Airport Business - 28

AIR SERVICE DEVELOPMENT
AUTHOR Joe Petrie

ENHANCE

AIRPORT
AND AIRLINE

RELATIONS

Proper planning and consultants can get the air service your community needs.
AKRON-CANTON AIRPORT (CAK) has been impacted
by airline consolidation over the years along with
the larger size of aircraft.
While some routes may look great
with a 75-seat aircraft, the airline may
only use 170 seat aircraft.
Lisa Dalpiaz, director of marketing
and air service development for CAK,
said there are a ton of good routes for
airlines to launch out of the market, but
they understand the limited resources
available to them.
"We know it's not a personal decision,
just a business decision," Dalpiaz said. "It
helps us to tailor our message to them."
Dalpiaz said CAK works to make
sure airlines are successful in the
market. The airport works at financial
responsibility to take on as many costs as
possible to keep costs per enplanements
low while making sure the facilities
accommodate their needs without being
expensive.
"We try from the facilities standpoint
to keep things so it's successful for them,"
she said. "We also work really tightly

with their sales teams to be able to
identify where we can be promoting to
our corporate partners."

Building a Line of
Communications
Joseph Pickering, vice president of air
service consulting for Mead & Hunt,
said airports should have a realistic
understanding of their market before
contacting airlines, so they can provide
effective information to build potential
routes.
He said Mead & Hunt worked with a
client who had a company in their region
that merged with another in the Pacific
Northwest, which generated a lot of
travel. The spiked demand allowed the
airport to make a pitch to an airline for
a new destination because the numbers
made the business case.
While carriers like Spirit, Frontier
and Allegiant have double capacity

in recent years, Pickering said legacy
carriers like United and American are
adding service to small non-hub cities
and driving the growth in the smaller
markets.
"A llegiant started out almost
exclusively serving non-hub and small
hub airports, but they too have gone
into the larger airports," he said. "Don't
rule out those legacy carriers, especially
American and United."
Nicholas Haan, principal, air service
development for Crawford, Murphy
& Tilly said it's important for smaller
and midsized airports to have a good
relationship with the four main airlines
in the U.S. in order to get the service
you want in your community.
"It's so competitive with so many
airports going after so few resources,"
he said.
Haan said the ULCC model is
changing, which is evident in Frontier
Airlines recent decision to add 15 flights
out of Newark Liberty International
Airport (EWR).
"A lot of the reason the ULCCs are
able to get those low costs is they've taken
the tact that Frontier has, which is get
really big airplanes. Spirit did the same
thing getting 320s and 321s and just jam
them full of seats," he said. "When you've
got that many seats on an airplane, we're
not going to be really looking at small
markets like Allegiant has historically.
They're going to be looking for big
markets."
Each airline has its own business
model, so Pickering said you need to
craft your information to fit the airline.
CAK creates a welcome arch
over the inaugural IAH flight to
the airport.
AKRON-CANTON AIRPORT

28 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / OCTOBER 2019
Airport Business

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