"Disparate Visions on Myrtle Beach Airport"

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

EDITORIAL
Disparate Visions on Airport
Business leaders can help Horry discover ways to cut operating costs for
airlines
The Myrtle Beach (SC) Sun News


The good folks at Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday and the Myrtle Beach Area
Chamber of Commerce make a good preliminary case that it costs airlines too
much to fly into Myrtle Beach. But it doesn't follow that the airport's
owner, Horry County, should scrap its business model for the facility.

That model is aimed at protecting the county's property-tax base from
airport operating and expansion costs. So airport management, at County
Council's behest, concentrates on stockpiling money to finance the $226
million terminal that the county wants to build on the airport's west side.

What we have here are disparate visions of the airport's purpose. County
leaders view the airport as the crown jewel of local public amenities. The
business community, in contrast, views the airport as an adjunct to tourism
that should operate on the thinnest possible margins.

Business leaders argue that the county's money-stockpiling practice
frustrates ongoing public- and private-side efforts to persuade more
airlines to fly into Myrtle Beach. When they ask airline executives why
their airlines are not flying here, they say, the executives invariably cite
such costs as counter-rental charges, landing fees and fees for servicing
incoming and outgoing flights as the reason they bypass Myrtle Beach.
Comparable costs at other airports, they say, are much lower.

Golf Holiday and the chamber have commissioned a more detailed study into
the problem, with an eye to determining how extensive it really is. When
that study is completed, county leaders should try to take its findings into
account - but not at the expense of the new terminal.

Indeed, it is a pity that business leaders didn't take an active public role
in influencing airport economics earlier. If they had done so, say, three
years ago, around the time County Council decided to build the terminal,
they might have persuaded county leaders to adopt some other method for
financing the project.

Because business leaders intervened only this month, when the only remaining
barriers to terminal construction are approvals from the Myrtle Beach
Community Appearance Board and County Council, some will question their
motivation. A cynic could construe their timing as a last-minute attempt to
derail the terminal - though they contend that it isn't.

Regardless, the county dares not change the terminal's financial operating
model now, as it prepares to market bonds to pay for the project. Even a
slight deviation in its money-stockpiling regimen could make bonds harder to
market, driving up interest rates buyers must pay, and possibly even put the
terminal project at risk.

This isn't to suggest however, that the Golf Holiday-chamber study has no
value. Once the bonds are issued and terminal construction is under way,
county and business leaders can work on strategies to lower costs for
airlines, where appropriate. Annual private grants to the airport might be
one way to accomplish that. Where there's a will, as they say, there's a
way. Business leaders can help the county discover it.

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