"Low-cost flights key to adding passengers, Alabama airport official says"

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Primed for takeoff
Low-cost flights key to adding passengers, airport official says
By Abby Foster 
The Decatur (AL) Daily


Whenever Rick Tucker talks about Huntsville International Airport's
five-year, $88 million expansion projects, much of his commentary is about
what would happen if the airport could seduce a low-fare carrier, like
Southwest or Airtran. 
 
Tucker, the airport authority's executive director, says that aside from
airlines spontaneously choosing to lower their fares, a cheaper airline
serving Huntsville would be the only way for the airport to gain passenger
traffic. 

He said 500,000 people board planes at Huntsville International every year.
There are another 500,000 in the local area who choose Birmingham or
Nashville, where economy airlines are based. He believes Huntsville could
attract another 500,000 people from other states if similar discount
airlines would come aboard. 

Passengers, he said, will travel to save money. Price heads their lists of
concerns, even over such inconveniences as layovers. 

Huntsville International, he believes, eventually will attract those
airlines. The authority is preparing today for future price changes that
could bring in the million other available passengers annually that they
aren't seeing now. 

The improvements leave space for the airport to grow further if it were to
gain another million passengers. 

Cindy Maloney, the airport's public relations manager, admits that,
historically, Nashville and Birmingham have had lower fares than Huntsville.
But the price differential in recent months has become more competitive. 

Currently, high gas prices can make flights out of Birmingham up to $10 more
expensive than those from Huntsville, just from the cost of driving a car 70
miles each way. Nashville is even farther, and therefore more expensive. 

Southwest Airlines flies to and from Birmingham already. "We look for a city
where we can pull customers from a 90-mile radius," said Southwest
spokesperson Whitney Eichinger. 

"Southwest will basically never come here," said Maloney. 

Neither JetBlue nor America West, other low-fare carriers, plans to begin
flights to Huntsville anytime soon. 

Southwest just began flights to Philadelphia last month, which is the first
city they've added since the 9-11 attacks. Maloney said that Huntsville was
very close to getting a low-fare carrier several years ago. "We were this
close, and then September 11 hit and they said, 'Yeah, not so much,' " she
said. 

Independence Air is a low-fare carrier out of Washington-Dulles just
beginning flights next week. "Huntsville has been under serious
consideration for us," said Rick DeLisi, Independence's director of
corporate communications. The airline is looking to begin service to 35
cities this year. 

"The first thing we look at when determining if we will enter a new market
is customer demand," said Shaun Breese, a media relations specialist at
America West. "We look at traffic pattern flows between a potential city
(Huntsville) and our hubs, Phoenix and Las Vegas. If the flow traffic volume
going both ways is not high enough, we won't make a move to fly there." 

"The other main determining factor," she continued, "is what other airlines
are flying into this city. As a low-fare carrier we tend to look for cities
that have a large base of large airlines into their market, such as Delta,
United, Continental etc. Our goal in a market with a number of large
carriers is to come in and offer customers a low fare to compete with the
other airlines. 

"Huntsville, does not, at this point, meet any of our criteria," she said. 

So far this year, Huntsville has seen 10 percent annual growth in passenger
traffic. That's four times the industry standard for normal growth, which is
2.5 percent annually. 

The expansion will take five years to complete, but Maloney says there's no
danger of traffic increasing faster than the airport's plans for expansion,
necessitating more expansion right after this project finishes. 

"We're not at capacity right now," she said. "We could almost double now
without doing anything. we're doing this proactively, anticipating where
things are going to go," Maloney added. 

Plans are in place for the possibility of a low-fare carrier coming in and
the airport needing to expand further. The five-year project approved in the
past week puts the airport in line for larger future expansions, should they
become necessary. 

All the projects at Huntsville are planned not to impact the airlines. The
airport will pay for the projects with federal and airport fees, without
hiking charges on the airlines that would force up ticket prices for the
passengers. 

Still, the airport will make the airlines share the gates in the concourse,
to which officials said the airlines agreed because it would avoid rate
hikes for the airlines. If the airlines all are allowed to keep their own
gates, like the concourse is now, the airport would have to extend the
concourse into the taxiway to add more gates. Huntsville then would then
have to build a new taxiway. 

Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for USAirways, refused to comment on the airline's
position on the changes to be made at Huntsville. 

"We're looking to simplify our fare structure," she said, in response to
questions about ticket pricing. "We think that's where the industry's
going." 

USAir's plan to simplify fares will cap coach prices at $499 each way and
the carrier will sell tickets for as little as $29 one way. The plan is
going into effect at Philadelphia first and adding routes from there. 

"The longer you plan ahead, the cheaper it is (to fly)," said Thomas Becher,
a spokesman for Northwest Airlines, which also flies into Huntsville. He
said that ticket prices change so frequently, partly due to connecting
flights and competition in larger airports that are hubs for different
airlines and low-fare carriers.

Attached Photo:

Huntsville International Airport plans to expand the terminal building and
add a third floor in the next few years.

huntsville.jpg