How Delta, others fit in at small airports

As airlines struggle to adjust to changing dynamics in the industry, many airports have seen reductions in flights, but some airports have lost airline service altogether.

The Air Transport Association, an airline industry group, said 97 U.S. airports have lost or will lose all commercial airline service by the end of this year. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, which serves 140 small communities in the United States — the most of any airline in the country — is connected to some of those cuts.

For some airports, the end of scheduled commercial flights left them with general aviation such as corporate jets and charter flights — and an airline counter that stands empty.

“When carriers cut back, these are the ones that just got thrown off the boat,” said Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association.

For example, Athens Ben-Epps Airport in Georgia lost its airline service earlier this year after Mesa Air Group decided to shut down its Air Midwest Inc. operation, citing high fuel prices, insufficient demand and a “difficult operating environment.”

The Athens airport got new airline service to Atlanta in late September from GeorgiaSkies, which recently announced it will add more flights on the route to its weekly schedule.

While Athens has attracted new flights, other airports haven’t been as lucky — including some that had recently gotten airline service, only to quickly lose it.

The airport in Salem, Ore., has been without airline service since Oct. 9, when Delta suspended its flights on 50-seat regional jets, citing high fuel costs. Salem had not had airline service since the mid-1990s — until Delta started its Salem-Salt Lake City flights in June 2007, operated by Delta connection carrier SkyWest.

The community “put a tremendous amount of effort” into recruiting airline service, said Salem Airport Manager Alan Alexander.

“Being the state capital, we have a broad spectrum of passengers in our area that found it much more convenient to fly out of Salem,” rather than nearby Portland or Eugene, which are each about an hour away via a sometimes congested Interstate 5.

Now, the Salem airport is pursuing service from another airline. “We still get calls from people who are hoping that the service will come back,” Alexander said. “A lot of people in our community had come to expect it and enjoy it.”

Aviation consultant Mike Boyd in Evergreen, Colo., called the Salem flights “an experiment that didn’t work.”

“Delta has tried that in a couple of other places,” he said. But the airport didn’t have enough traffic to sustain the service, and the high cost of operating regional jets also contributed to the challenge.

Delta still considers small communities “a very important part of our network because they feed the many other destinations that we serve,” said Delta spokesman Kent Landers.

Other airports that have lost service include McKellar-Sipes Regional Airport in Jackson, Tenn. In January, that airport lost service to Cincinnati — a Delta hub — from Big Sky Airlines, a Delta code-share partner that was marketed as Delta Connection.

Big Sky had started the service just a couple of months earlier, but after racking up “enormous unsustainable financial losses” it shut down its Eastern operations, including flights to Jackson, and eventually liquidated.

The Jackson airport had airline service for decades, and “things were going really well until about 2001,” when the Sept. 11 attacks cut into airline travel, said airport executive director Rodney Hendrix. “We’ve had problems since then, frankly.” The airport previously had service from Corporate Airlines, which later became RegionsAir and was eventually grounded by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Since Big Sky left, “it’s really been tough,” Hendrix said. The airport has seen effects on fuel sales, car rentals and other businesses at the airport, along with revenues directly from fees and charges. Hertz has temporarily stopped its rental car operations at the airport.

Jackson expects to get replacement service from Great Lakes Aviation under the federal Essential Air Service program, but those plans were delayed and Hendrix expects service won’t start until around next March.

One reason Jackson struggles with airline service is because of its proximity to Nashville and Memphis, another Delta hub. Larger airports tend to offer more competition, and thus, lower fares. That may have showed in Big Sky’s performance. “Some days they had some full flights and they had some almost empty flights,” Hendrix said.

Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport in Kentucky also lost service to Cincinnati from Big Sky marketed as Delta Connection in January.

“The service that we lost was devastating to the community and to the airport,” said Owensboro airport director George Smith. “The airport is an economic engine for the community.”

Owensboro has been successful in attracting another carrier. Earlier this month, Allegiant Air announced it will begin flying to Owensboro from Orlando starting next February.

Many airports may be eager to get sustainable airline service, but it’s not always feasible, Boyd said.

“They think if you keep studying it, it’s like medical science — We’ll find a cure,” he said. “But in many cases, you have to tell them it’s not going to happen.”

But, Boyd said, in some cases the community doesn’t lose much when airline flights end. “You get congressmen who go nuts” over losing a flight, Boyd said. “Well guess what? No one got on it anyway.”