CAPE FLIES HIGH WITH BOARDINGS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- A dramatic drop in December boardings at the Municipal Airport was nearly enough to drop enplanements below 10,000 for the year.

But Airport Manager Mark Seesing said that despite the inclement weather in late December, the airport managed to show 10,016 boardings for the year.

The airport must have at least 10,000 boardings each year to maintain its Federal Aviation Administration designation as a "primary airport," and receive $300,000 in annual federal entitlement money.

The funds are earmarked for capital improvement projects at the airport. Seesing said only about 400 of the nation's more than 12,000 airports are designated as "primary."

"Just to remain a primary airport is our major concern," Seesing said. "We've got to keep those boardings at 10,000."

Although the three airline companies that serve the airport averaged about 858 boardings each month through November, boardings dipped to 582 in December.

The three airline companies are Cape Central Airways, the airport's fixed-base air commuter operator; Procter and Gamble's American Air shuttle service; and Trans World Express, the airport's commercial airline carrier.

Cape Central averaged 220 boardings per month in 1990. American Air averaged 96, and TWE averaged 518.

But Cape Central had 177 December boardings, while American Air had 65 and TWE had 340.

Seesing blamed the weather for most of the decline. Poor weather the last two weeks of December forced TWE to cancel a number of flights, he said.

"Actually, we would have ended the month higher than what we had last year if we would have had all the flights that were scheduled," Seesing said. "We probably would have ended with about 10,250 for the year."

TWE had the majority of the 10,016 boardings in 1990 with 6,217, followed by Cape Central with 2,647 and American Air with 1,152.

The 10,016 boardings are 180 less than final FAA counts for the Cape Girardeau airport in 1989. In 1988, the airport recorded 11,988 boardings.

Seesing said this year's enplanements will be subject to FAA review, which likely will add slightly to the total.

But he said he couldn't explain why boardings have declined over the past two years, despite the city's efforts in 1989 and last year to promote the airport through its "Fly Cape" campaign.

"It's gone down drastically since 1988," Seesing said. "Really, I can't explain it."

Seesing said the Bootheel Area Rapid Transportation Co., which provides commuter van service to Lambert Airport in St. Louis, likely has siphoned off some potential boardings.

He also said the 1988 figure is misleading because it was boosted significantly by then-President Ronald Reagan's visit to Cape Girardeau.

Seesing said the only thing that likely will reverse the decline in boardings is an additional airline at the airport that would offer a destination other than St. Louis.

"That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "Really, unless we get new airplanes and new service, which is something we're working continually on getting, we're probably not going to see a big change.

"Hopefully we'll get an additional designation airline out of here. Then, if we continue to get more people using charter service, we can bring those numbers up."

Seesing said if the airport would have fallen short of the 10,000 enplanements this year, there would still be federal funding available for airport projects.

"We still have some money in reserve from entitlements we haven't used from past years," he said. "We do have money there available for immediate projects.

"But we have to spend our entitlements within three years, and the problem you run into is, further down the road, if our boardings drop below 10,000, we won't have that money coming in."

The airport's busiest months were September and October with 1,149 and 931 boardings, respectively. The slowest month, other than December, was February, with only 701 boardings.