CLEVELAND, Ohio -- JobsOhio, the economic development arm of state government, has set aside $4 million this year to help Ohio’s airports attract new flights to unserved or underserved markets, including, potentially, highly sought transatlantic service.
Airport directors in Ohio have complained for years that they’re at a competitive disadvantage with airports in neighboring states, including Indiana and Pennsylvania, which have funds to lure coveted airline service.
In recent years, Pittsburgh International Airport offered $3 million to entice British Airways to start nonstop service to London, and Indiana agreed to pay up to $5.5 million to Delta Air Lines to start nonstop service from Indianapolis to Paris.
Officials at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport have said they believe the airport has lost out on air service additions because they couldn’t pay airlines to come.
Attracting new air service is a highly competitive endeavor, especially among midsize airports like Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Airlines often want assurances -- in the form of subsidies or revenue guarantees -- that they won’t lose money on new routes.
J.P. Nauseef, president and chief investment officer of JobsOhio, who spoke at the City Club of Cleveland on Tuesday, said it’s an economic development issue.
Business leaders throughout the state, he said, have told him: “If we had better air service, we could attract more people. If we had better air service, we could bring another division here. If we had better air service, Ohio would stay on the list with Texas and Florida for business growth.”
Federal law prevents airports from offering direct incentives to airlines, although they can waive certain fees and provide marketing support.
Instead, the business community is sometimes tapped to support new routes. Most recently, in Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Partnership offered some financial assistance to lure Wow Air to start flying between Cleveland Hopkins and Reykjavik, Iceland, starting in 2018. The amount was never disclosed, and the flights were canceled after six months; the carrier eventually went out of business.
Nauseef said JobsOhio was putting together rules for the fund, which should be complete in the coming months. There is likely to be some community buy-in required from the business community, although details have not been finalized.
Terry Slaybaugh, who started last year as a managing director at JobsOhio, is the former director of Dayton International Airport and has been traveling around Ohio in recent months, talking to the leaders of the state’s seven commercial airports to seek feedback on the plan.
The fund would certainly help the state’s larger airports -- including Cleveland and Columbus, which are, according to some calculations, two of the largest markets in the United States without nonstop air service to Europe.
It would also help smaller airports, including Akron-Canton, Dayton and Youngstown, all of which have seen significant cuts in air service in recent years. Youngstown has been without commercial air service since early 2018, when its lone carrier, Allegiant, pulled out, after expanding in Cleveland.
In an interview last month, Hopkins airport Director Robert Kennedy said he was looking forward to reviewing the final details of JobsOhio’s plan.
“I’m very confident in what he [Slaybaugh] is driving toward,” Kennedy said. “It would be very good for the state of Ohio and the city of Cleveland. If it happens tomorrow, we’ll use it as rapidly as we can. Right now, we’ve got nothing.”
JobsOhio is the private, nonprofit economic development group that took over numerous functions from the Ohio Department of Development in 2011. It is funded primarily through revenue from liquor sales in the state.
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