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The following article was in todays newspaper
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After more than a decade of nosediving passenger counts, traffic at Columbus Metropolitan Airport appears to be leveling off and possibly poised for growth.
“A lot of people do not know the fares have come down, do not know reliability has improved,” said Sherry Goodrum, an attorney entering her second year as chair of the Columbus Airport Commission.
“What we’re doing is trying to re-educate the public,” she said. “A lot of people I’ve spoken to, they’ve got a three-year-old experience and that’s the negative in their minds.”
More travelers are giving the airport a chance. Data compiled by management show the facility gaining nearly 13,000 more passengers flying into and out of Columbus last year after bottoming out at around 87,000 in 2006.
About 100,000 fliers used the facility in 2008, up from just under 92,000 the year before.
But the modest resurgence is still a far cry from the quarter of a million people who came through the doors in the early 1990s. The airport had five commercial airlines then, instead of its current lone carrier, Delta Air Lines.
After peaking at just under 250,000 passengers in 1993, traffic fell steadily as various airlines left the market.
The airport also lost business because of travelers upset about poor on-time service by airlines and exorbitantly higher fares charged to fly out of Columbus. Many customers drove or took a shuttle to Atlanta to escape the higher fares.
Airport Director Mark Oropeza said both of those issues appear to have been addressed by a Delta Air Lines that was humbled by its 2005-2007 stint in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
“What Delta is starting to discover is when people drive to Atlanta, they don’t necessarily get on Delta. They’re choosing somebody else,” he said.
Oropeza calls it the “new Delta.”
“Since they’ve come out of bankruptcy, they’ve got a whole new management team up there,” he said. “And the management team is saying: We can’t keep doing things the way we did in the past and expect different results.”
Oropeza points to a gentleman’s agreement he has with Delta to keep fares no more than $70 higher round-trip flying out of Columbus than out of Atlanta. Anytime the fares surge higher than that spread — an increase often generated by computers — he contacts Delta and they quickly lower them.
“In the old days, Delta would say: We know what we’re doing. Take what you can get,” Oropeza said.
Business from Benning
Perhaps the biggest factor in the rising passenger counts, the director concedes, is business the airport gets from Fort Benning.
The brisk military traffic is only expected to keep rising during the next several years as the post continues its $3.5 billion transformation into an infantry-armor training center known as the Maneuver Center for Excellence. The training load will increase, thus the need for more air transportation to and from Columbus.
“Fort Benning tries to put as many of their troops through (the airport) as they can,” Oropeza said. “But we’re limited by capacity.”
That’s why he has approached Delta about adding flights or bringing in larger aircraft. The airline currently has four to five flights to and from Columbus each day, depending on peak travel seasons.
All of the flights are aboard 50-seat regional jets; no more turboprop propeller planes are used. But Oropeza would like to see some 140-seat DC9 jets.
He also hasn’t given up on attracting another airline to the city. He’s actively courting US Airways because it would funnel travelers to Charlotte, N.C., where they can choose from even more flights and fares.
“The idea is to get an air carrier that goes to someplace other than Atlanta for their hub,” Oropeza said.
Stimulus money
To prepare for the growth ahead, there are plans to go after a piece of the federal economic stimulus money pledged by President-elect Barack Obama. His administration has proposed earmarking $1 billion for a national airport improvement program.
There are two projects in Columbus that could be put out for construction bids within 30 days, Oropeza said. One is relocating and widening the airport’s main taxiway at a cost of $9 million. The other is repaving most of the facility’s runway. The price tag for that is $2 million.
Paperwork was submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration in December. If the program is approved and the Columbus projects get the go-ahead, work would begin this summer and take about 120 days to complete, Oropeza said.
“It’s a sure thing in that we’ll get these projects done even if there’s no economic stimulus package,” he said. “The thing is, though, it will take us longer because we’ll have to match the project to (FAA) funds and we may have to wait until the funds can build up enough to do the projects.”
That would likely stretch work out over three to four years, he said.
Economy takes off
A separate project, a new fire station, was just completed and turned over to the airport at the end of December. The price tag for the state-of-the-art facility was $2.5 million, all but $62,500 of that coming from federal and state funds.
With all of the pieces coming together, Goodrum said the airport is poised for a significant comeback as the economy takes off locally in coming years.
“A lot of smaller markets have lost service altogether. Macon has lost service,” she said. “I think as the economy starts to recover (airlines) will be adding more flights back in and that will mean additional opportunities for us.”
“A lot of people do not know the fares have come down, do not know reliability has improved,” said Sherry Goodrum, an attorney entering her second year as chair of the Columbus Airport Commission.
“What we’re doing is trying to re-educate the public,” she said. “A lot of people I’ve spoken to, they’ve got a three-year-old experience and that’s the negative in their minds.”
More travelers are giving the airport a chance. Data compiled by management show the facility gaining nearly 13,000 more passengers flying into and out of Columbus last year after bottoming out at around 87,000 in 2006.
About 100,000 fliers used the facility in 2008, up from just under 92,000 the year before.
But the modest resurgence is still a far cry from the quarter of a million people who came through the doors in the early 1990s. The airport had five commercial airlines then, instead of its current lone carrier, Delta Air Lines.
After peaking at just under 250,000 passengers in 1993, traffic fell steadily as various airlines left the market.
The airport also lost business because of travelers upset about poor on-time service by airlines and exorbitantly higher fares charged to fly out of Columbus. Many customers drove or took a shuttle to Atlanta to escape the higher fares.
Airport Director Mark Oropeza said both of those issues appear to have been addressed by a Delta Air Lines that was humbled by its 2005-2007 stint in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
“What Delta is starting to discover is when people drive to Atlanta, they don’t necessarily get on Delta. They’re choosing somebody else,” he said.
Oropeza calls it the “new Delta.”
“Since they’ve come out of bankruptcy, they’ve got a whole new management team up there,” he said. “And the management team is saying: We can’t keep doing things the way we did in the past and expect different results.”
Oropeza points to a gentleman’s agreement he has with Delta to keep fares no more than $70 higher round-trip flying out of Columbus than out of Atlanta. Anytime the fares surge higher than that spread — an increase often generated by computers — he contacts Delta and they quickly lower them.
“In the old days, Delta would say: We know what we’re doing. Take what you can get,” Oropeza said.
Business from Benning
Perhaps the biggest factor in the rising passenger counts, the director concedes, is business the airport gets from Fort Benning.
The brisk military traffic is only expected to keep rising during the next several years as the post continues its $3.5 billion transformation into an infantry-armor training center known as the Maneuver Center for Excellence. The training load will increase, thus the need for more air transportation to and from Columbus.
“Fort Benning tries to put as many of their troops through (the airport) as they can,” Oropeza said. “But we’re limited by capacity.”
That’s why he has approached Delta about adding flights or bringing in larger aircraft. The airline currently has four to five flights to and from Columbus each day, depending on peak travel seasons.
All of the flights are aboard 50-seat regional jets; no more turboprop propeller planes are used. But Oropeza would like to see some 140-seat DC9 jets.
He also hasn’t given up on attracting another airline to the city. He’s actively courting US Airways because it would funnel travelers to Charlotte, N.C., where they can choose from even more flights and fares.
“The idea is to get an air carrier that goes to someplace other than Atlanta for their hub,” Oropeza said.
Stimulus money
To prepare for the growth ahead, there are plans to go after a piece of the federal economic stimulus money pledged by President-elect Barack Obama. His administration has proposed earmarking $1 billion for a national airport improvement program.
There are two projects in Columbus that could be put out for construction bids within 30 days, Oropeza said. One is relocating and widening the airport’s main taxiway at a cost of $9 million. The other is repaving most of the facility’s runway. The price tag for that is $2 million.
Paperwork was submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration in December. If the program is approved and the Columbus projects get the go-ahead, work would begin this summer and take about 120 days to complete, Oropeza said.
“It’s a sure thing in that we’ll get these projects done even if there’s no economic stimulus package,” he said. “The thing is, though, it will take us longer because we’ll have to match the project to (FAA) funds and we may have to wait until the funds can build up enough to do the projects.”
That would likely stretch work out over three to four years, he said.
Economy takes off
A separate project, a new fire station, was just completed and turned over to the airport at the end of December. The price tag for the state-of-the-art facility was $2.5 million, all but $62,500 of that coming from federal and state funds.
With all of the pieces coming together, Goodrum said the airport is poised for a significant comeback as the economy takes off locally in coming years.
“A lot of smaller markets have lost service altogether. Macon has lost service,” she said. “I think as the economy starts to recover (airlines) will be adding more flights back in and that will mean additional opportunities for us.”
PASSENGERS AT COLUMBUS AIRPORT
1990 - 235,267
1991 - 248,757
1992 - 248,668
1993 - 249,485
1994 - 222,569
1995 - 207,089
1996 - 206,150
1997 - 202,612
1998 - 195,158
1999 - 191,297
2000 - 178,196
2001 - 155,943
2002 - 141,555
2003 - 108,787
2004 - 110,441
2005 - 98,969
2006 - 87,309
2007 - 91,754
2008 - 100,132
COLUMBUS AIRPORT SNAPSHOT
Location: 3250 West Britt David Road
Market: Columbus Metropolitan Airport's market area covers a 40-mile radius, with the airport handling more than 50,000 takeoffs and landings annually.
Impact: About 200 people are employed at the airport, which sprawls across 630 acres and has two runways totaling more than 7,000 feet. The estimated economic impact on the city is $70 million, according to an airport study.
