Cape Air continues to be successful despite economy

It was a chilly, windy day as preparations were made before a nine-passenger Cape Air plane took off from Cape Girardeau Regional Airport on Friday.

Luggage was loaded into compartments at the nose of the plane, and the pilot went about checking the aircraft before the handful of passengers on their way to St. Louis loaded into the vessel that doesn't have a bathroom.

Cape Air, the Massachusetts-based airline that frequents the Cape Girardeau airport, celebrated its sixth consecutive year of profitability in 2013.

The airline began service in Cape Girardeau in 2009, and has remained successful during the rough economy because the company found its niche, according to Stacey Putnam Ross, Midwest marketing manager for Cape Air.

Smaller communities don't generate passenger numbers that attract airlines with larger aircrafts, Ross said in an email to the Southeast Missourian, and the capacity needs of smaller communities is a good match for the fleet of seventy-five, nine-passenger Cessna 402 planes Cape Air offers.

Cape Air employees load passengers’ luggage into the airplane in preparation for its flight to St. Louis on Friday at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport.

Using the smaller aircraft allows for greater frequency of flights, which makes service more convenient to a larger number of passengers because there are more flights to choose from, she said.

"It's a formula that works well for us, and a formula that we've done our best to stick to over the years," Ross said.

Total passenger traffic increased 29 percent between 2010 and 2012, and increased another 5 percent in 2013, Ross said. Advance bookings for this year are up 12 percent compared to 2013, she added.

Another factor of the airline's success is Cape Air's low airfare, which is possible because the Cape Girardeau airport is part of the Essential Air Service program, Ross said.

The Essential Air Service program is a government program that was established to ensure smaller communities across the country would have a link to the national air transportation system, with federal subsidy where necessary, after the Airline Deregulation Act was passed in 1978, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The ADA gave airlines freedom to determine which markets to serve domestically and what fares to charge for the service.

The Cape Girardeau and Sikeston community is one of four eligible Essential Air Service communities in Missouri, including Fort Leonard Wood, Joplin and Kirksville.

Cape Air is in the midst of a four-year contract as a service provider with the Cape Girardeau airport. The contract provides annual federal subsidies of $1.6 million through the Essential Air Service program, according to previous Southeast Missourian reporting. The contract runs until Nov. 30, 2015.

The program covers a bulk of Cape Air's costs, Ross said, which allows the airline to charge $50 for tickets each way, with taxes and fees included. Parking at the Cape Girardeau airport is free.

With rising gas prices and the increase in parking fees at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, customers are looking for alternative ways to get to St. Louis, Ross said. The one-hour Cape Air flight between Cape Girardeau and St. Louis is the answer for some.

ashedd@semissourian.com

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