Airport hopes options outweigh tradition

In asking the federal government to switch its air service to Cincinnati, Cape Girardeau is betting added destinations will outweigh historical ties.

On Monday, breaking with tradition and what most on the board called the "safe" selection of air service to St. Louis, the Cape Girardeau Airport Advisory Board voted to endorse a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation requesting service to Cincinnati with Big Sky Airlines of Billings, Mont. The move could end decades of consecutive air service to St. Louis if approved by DOT later this month.

The decision left some of the airport's most loyal passengers pledging to boycott Cape Girardeau Regional Airport. They believe the Cincinnati option will result in both higher fares and longer commutes.

But board members hope the number of daily flights and destinations, nearly double that of St. Louis, will make up for any inconvenience.

Airport manager Bruce Loy said the move will greatly expand options out of Cape Girardeau.

"In my opinion, it was just the simple fact that we felt we had the opportunity to really broaden our number of destinations and the ability to fly to so many places direct from that hub. And also I've got to say a hub that is growing by leaps and bounds versus a hub that is being diminished," he said.

Lambert St. Louis International Airport dropped from 30.6 million passengers in 2000 to 15.2 million in 2006.

Loy and others also felt the timing for a change was right. Last year, RegionsAir, operating with service to St. Louis, hit an all-time low for arrival statistics, canceling about 8 percent of its flights. Mechanical problems with its fleet of 16 aircraft was a persistent problem, and Saturday the carrier was forced by the FAA to ground its fleet over concerns about its pilot training policy.

Public dissatisfaction opened the door for three other carriers to bid for the service.

"This type of opportunity with all the competitive bids doesn't come along too often, and some of us felt it might not come along again if we passed it up," Loy said.

The choice

Along with RegionsAir and Big Sky, Mesa Airlines and Great Lakes Airlines submitted bids to provide air service. Great Lakes was the low bidder with a bid about $200,000 less than the expiring RegionsAir contract and about $123,000 less than Big Sky's least expensive bundled bid to Cincinnati.

Board members said they were intrigued by Great Lakes, which has received positive reviews from other communities it serves. But they kept coming back to the possibility of service to Cincinnati.

J. Fred Waltz has been on the board since 1994.

"Consistently I've voted for St. Louis over Memphis or Chicago or other places because quite frankly St. Louis provided us better access and availability to markets than anywhere else. But I think we've finally come to the tipping point. The times have shifted. It was a vote for change and a vote for the fact that we know there is access to the St. Louis market via land transport," he said.

Some, though, stayed skeptical until the end. Board member Robbie Rollins said he exhausted nearly every Internet resource and printed off spreadsheets comparing fares, gate to gate times and other factors. Rollins voted no.

"In the end, I think it would have been a safer bet, safer vote to go with St. Louis. Based on my feelings I think it's an easier transition when we're changing carriers to not change destinations as well," he said.

Fares

Rollins and others were initially frightened by high fares that are the norm now in Cincinnati. In 2005, the airport was ranked by the Department of Transportation as the most expensive in the nation. Plugging in the top 20 destinations for Cape Girardeau travelers, Rollins found prices were three times as high originating from Cincinnati on Delta than they are originating in St. Louis on American.

Cape Girardeau, though, has been assured by both Big Sky president Fred deLeeuw and Delta officials that its passengers will not get slammed by higher fares.

"We're going to price flights out of Cape Girardeau the same as if they were out of St. Louis. So whatever Delta's price is out of St. Louis, you'll get that price out of Cape Girardeau," said deLeeuw at a March 1 advisory board meeting.

DeLeeuw added that even though Cape Girardeau air travel is federally subsidized through the Essential Air Service program, it still is a competitive market.

"If you don't price an Essential Air Service community competitive with the next-largest community, then people will simply drive to that next-largest community," he said.

That means Cape Girardeau passengers will be treated as "throughfares" and will get prices to all final destinations comparable to the least expensive flight out of St. Louis.

Additionally, deLeeuw says Cape Girardeau passengers will no longer be paying the "add-on" fare of $69 to fly from Cape Girardeau to Lambert. That means many tickets will be cheaper than they had been under RegionsAir service.

As of now, passengers only have Big Sky's word for this, but the carrier has a track record of keeping that word.

On April 8, Big Sky will begin service from Watertown, N.Y., to Boston. Watertown is about 80 miles south of its major hub, Syracuse, N.Y. Airport manager Jim Lawrence said even though service has not begun, his passengers are already going on Web sites like Travelocity.com and finding fares comparable to the cheapest flights from Syracuse to Boston or other final destinations.

"People are starting to book flights now and they're finding it was exactly what we were promised: similar fares on Delta as out of Syracuse," he said. Lawrence also complimented Big Sky's promotion and marketing efforts to spur ridership. "They've been very aggressive," he said.

The Springfield, Ill., airport manager also called Bruce Loy to say Big Sky was both efficient and reasonably priced. Big Sky provides service from Springfield to Chicago.

Travelers

Some local passengers, though, aren't ready to take the leap of faith. Rick Miller, vice president of Noranda Aluminum, said he took 45 round trips from the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport in 2006. His initial objection to the new hub is that on those 45 trips he estimates he will be flying 90 hours longer over the course of the year, much of the time flying east when his ultimate trip is west.

He is also skeptical of Big Sky's fare claims, citing the fact that Cincinnati has no "low cost" airlines.

"I just don't believe that the fares from Cape Girardeau through Cincinnati will be the same low fares we enjoy through St Louis," Miller said. He said low-cost airlines like Southwest make the St. Louis market more competitive than Cincinnati.

"There is no way to insure or check Big Sky's claim that they will until after the contract is signed, and then no avenues of recourse will be available. We will just have to pay the higher fares."

DeLeeuw said Big Sky's rates will be competitive with the cheapest fares out of St. Louis without exception.

Miller said he will now drive to St. Louis and fly from there.

Procter & Gamble

Miller and other travelers have pointed to Procter & Gamble, which employs 1,200 people locally and has its world headquarters in Cincinnati as the main reason for the switch. Board members say that was one of many factors.

P&G now makes about 2,000 round trips both on the ground and in the air between Cape Girardeau and Cincinnati. Previously, almost none of the air travel went through the Cape Girardeau airport. Advisory board members hope that will change now.

P&G officials are excited about the shift.

"It's not only for our travel to Cincinnati that it's important but also for travel to other destinations," said plant manager Rick McCleod. Cincinnati offers direct flights to both Paris and Frankfurt where P&G has plants, to Scranton, Pa., and even to Santiago, Chile, where the company has its South American headquarters, he said.

"If I want to fly to Santiago, Chile, now I have 39 different options for one-stop flights, in St. Louis I only had eight," he said. "This just opens up some really interesting options."

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245