"Gary/Chicago airport chief says incentives best way to land new service"

Monday, May 14, 2007

Airport chief says incentives best way to land new service
By Jon Seidel
The Merrillville (IN) Post-Tribune


GARY, IN -- Northwest Indiana's only passenger airline service is gone, and
another small start-up has offered to take its place. 

But Chris Curry, director of the Gary/Chicago International Airport, has
started to push for an incentive that could lure the big boys of the
aviation industry to the region. 

"If we had a certain amount of money that was labeled for 'revenue
guarantees,' we would still have an airline flying today that wanted to be
here," Curry said. 

Revenue guarantees, as Curry explains them, are offered by airports to
airlines to entice them to offer service. 

An airline would agree to serve an airport if it could be guaranteed a
certain amount of revenue each year. If, at the end of the year, that
guarantee is not met, the airport will pay the airline the difference. 

Right now, Curry said, the Gary airport doesn't have the funds to make such
promises. 

"We would end up having to go to somebody like the RDA (Regional Development
Authority) and ask them to do something that they've never done," Curry
said. 

Tim Sanders, RDA executive director, agreed that funding a revenue guarantee
would put his organization in new territory. 

"That would be a shift in direction for us," Sanders said, "but that doesn't
mean it would be impossible. We'd want to see some assurances that this is
going to be done appropriately." 

Curry mentioned the idea repeatedly over the last few weeks, as SkyValue USA
was in the process of ending its service in Gary. 

SkyValue shut down after four months of service last weekend. 

Sanders said he received an e-mail from Curry a couple of weeks ago about
the idea, but it hasn't gone much further than that at the RDA. 

"We have not had a conversation about it," Sanders said, "either with Chris
(Curry) or at the board level." 

Despite Curry's push, not all aviation experts like the idea of a revenue
guarantee. 

Joseph Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan
Development at DePaul University in Chicago, said revenue guarantees put
government "squarely into the airline business." 

"It leaves taxpayers holding the bag when things go south," Schwieterman
said. 

However, Schwieterman acknowledged that the airport's current approach to
attracting passenger service hasn't worked well, either. SkyValue, he said,
seemed like it could be Gary's big break. 

"The airport is gaining recognition among the rank- and-file traveler,"
Schwieterman said. "It's just been cursed with bad luck." 

On Thursday, Curry told the airport authority board that a new start-up
service based in Green Bay, Wis., called MetJet Inc. wants to start a
charter service out of the Gary airport. 

Comments made at the end of the meeting by the public were skeptical of
MetJet. 

However, Curry said, these are the airlines Gary will have to work with
until it can offer new incentives. "Why does the airport take a chance on
Hooters?" Curry said. "Because they're airlines that are willing to start
here at minimum cost."

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