Airlines Make Cuts, but Roanoke Airport Still Flying High

Oct. 14, 2013
Roanoke's airport is running strong where it counts

Oct. 13--Business and government representatives in the Roanoke Valley and nearby communities have for years wanted passenger service preserved or expanded at Roanoke Regional Airport.

But the airlines, thwacked by financial headwinds, have instead cut. The number of flights leaving the Roanoke airport fell 20 percent from 2007 to 2012. Passenger traffic out of Roanoke Regional Airport has not returned to pre-recession levels, and airport officials are unable to predict when it will.

Is local passenger aviation in jeopardy?

An aviation researcher with 20 years of experience says no.

"I would say exactly the opposite," said William Swelbar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

These aren't boom times for air travel, but Roanoke's airport is running strong where it counts. The airport's flight schedule, despite being trimmed, holds an outstanding national ranking for airports of its size, he said.

An industry analyst at the Center for Air Transportation at MIT, Swelbar has rated the nation's passenger service airports to see what kind of service remains after the airline industry contracted. Large airlines struggled the entire last decade, hurt by the September 2001 attacks and the global recession. Ticket demand fell. Fuel prices rose. From 2000 through 2009, they posted accumulated losses of nearly $63 billion, the federal Department of Transportation reported in 2012.

While airlines regained profitability in 2009, it was only through major cuts in seat availability, primarily at small and medium airports, and fare and fee increases, mergers and bankruptcies. Twenty-four small airports lost all scheduled passenger service, Swelbar found.

Using a big spreadsheet, he logged the frequency of each airport's scheduled flights, the number of destinations served by the flights and the number of connecting flights possible from those destinations. It's all bundled together in the Airport Connectivity Quality Index, released in June.

The top five most-connected airports in the country are those in Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas and JFK in New York, in that order. Only three of the nation's 29 busiest airports offered more connectivity in 2012 than in 2007: San Francisco, Denver and Miami.

The most-connected medium-sized airport? St. Louis. The most-connected small airport? Richmond.

Then there is a category called non-hub for the very smallest 249 airfields, defined as those with light passenger traffic relative to the nation's more than 8 million departures a year.

The best-connected of these is Asheville's airport. No. 4 on this list is Roanoke.

On a typical day last month, Delta Airlines, United Express and US Airways Express and the low-cost carrier Allegiant Air flew up to 1,539 people to seven of the nation's largest airports and a Florida vacation spot. Twenty-five flights left and 25 flights landed, each weekday, not counting the activity of two cargo carriers.

Run by a commission set up by Roanoke city and county, the airport operates on about $7 million a year -- without local tax dollars -- with the aim of serving passenger travel needs for 19 counties in Virginia and West Virginia.

Compared to its peers, Roanoke's airport is "very well connected," Swelbar said. He said airlines have eliminated unprofitable routes and more or less only do business where they make money. For four airlines to fly in and out of Roanoke multiple times a day "says that the market is relatively vibrant from their perspective," he said.

With one stop, a traveler can reach nearly 500 destinations, officials said.

Lots of lost ground

It's not clear that this will quiet waves of grumbling that the airport's flight schedule and fares aren't good enough. While the nation's airports lost 14 percent of flights overall, Roanoke lost 20 percent, falling from 11,285 flights in 2007 to 8,982 flights in 2012. The number of seats on planes departing Roanoke fell from 548,977 in 2007 to 455,963 in 2012, a drop of 17 percent.

Business people in the Roanoke region who affiliate with the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce "appreciate its convenience but continue to express concerns over what they perceive to be higher ticket costs and limited flights," said the chamber's Tori Williams by email. That said, more people appreciate the economic forces shaping aviation and what smaller airports can offer, he said.

The goal, he said, is to see it thrive.

The hunger for more flights appears widespread.

Several staffers at Virginia Tech's office of outreach and international affairs, which sends university personnel overseas frequently, said they would improve the airport by adding international destinations such as London or Zurich, Switzerland. India, Africa and China would be nice, too.

Unfortunately, there could be more losses before Roanoke's airport goes international. A Roanoke airport spokeswoman announced in July that Delta Air Lines warned it could discontinue its weekday nonstop service to and from New York's La Guardia Airport -- the only direct service to the Big Apple -- unless use picked up.

So far, use hasn't grown, airport officials said.

One possible issue is public knowledge of the nonstop flight. It can require some hunting to find the flight on some online ticket search engines because nonstop fare pricing tends to be higher and drives the flight down the list, which typically puts the lowest fares on top, airport officials have said. But the flight continues to be available, and Delta has not announced any action.

The loss of La Guardia would be expected to trim the connectivity score for Roanoke Regional Airport, but Swelbar downplayed the impact. Although New York is a highly desirable location, he called La Guardia "a limited-connection airport" with severe facility and airspace constraints. Losing a hub such as Atlanta would be much worse, he said. Travelers can reach New York through a Charlotte or Washington flight and would continue to have that option.

Paul Anderson, a senior vice president in the Roanoke office of the consulting firm AECOM, said he likes the direct New York flight and would miss it if discontinued. A passenger can reach New York in 90 or so minutes, work most of the business day and get back at what he considers a reasonable hour, while connecting through Charlotte or Washington means either a longer day or a night in New York and the associated costs, he said.

In addition, the loss of New York could tag Roanoke as "a minor player" to out-of-town businesses considering Roanoke as a business location, said Anderson, who sits on a transportation advisory committee at the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Catering to businesses

Jacque Shuck, the executive director who has run the airport since 1989, said she fundamentally believes in the airport's importance to the region's economy and considers sustaining and expanding that impact a priority.

"We drive business" is one of the headlines on advertisements the airport has put before the community all year. The text continues: "We realize our most important job is working as your advocate."

Shuck said the airport has long done that but hasn't always communicated that part of its story. For instance, in a benefit to cost-sensitive airlines, the airport charges landing fees below airfield costs, closing the gap with funds from other business units such as rental cars and concessions that generate additional revenue.

The connectivity scores are another part of the story she wants to emphasize. She has hired Swelbar to speak Oct. 29 at an invitation-only, informational summit to be hosted by the airport in Roanoke. Business leaders, a natural audience because 56 percent of passenger ticket holders at Roanoke are traveling on business, will hear firsthand about passenger service trends nationally and how Roanoke stacks up.

"You need to have an understanding of what's happening outside this area," Shuck said, to grasp whether Roanoke Regional Airport is competitive or not.

Those who download the data -- Swelbar also recently reported on fare trends -- will get a boatload of material with which to compare airports near and far. Roanoke has great connectivity, but "I think our fares are high," Shuck said.

Contrast that with the Lynchburg airport. At Lynchburg, where only one carrier operates, the connectivity factor is "not close to what we have," though their fares are lower, she said.

Another point reserved for the 29th concerns facility improvements.

A $4.1 million terminal renovation is wrapping up, the first since the building opened in 1989. There's colorful new decor in the concourse, new escalators, six rebuilt restrooms. This comes on the heels of road improvements at the entrance and tens of millions of dollars in airfield improvements in recent years.

Now that the place has been shined up, let's use it more, Shuck said.

Roanoke airport passenger traffic is in an unusual, sustained period of flatness, she said. But there is room to grow. Thirty percent of all seats on outgoing planes are empty, on average, she said. She challenges those who, like her, see the airport as an economic asset to buy more tickets.

"The more they use it, the more pressure there is on the airlines to add service," Shuck said. "If you believe this is important to the economy of the region, you need to be in a position to support it."

Copyright 2013 - The Roanoke Times, Va.