Branson who?
Despite the fact that a national airport consultant joked about finding the quickest exit when asked about the threat of an emerging airport in Branson, the director of aviation for Springfield-Branson National Airport and the consultant painted a largely rosy picture for business in 2012. The two presented the State of the Airport address March 26 in front of a crowd of roughly 100 members of the Springfield Business Development Corp. at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.
Director of Aviation Brian Weiler said a 21 percent decrease in airline seat capacity at the airport contributed to an 8 percent drop in total passengers last year. With some routes already using larger planes, January and February passenger volumes bounced up 10 percent compared to the same months in 2011, Weiler said. Michael Boyd, co-founder of The Boyd Group, an aviation research and analysis firm that works with the Springfield airport, said Springfield-Branson National’s key routes to major hubs such as Dallas and Atlanta position the city well for economic development and insulate the airport against the threat posed by the privately operated Branson Airport.
In January, low-fare carrier Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) announced it would bring service to Branson later this year through its $1 billion buyout of AirTran Holdings Inc. (NYSE: AAI), which serves five destinations out of Branson.
“In terms of air-service impact, I don’t think (Southwest at Branson) is going to have much of an impact here,” Boyd said. “I don’t think Southwest will be there with Southwest painted on the side of the airplanes without it being subsidized. Service to Chicago is going to help Branson, but it’s not going to hurt service here. It is a different kind of business that they are in.”
Branson Airport Executive Director Jeff Bourk could not be reached for comment by press time.
In the State of the Airport address, Weiler and Boyd indicated SGF would focus on keeping carriers profitable and maintaining access to major hubs.
“Our ticket yield prices in the last two years have gone up about 42 percent. This is the amount of profit that airlines get from the average ticket, so airlines are making money at our airport, and that is good in that it stabilizes our service,” Weiler said.
Though SGF experienced passenger declines in every month in 2011, Weiler said he thinks the airport has bottomed out.
Weiler said Allegiant Airlines switched in February from a 150-seat plane to a 166-seat plane on its Phoenix and Los Angeles routes from Springfield and increased its flight frequency by 13 percent. Also in February, Delta Air Lines added a fourth daily round-trip route to Atlanta, and last month, United Air Lines added a fourth daily round-trip option to Denver.
Enplanements, or the number of boarding passengers, at Branson Airport increased by 20 percent in 2011 to roughly 110,000 from about 92,000 in 2010. By comparison, the number of passengers to board flights in Springfield in 2011 was more than 365,000, a drop from nearly 400,000 in 2010.
SGF spokesman Kent Boyd said no projections for passengers in 2012 were being made because of the volatility of the industry as a whole and the uncertainty surrounding gas prices. Michael Boyd, who is not related to Kent, is projecting SGF’s capacity to increase by 4 percent this year, while capacity is expected to decline by 2 percent on average across the country.
Analyst Boyd said smaller airports around the U.S. have been suffering in recent years, and a common trait among the survivors is connectivity to major hubs.
“The real reason we’re here is to be a portal to the rest of the world. As the chamber will tell you, it’s not about getting people to ride Dumbo down in Orlando, [Fla.],” Boyd said, adding that if an official in Taipei, Taiwan, wants to build a manufacturing facility in the Midwest, he’s going to seek a city that’s not more than one destination away from a major U.S. hub. “If he can’t, he’s going to go somewhere else.”
Costs are rising for airports across the country – fuel prices climbed 30 percent to $50.5 billion nationwide in 2011 – and Boyd said as more carriers consolidate their operations, price differences will become less pronounced. In 1983, Boyd said there were nearly three times as many airlines operating in America as there are today.
Citing a Springfield unemployment rate at 6.6 percent in January and city sales tax revenues up 10 percent for the nine months through March, Weiler said signs of an improving local economy should bode well for the airport in 2012. He said rising fuel prices present the biggest obstacle to passenger volumes.
Serving four major airlines – Allegiant, Delta, United and American Airlines – with nonstop flights to 10 direct cities, Weiler said SGF isn’t too dependent on any one carrier. He said airline usage is evenly dispersed as each carrier transports between 20 percent and 30 percent of SGF’s passengers.
Charlotte Hardin, a Springfield-Branson National board member serving in her second three-year term, said she agreed that hub connectivity makes Springfield an attractive regional airport.
“I think it’s a good indication that our airport is in a very good position – that we do have the capability to offer that international connection with just one connecting flight,” said Hardin.
Scott Watson, vice president of sales and marketing for Springfield-based M3 Accounting Software, said he flies out of the Springfield area about four times a month, mostly to the southeast, but he books only a handful of flights a year out of SGF due to pricing he finds at other airports.
For example, Watson said he once flew to Atlanta via Dallas out of the Joplin Regional Airport because the same route originating from SGF was about $1,200 – roughly $800 more than the Joplin fare. Most often, he flies out of Branson Airport.
“Certainly there are more flights available, and better connections out of Springfield. And quite honestly, that convenience is worth something to me,” Watson said, noting he also uses airports in Joplin, northwest Arkansas, Kansas City and St. Louis. “However, with the prices I traditionally see, the price is just too high for the value I’d be receiving.”[[In-content Ad]]
