Jun. 5—Among its peer airports, the Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport recorded both the lowest passenger and cargo traffic, leaving ample opportunity for improvement, consultants hired by the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority said on Friday.
The port authority should do more to promote the advantages of using the airport including launching a fly local campaign, which was among the findings featured during a 90-minute webinar to which the public was invited.
The consultants cited the recent arrival of Amazon Air as a sign the airport might be able to leverage additional air freight vendors and cargo traffic.
"It is a big deal," said Douglas Banez, managing director of Hubpoint Strategic Advisors, which did the study with Ailevon Pacific. "Every airport is interested in Amazon Air. The fact that the community was able to attract Amazon Air is very impressive."
He said the growth of e-commerce has reinvigorated the air freight industry and Toledo's success with Amazon could be capitalized on to attract other cargo shippers and manufacturers.
The port board voted in December to commission the consultants' study, at a cost of $125,000. Hubpoint Strategic Advisors, LLC is a consultancy specializing in the aviation, transportation, and logistics sectors. Ailevon Pacific is a full-service Air Service Development consultancy operating worldwide from offices in Australia and the United States.
Simultaneously, the city of Toledo and Lucas County are co-funding a $150,000 study of whether the airport would better function under its own authority rather than be governed by the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, which has managed the airport for nearly 50 years. That study's results are expected in a couple of months.
Growing Toledo's small passenger industry, however, depends on competing with the behemoth to our north, Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and educating metro Toledo residents of the advantages of using Toledo.
The consultants said Toledo has successful service to Chicago, Charlotte, and Punta Gorda, St. Petersburg, and Orlando, Fla. Fares are competitive, and it's easier to park and get through boarding. But he said a lot of people don't know about Toledo.
"Nine out of 10 people in our primary area are driving to another airport," said consultant Rhett Morgan of Ailevon. He said 600 people each day who live closer to Toledo choose to fly out of Detroit.
"That is our biggest challenge. We have to educate the airlines [that] our true demand is bigger," Mr. Morgan said. He said Toledo has to win over skeptical airlines and then keep up the passenger numbers. Toledo promoters battle a perception in the airlines that Toledo is the rust belt and that Toledo is a suburb of Detroit.
And he put his finger on a chicken-and-egg problem:
"[A] perception is we should have similar service to Flint and Akron/ Canton," he said. "We are not, at least right now, going to have similar service as Flint and Akron / Canton until we increase the amount of people that are using our airport locally. That's the first thing we have to work on to help build our numbers."
He added that Toledo has everything airlines need to get up and running, including low costs, and adequate facilities, gates, and runways.
"If they're ready to come we have the facilities that can make it work," Mr. Morgan said.
He said he would advocate to the port authority in the final report a fly local campaign.
"I think that's going to be the No. 1 driver of what attracts air service going forward," he said.
During a comment session, one participant claimed that Toledo Express is not as reliable for business travelers as is Detroit, which offers far more direct flights than Toledo, and which arrive on time.
Eric Barnum, who operates an air ambulance company, said it's critical that his pilots arrive when they're expected.
"When we go to a destination we positively have to be there at a certain time that we buy the ticket for. Detroit has more continuous flights so there's no changes of airlines," Mr. Barnum said. He said the carrier out of Toledo to Chicago is often beset with crew or mechanical problems.
Detroit's numbers dwarf those of Toledo, with more than 18 million passengers in 2019, compared with 124,211 passengers at Toledo in the same year, according to statistics from the Federal Aviation Administration. Toledo has two passenger airlines. American Airlines has flights to Chicago O'Hare and Charlotte. Allegiant Airlines flies to Punta Gorda Airport, which is near Fort Myers; St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport, and Orlando.
Compared with peer airports, Toledo Express is on the high side of operational expense, costing the airport about $50 for each passenger enplanement, compared with the average of $37. However, the cost borne by the airlines was only $3 per enplanement in Toledo, compared with an average of $10 for the other airports. The airports used for comparison serve Flint, Akron, Scranton, Pa., Lansing, and Allentown, Pa.
The numbers of passengers flying through Toledo has increased each year since 2014, from 85,941 that year to 118,225 in 2019, according to Toledo's count. Passenger travel collapsed in Toledo as elsewhere during the coronavirus pandemic, but is rebounding rapidly with the dropping of medical restrictions, Mr. Morgan said.
He compared Toledo with the Akron and Flint airports, noting that both of those lost Delta service during the pandemic, but Toledo Express did not lose an airline.
Mr. Morgan said Akron is close to Cleveland in the same way that Toledo is close to Detroit, but the situations are not analogous because Cleveland is not an airline hub the way Detroit is.
Toledo had the lowest passenger count of the six airports, with 124,211 enplanements in 2019, according to the FAA. The largest was Lehigh Valley International at Allentown, with 434,007 enplanements in 2019. Akron/ Canton had 407,646 passengers. Bishop International at Flint had 302,606 passengers. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International had 288,973 passengers. Capital Region International at Lansing had 166,976 passengers.
Toledo also had the smallest cargo landed of the four airports that reported cargo, with 41 million pounds of cargo in 2019. Allentown handled the most, with 646 million pounds, followed by Lansing with 230 million pounds, and Flint with 86 million pounds. Akron and Scranton did not report cargo handling in the FAA report.
Thomas Winston, the president and chief executive officer of the port authority, said there were more than 90 people on the call, and that they included representatives of both the city and Lucas County. He said the forum on Friday was to get public input and that the consultants will have more to say when the final report is done in several weeks.
First Published June 4, 2021, 6:12pm
___
(c)2021 The Blade (Toledo, Ohio)
Visit The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) at www.toledoblade.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
