. Louisan Richard Green's flight to Atlanta
wasn't leaving for another hour, so he wandered the
vacant D concourse at Lambert Field that once teemed
with passengers like him.

Now that American Airlines and its regional partners
have consolidated their flights elsewhere in the
airport -- a move that was completed nine days ago --
Green could count on some eerie solitude as he walked
through the near-empty corridors.

Sure, you could still hear the light music and public
address announcements in the background. A television
continued to pipe in CNN to an empty gate. And there
were a couple of airport employees within sight. But
it wasn't the same airport he was accustomed to in St.
Louis.

"It is kind of sad to see it so dead," Green told a
reporter who interrupted his stroll on Friday. "It
felt like a big-city airport. Now it sort of feels
like a regional airport."

The quiet concourse is the latest indignity for the
once-booming airport since its dominant tenant,
American Airlines, made sweeping service cuts four
months ago, but Lambert officials say they are
scrambling to fill the empty gates.

After cutting half its schedule in November, the
airline, based in Fort Worth, Texas, no longer needed
the 19-year-old D concourse -- although its regional
jet service continued to operate there until moving to
the neighboring C gates on Feb. 21.

Airport Director Leonard L. Griggs Jr. said he was
going to take advantage of the down time to order
repairs to the notorious leaky roof, along with other
rehabilitation work to the first few gates, which
already are being eyed by another airline.

Nobody can say for sure how long the concourse will
seem so empty. Griggs said an existing airline
operating at Lambert might move its gates there by
mid-April.

Walk the half-mile distance between the airport's main
security checkpoints and the East Terminal and you'll
pass the shuttered Starbucks, the Schlafly Tap Room.

The food court near the security checkpoint will
remain open and so will the Cheers bar, although it is
expected to get a new theme soon, airport officials
said.

But sales were so lousy at the end of last month that
the Pasta House on the other end of the concourse will
cease offering sit-down meals until the traffic
returns.

"It looks like a terminal that's unoccupied right
now," Griggs said. "It's the same as if you didn't
live in your house for a while."

Both airline and city officials are trying to put
their best foot forward when the subject turns to the
big void that's been left in the middle of the
airport.

Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge, American's managing director
in St. Louis, said passengers boarding large or
regional jets will be able to make most of their
connecting flights in the cheerier C concourse, where
old floor coverings were replaced with new, blue
carpets a few months ago.

The regional AmericanConnection and American Eagle
jets will operate from the 10 gates on the south side
of the concourse and the large jets will use 11 gates
on the north side. The AmericanConnection turboprop
flights will use the B concourse.

"It's like the old days," Hamm-Niebruegge said. "The C
concourse looks like normal again. Traffic flow is
very heavy. It gives the feel that, hey, things are
good here again."

By consolidating the regional jet service to that part
of the airport, the airline won't force people to walk
past the empty D concourse gates. Still, some
passengers find it a handy walking track -- a place to
stretch their legs between flights.

"And there's nobody to get in my way," said LaDelle
Mackeben of Minneapolis, who along with her husband
spied the empty hallway during a layover between
Tampa, Fla., and her hometown.

The narrow D concourse, along with its 18 gates, was
formally dedicated 19 years ago today when it was home
to Ozark Airlines, according to a plaque that hangs on
the wall.

Since then, it has been the jumping-off point for
millions of passengers flying Ozark, Trans World
Airlines and, most recently, American. Hoping to bail
out the struggling airline, the city of St. Louis
bought the gates along with other equipment from TWA
in 1993.

Griggs said that move put Lambert in a far better
position than other U.S. airports that have been left
with such vast banks of empty gates. He said the city
would be able to market those gates and offer them
immediately to any airline that wanted them.

Until they're occupied by other carriers, American
will continue to pay rent on the gates it inherited
from TWA.

Griggs is hopeful the airport will begin filling the
empty gates, despite the economic struggles in the
airline industry and the runway construction costs it
will soon be passing along to airlines that are still
doing business here in late 2006, or 2007.

A task force made up of 17 local business leaders
studied the airport's finances last year and called on
city officials to slash costs and find new revenue
totaling up to $50 million a year. That would reduce
the costs Lambert has to pass along to the airlines
and keep it competitive with other airports its size.

"There are so many hubs that compete with St. Louis
for that connecting traffic that it makes it
vulnerable," said Brian Campbell, chairman of task
force consultant Campbell-Hill Aviation Group Inc.
"That vulnerability is only exacerbated if the costs
go way up.

"Any way you cut it, those costs have to be contained
and, indeed, reduced." The task force also recommended
that the airport spend more money to spruce up its
terminals to make it more attractive to airlines and
travelers. Finding new airlines to fill the empty
concourse will help keep the airlines' costs down,
Griggs said, because the airport operating costs will
be spread over more carriers.

Spencer Dickerson, senior executive vice president for
the American Association of Airport Executives, said
Lambert was not the only airport that has had to deal
with lost flights.

"If an airline downsizes, obviously, there are going
to be some gates that are not going to be used," he
said. "That is not unusual at all."

 

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