Airport pursues Atlanta, D.C. flights

Springfield-Branson Regional Airport is betting that Las Vegas is the first of several new nonstop destinations.
Allegiant Air announced two weekly nonstop flights to Las Vegas from Springfield beginning April 21, and airport officials have said three other new nonstop destinations are likely to be named this year. They’re targeting Atlanta and Washington, D.C., plus another western hub such as Phoenix, L.A. or Salt Lake City.
“It doesn’t mean I can promise anything, because sometimes you get things you weren’t expecting,” said Sherry Wallace, airport spokeswoman.
Wallace declined to discuss the names of specific airlines involved in the negotiations, but she said the airport hopes to make another announcement regarding new flights in spring or early summer, with a goal of adding a third new destination before the end of the year.
The process, she said, works in reverse; the airport looks at where coverage is needed first and then approaches airlines that fly to those locations, rather than targeting specific carriers.

Stopping the leaks
The new flights to Vegas can carry up to 150 passengers each, Wallace said, adding that Allegiant expects those flights to be between 70 percent to 80 percent full on average, moving approximately 225 passengers a week.
Wallace said the flights will impact the airport in several different ways.
“I expect it will affect our numbers as far as leakage,” she said. “There are some people who go to other airports in search of cheaper fares, particularly if they’re flying for leisure. So I’m hoping these are 225 new passengers; people who might either not have gone to Vegas or have flown out of Tulsa might now fly out of here.”
Cal LeMon, president of The Executive Edge in Springfield, is among those opting for airports that are farther away but less expensive. LeMon, who travels about three times a week to speaking engagements, said he chooses to drive to Tulsa about 10 percent of the time. He said this emerging trend toward nonstop, low-cost flights from Springfield is good news.
“I have no desire to drive to Tulsa if I can get reliable cost-efficient fares on airlines out of Springfield. I have no need to do any driving,” he said.

Is bigger better?
Many customers, including LeMon, have chosen smaller discount carriers for air travel. Small carriers like Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airlines and AirTran have been doing well in the airline market in recent years, as opposed to the majors, which have all suffered significant declines.
Southwest saw traffic in February rise 9.2 percent over the previous month, and in 2004, the airline recorded 4 billion passenger-miles milestone. As a comparison, the AMEX Airline Index, which measures aggregate performance of major U.S. and overseas airlines, is down from a November 2003 high of $70 per share to $47 a share.
Wallace said that discount carriers aren’t exclusively on the airport’s wish list.
“A lot of the traditional discount carriers usually aren’t interested in markets this small. They require a population base in the (metropolitan) area to be 3 (million) to 4 million people. Here in our area there are 800,000 people,” she said. “Our ultimate goal is to have a nice mix for everybody.”
LeMon added that he thinks the smaller airlines are going to continue to gain market share.
“It’s my hopefully business savvy opinion that the traditional carriers are in trouble unless they’re willing to adapt to an entirely new paradigm for air service,” LeMon said.
“It doesn’t surprise me that a Southwest or a JetBlue are doing so well. The American public is getting used to receiving no perks to travel efficiently and at a reasonable cost.”
Wallace said that the Las Vegas addition, and the possible entries of other flights with new and existing carriers, should help to bring down the costs of fares to many different locations in the long run.

Bursting the bubble
Local travel agencies have already seen some of the effects of the new flights.
Dianne Fugitt, office manager of Springfield Travel Co., said there has definitely been interest in the new destination, though her company has had to explain the limitations.
“There has been an increase in inquiries, and there’s more awareness – ‘Oh, I can go to Vegas,’” Fugitt said. “In advertising direct flights from Springfield, we’ve had to do a lot of explaining, ‘OK, these flights leave Thursday at such and such time, and the flight back is on Sunday’ and vice versa. So we’ve kind of had to be the ones to burst their bubble.”
While Springfield Travel does 60 percent of its business in corporate travel, Fugitt expects most Vegas travel to be leisure travel.
“I think the Vegas pull is going to be more of a tourism and vacation pull than a pull for Springfield businesses having their conventions in Vegas,” she said. “I’m hoping Allegiant does well just so that other airlines can see, ‘Hey, this is a viable market,’ and they might jump in.”
However, there is a roadblock in getting Southwest into Springfield. The carrier is prohibited by federal law from flying large planes directly from its main hub at Dallas’ Love Field to Missouri and other states not directly adjacent to Texas. Airline officials have publicly stated their intent to get that legislation repealed.