Columbus Metropolitan Airport Wants to Lure New Carrier

After the graduation, the rest of her family took ground transportation to Atlanta's airport, while she sat outside the Columbus airport's security checkpoint and read a Danielle Steele novel -- wishing she had made a different choice.

"If I'd known it was going to be like this, I probably would have driven from Ohio," Rohrbouth said. She paid $400 to fly directly into Columbus, but when she arrived in Atlanta, her plane was canceled because of weather. Rohrbouth paid $37 for a one-way shuttle ride on Groome Transportation, a ride she said was filled with "sunshine the entire way."

Rohrbouth said Columbus' airport was clean and gave her a quiet place to read her book. The security was less cumbersome than at larger airports, too.

But don't expect to see her here again.

"Flying is not the same as it used to be, that's for sure. Everything was on schedule and you felt it was a privilege," she said of her flying experiences years ago. "Every time I've flown in the last two years, something has gone awry."

But when asked if she would be willing to pay more for old-fashioned service, Rohrbouth couldn't name her price.

"I probably wouldn't have wanted to spend more money, but I might have felt more secure doing so."

Rohrbouth's sentiment is one shared by many local consumers. It's been Groome's boon for business.

Vince Groome, CEO of Groome Transportation, would not say what portion of the 75 percent of travelers who choose to take Interstate 185 to the Atlanta airport let Groome drive them. But few argue Groome is the market leader.

Mike Gaymon, president and CEO of the Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce, applauded the foresight of the familyrun business.

"I'm proud for Groome," he said. "They said, 'Here's a market and we're going to serve it' and they've done very well. The airport hasn't."

The Richmond, Va.-based chain opened in Columbus in 1996, with 12 vans running 14 times daily during the week and 11 times on Saturday and Sunday between Columbus and Atlanta's airport.

Today, the business has 18 vans and two mini-busesrunning 19 daily trips. The company will nearly double the size of its Columbus parking lot to hold about 500 cars by November.

When fuel prices increased recently, Groome said the company saw a jump in ridership that kept it from having to raise fares.

Groome said he is not out to kill the airport, but he does acknowledge ASA as his direct competitor.

"We depend on Delta; we don't depend on ASA," Groome said. "We depend on that hub."

If you ever wonder how the Columbus airport has survived the turbulence of the airline industry, go to Propellers restaurant in the lobby and look up at the ceiling. There's an answer staring back -- a ceiling fan styled with the red-tip nose and sharks' teeth reminiscent of a Tigershark Warbirdairplane.

This is a military town. And this airport is here to transport those who serve and protect.

Don Cook, chairman of the Airport Authority's governing commission, knows this. So when he talks about expanding service, he first talks about Fort Benning.

"BRAC allowed us to get real numbers," Cook said. He believes these are the numbers necessary to lure more air service.

ASA currently directs 29,000 Fort Benning-related travelers through Columbus annually -- nearly half of the airport's annual traffic in 2004 -- according to Chuck Walls, Fort Benning's deputy garrison commander. That includes family members who come for graduations and soldiers and officials ontemporary assignments in Washington.

By 2010, that estimate could reach 37,000-40,000 travelers annually.

Airport Director Mark Oropeza knows the importance of these numbers, too.

In the late 1980s, Oropeza went to American Airlines' home office in Dallas to try to convince it to begin service in Columbus.

In what he said was an unusually candid moment, an airline executive told him, "The dilemma is that it takes between $400,000 and $600,000 to start up a station. If we guess wrong, that's money we're not getting back. It's not like we've bought a building and a bunch of land. We need assurances from the ticket buyer."

That visit did not immediately land American in Columbus, but eventually the company's subsidiary, American Eagle, did operate at the airport from 1989-1995.