Nov. 28--Bowing to debt and dwindling passengers, Lehigh Valley International Airport officials acted Tuesday to eliminate a dozen jobs and cut services such as valet parking and the airport parking shuttle.
The $19.6 million 2013 budget will mean inconveniences for passengers who will soon have to park their own cars, book their own flights and walk from even the most distant parking areas, but the heaviest burdens are being shouldered by airport workers losing their jobs.
Among the 12 jobs being cut Jan. 2 are seven grounds-crew and ticket-counter workers, a construction manager and the airport's only travel agent.
Services soon to be gone are the option of valet parking, an economy lot shuttle and an airport kiosk where passengers could call or visit to book flights. It's all part of $1.5 million in trims to offset debt payments and a 20 percent decline in passengers flying out of the airport in Hanover Township, Lehigh County.
"We've been through tough times before, but we've never had to lay people off before," said Bert Daday, a Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority member for more than 30 years. "It's a terrible thing, but we have to get this thing turned around. We did what we had to do."
The airport's financial woes are the result of two growing problems that collided this year. One is a county court order last year to pay the remaining $16 million of a $26 million judgment against it for seizing a developer's land in the mid-1990s. The debt must be paid off by 2015, and authority members are trying to sell surplus assets. The airport's next payment, of $2 million, is due Saturday.
The other problem is a steep decline in travel this year from the airport, where passenger traffic is projected to drop below 700,000 for the first time in more than two decades. Fewer passengers means fewer landing fees from the airlines and less money from people using airport parking. That has created a $1.5 million shortfall in the airport's budget, said Charles Everett Jr., LVIA's executive director.
Most of the changes will mean little more than some extra inconvenience for people who use the airport, but at least some will feel it in the wallet. For the past seven years, Maryellen Iobst has been a travel agent at LVIA, booking flights for $12 per ticket a few paces from airline ticket windows charging $25 to book the same flights. Since the beginning of the year, Iobst said, she's booked $500,000 in ticket sales, saving passengers a collective $32,000.
Iobst's last day is Jan. 2.
"I've had a great experience at this airport. Personally I'll be fine," Iobst said Tuesday at her kiosk in the main terminal. "But my clients are going to miss this. If you are buying four tickets, that's real savings."
Passenger decline is a national trend among regional airports, caused in part by high jet fuel costs. Those costs have prompted American Airlines and AirTran Airways to leave the airport in the last year, and Frontier Airlines has announced it will be leaving in April, even though its flights from LVIA have been nearly 90 percent full.
Analysts say LVIA is actually better positioned than most small airports to handle the swoon in the long run. But that doesn't balance the budget next year.
So the authority board is marketing its surplus land, considering building a U.S. Customs station that would help it attract international flights, and looking for ways to make profit at Queen City Airport, its small-plane airfield in south Allentown.
"There has to be a plan to grow revenue," said Tony Iannelli, authority chairman. "Cost-cutting will not take us to the promised land."
But most of those revenue-generating moves won't show until after next year.
In the meantime, the board has to settle for cuts. Of the dozen positions being eliminated, four people will move into empty slots elsewhere at the airport, but eight others will be laid off. The staff cuts will save the airport about $600,000 in salary and benefit costs, and an additional $50,000 will be saved by downgrading two emergency dispatchers from full to part time, Everett said.
Additional savings include $365,000 for the complimentary shuttle that offers people a ride from the economy lot 250 yards away, $125,000 from reducing custodian services from three shifts to two, $85,000 by eliminating a monitoring system that tracks the flight path of every plane, and $32,000 to contract a wildlife biologist to advise staff on what to do when animals enter the airport property.
Also being cut is a contracted lobbyist that costs $42,000 this year.
"Every one of those things is nice to have," Everett said. "We just can't afford them anymore. In some cases our existing staff will do more and be more efficient, and other instances, the services will be eliminated."
AvPorts Management, the Virginia company that employs Everett and was brought in last year to whip the struggling airport into shape, will be paid $336,000, as is required in its two-year contract. Airport officials say AvPorts has been invaluable and the cost of hiring it was similar to the costs of employing the former director, deputy director and assistant the company replaced.
"We have some real challenges in the years ahead," said Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski, who sits on the authority board. "There's no way to sugar-coat it. It is what it is."
610-820-6691
Turbulence at LVIA
Airport cuts and the savings they'll bring.
- Staff cuts -- $650,000
- Parking lot shuttle -- $365,000
- Reduce custodian hours in terminal -- $125,000
- Flight path monitoring system -- $85,000
- Valet parking -- $50,000
- Trim legal expenses -- $50,000
- Lobbyist -- $42,000
- Wildlife biologist -- $32,000
Source: Lehigh Northampton Airport Authority
Copyright 2012 - The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
