FAA Gives Lift to New England Airports

Portland transportation officials have some serious talking points to draw on when they next try to lure an airline to the city.

And they also have data to back up requests to federal authorities for money to help expand the Portland International Jetport terminal.

Both come from the Federal Aviation Administration's recent assessment of air service in New England.

The assessment grew out of the realization in the early 1990s that Boston's Logan International Airport was rapidly running out of capacity. Without room to expand, the idea of using the Hub's airport as, well, a hub for the region's air travelers no longer made sense.

So regional officials decided they had to consider different approaches in helping New England's 45 million annual passengers take flight.

As a result of that study - and changes in the industry - the feeling now is that New Englanders can get by without a hub-and-spoke system for the region, according to the FAA's new blueprint for air travel through 2020. Instead, more passengers should head to the nearest airport and find a cheap practical flight.

Granted, this model has not turned into immediate reality. A couple of airports were already there - Manchester, N.H., managed to land low-cost carrier Southwest, which turned it into a popular alternative to Logan. Likewise, T.F. Green near Providence, R.I., prospered with Southwest and managed to stem the tide of passengers trekking to Boston.

But other airports in the region, including the jetport, initially suffered. With the loss of flights to Logan, passengers flying out of Portland faced expensive flights that were not always the most convenient. So southern Mainers kept heading south to Logan: In 2004, more passengers (41 percent of the total) in Portland's service area flew out of Boston than flew out of the jetport (40 percent).

Airlines, however, noted those numbers and figured that hundreds of thousands of passengers could be found outside of Boston. In Portland, that led to the arrival of JetBlue, which offers low-cost flights and access to overseas destinations via daily flights to JFK airport in New York.

To Jeff Monroe, Portland's director of transportation, the de-emphasis on Logan and the new numbers provide a lot of promise.

He said it's not unreasonable to think that those airport numbers from 2004 - before the arrival of JetBlue in Portland - will soon begin to change. If Portland can recapture even half of those people within the jetport's service area who are now going to Boston, that's about 600,000 passengers a year. And airlines would love to have some of those people filling daily flights from Maine.

''Now we don't have to worry so much about the competition, we just need to make sure that our own passenger base is strong,'' Monroe said.

Monroe said the study also gives some backing to plans to expand the jetport terminal - along with a boost in seeking some federal help to pay for it.

The city can quote the FAA its own numbers and say, ''We think we're in a growth market here and you need to invest in Portland,'' Monroe said.

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