AIRPORT PUSHES BOARDINGS

The latest effort to boost airplane boardings through a rejuvenated marketing campaign by Cape Girardeau Regional Airport is a step in the right direction if Trans World Express is ever to offer more flights and the airport is to land another commercial carrier.

It is difficult to attract a second airline when TWE, the only commercial carrier serving the airport, has cut its daily flights to St. Louis.

After a lapse of about a year, the airport again is advertising to reach potential TWE customers. Airport manager Greg Chenoweth says he is talking with travel agents in hopes of getting them to direct more customers to the airport.

But those advertising dollars must be spent wisely. Marketing cannot be successful unless a solid, well-thought-out plan with direction is put into action.

Surveys have shown that about 75 percent of the people who fly TWE from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis don't come from Cape Girardeau. They live south and west of here. The airport would do well to concentrate on marketing in those areas.

If TWE offered flights to cities other than St. Louis, more people likely would fly the airline. But TWE, which has considered pulling out of Cape Girardeau because it needs more passengers, isn't about to do that.

Getting people to fly TWE by attracting them through successful marketing in those areas with the highest numbers of potential passengers is the way to do it. Only until more people fly TWE will the airline consider flights to other cities. And with that kind of customer base, other airlines undoubtedly would take a serious look at coming into Cape Girardeau.