Timeliness key as airport seeks business backing

Cape Girardeau Regional Airport officials have yet to close a deal with area businesses to commit corporate travel dollars on business flights to and from the airport that would land an added round-trip commuter flight.

The success of the plan could hinge on Procter & Gamble Co., whose staff does a lot of business travel with trips between its plant in Cape Girardeau County and the corporate offices in Cincinnati, those involved in the financing proposal say.

Five area businesses including P&G heard a sales pitch from the city's paid consultant, the president of the commuter airline and airport manager Bruce Loy at a luncheon meeting Tuesday at the airport, but made no commitment. Loy and consultant Beth Anderson plan to personally call on several more businesses today.

P&G plant official Ashok Tandon said the key to any commuter trip is for the flights to be on time to the St. Louis airport so that travelers can catch connecting flights. He didn't comment about ongoing discussions between Corporate Airlines and P&G to reach an agreement on air travel.

Doug Caldwell, president of the Smyrna, Tenn.-based airline that provides round-trip flights from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis, said his airline typically arrives at the St. Louis airport on time.

"It is very, very rare that I get a letter from someone who has missed a connecting flight," he said.

City officials hope P&G and other businesses will commit to spending corporate travel dollars on business flights to and from Cape Girardeau Regional Airport for a year, beginning this summer.

Loy is counting on the "ticket trust" financing proposal to provide $100,000 needed to secure a half-million dollar federal grant. Most of the grant money would help subsidize an added round-trip flight from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis.

Officials of Cape Girardeau's two hospitals -- two of the major employers in the area -- were among those at the meeting Tuesday. Their representatives cautioned that their operations involve few plane trips.

"The bulk of our travel budget is local driving," said Jerry Sanders, assistant administrator at Southeast Missouri Hospital. Sanders said he doesn't mind taking a commuter flight, but some employees are reluctant to fly in small planes.

"You can't whip them onto the plane," he said. But Sanders promised that hospital officials will study the ticket trust idea.

Bill Kiel, executive director of the St. Francis Medical Center Foundation, said officials at his hospital also will review the plan.

Like Southeast, St. Francis Medical Center employees largely go by car on business trips. But Kiel said top medical center officials typically attend one major conference a year. The hospital may look at committing travel dollars for that trip and flights that would bring doctors into town on recruitment visits, Kiel said.

Still, Kiel estimated it could take a commitment from at least 10 to 12 companies just to reach the $100,000 spending level.

Other business represented at the meeting included Zimmer Communications, which operates a group of radio stations, and Capaha Bank.

Anderson, a consultant who works for Sabre Inc. in Minneapolis, Minn., asked businesses to commit some of their travel dollars to flying on Corporate Airlines, which does business as American Connection.

Each participating business would have an individual account and a debit card from which to draw down the money to pay for business trips, she said. The money would be spent for the entire airplane fare, including any connecting flights out of St. Louis, said Anderson, who currently is being paid by the city of Cape Girardeau. The city is counting on the federal grant to reimburse Anderson for her expenses.

Ticket trust accounts would be set up at local banks, Anderson said.

"There is no catch to it," she said.

Caldwell said most of the money that would go into the ticket trust would go to American Airlines and the other major carriers that provide the connecting flights.

"On a $300 round-trip ticket, we may get $100," he said.

But the ticket trust would allow the city to tap into the grant money to help subsidize the added flight for a year. The grant also includes $25,000 for marketing and another $36,000 to pay consulting expenses.

The city also has budgeted $25,000 for airport marketing. That would count, along with the projected $100,000 in ticket trust money, as the needed local match, Loy said.

Anderson said she hopes businesses will put up the necessary trust money within the next 30 days so that a fourth flight could be added by July.

Caldwell said it takes six weeks to get a new flight added to airline schedules and provide time for ticket sales.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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