Airport passengers drop amid rising costs, cut flights

The major culprit, of course, is rising fuel costs – jet fuel prices are up 90 percent compared to the same time in 2007, according to the International Air Transport Association, and the increase has led airlines to implement a host of corrective measures, from cutting flights and destinations to new fees for checked baggage and in-flight snacks.

The changes are starting to affect airports nationwide.

May passenger totals jarred the moorings at Springfield-Branson National Airport: Total numbers from Springfield were down 16 percent in May compared to 2007, the largest dip since November 2001. That followed a 13 percent drop in April.

“When the numbers drop one month, it’s an anomaly,” said Kent Boyd, the airport’s director of public information and marketing. “When the numbers drop that much two months in a row, it’s cause for concern.”

Boyd attributed decreasing passenger numbers partly to weather-related cancellations this year, but mostly to rising fare costs, rather than cuts in capacity.

“In 2005, airline tickets when adjusted for inflation were at all-time lows, and they really had nowhere to go but up,” Boyd said. “Then the price of fuel caught up with them. The bottom line is that ticket prices still have nowhere to go but up.”

While Boyd said it’s difficult to calculate the average price of a ticket, industry analysts say averages were up 10 percent to 13 percent in the first quarter this year.

Fares versus flights

In addition to the higher fares and fees, capacity numbers are down; 928 flights left Springfield in May, down nearly 4 percent from the same month in 2007.

Michael Boyd, president of Evergreen, Colo.-based aviation consulting company The Boyd Group Inc., said the situation is not unique to Springfield – and it’s not going to change any time soon.

“Airlines are going to start reducing the amount of flying they do,” said Boyd, who is no relation to airport spokesman Kent Boyd. “They can’t keep flying the level they are. Three years ago they could make money doing what they’re doing. Now, with fuel costs doubling, the model for air travel has changed, and it can’t make the money it used to make.”

Cutbacks, however, are nothing new to the Springfield airport. May 2008 flights are actually down 26 percent from May 2005.

Kent Boyd said capacity cuts at the airport date back to early 2006, when Northwest Airlines began cutting flights due to its ongoing bankruptcy troubles.

The future

The coming months don’t look much brighter for the air travel industry. Kent Boyd said the general consensus is that airlines will cut capacity nationwide by as much as 20 percent.

“We’re in a situation right now where there seems to be no end in sight to fuel prices going up, no end in sight to fares going up, and nobody knows what to do about it,” he said. “The airlines don’t know what to do about it, the government doesn’t know what to do – everyone is at the mercy of this bubble.”

He also noted that it won’t take much more of a raise in fares to drive customers away from air travel in large numbers, due to the air industry’s general lack of good will among fliers.

“Airlines in general have such a horrible reputation for poor customer service that people aren’t willing to cut an airline much slack,” Boyd said. “If they provided good customer service, and people weren’t yelled at by ticket agents, and bags didn’t go missing and flights weren’t delayed so often, people would be a lot more understanding. It’s an uphill battle for the airlines, and a lot of it doesn’t have to do with fuel costs.”

Avoiding a tailspin

And yet, despite the overall doom-and-gloom attitude among industry experts, many agree that Springfield is in better shape than most airports for several reasons.

First is the $119 million midfield terminal slated to open at the end of the year, which officials say will draw more local travelers.

Keeping local travelers, however, has not been an issue recently; the airport’s leakage study, released in January, said the number of passengers leaving this area to fly from other airports dropped to 12 percent in 2007 from 30 percent two years earlier.

Kent Boyd said the airport is also not overly worried about losing carriers or destinations. He points to Allegiant Air, which saw passenger numbers climb 33 percent in May compared to a year ago.

And even if enplanement numbers continue to decline, at least one city official doesn’t think the impact will be major on other sectors.

Tracy Kimberlin, executive director of the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that only about 8 percent of all visitors to Springfield travel by air.

“Springfield-Branson is a rubber tire market anyway, so a 16 percent drop in air traffic, in the big picture of overnight travel, is not that significant,” Kimberlin told Springfield City Council June 16, noting that room stays in Springfield set monthly records in both April and May.

While the national outlook may be dismal, Michael Boyd thinks that overall, Springfield-Branson is better positioned to weather the current economic climate better than other similar-size airports.

“What airlines need is revenue, and (Springfield) can provide some pretty strong feed traffic through the various hubs, so I think you’re in comparatively good shape,” Michael Boyd said. “It will be more expensive to fly, and that will affect you, but you’re not going to lose service.”