The Youngstown airport needs to realize it is shrinking!
Posted on January 5, 2007
Filed Under General
YNGAIR and I were talking last night about Midwest air and AirTran’s possible take over of the airline. For those that don’t know, AirTran is trying to buy Midwest air for about 290 million. At first, a month ago, Midwest told AirTran to kiss their behind because they said the offer was too low and that Midwest’s service offerings — such as its two-by-two seating arrangement in its all-business class service — are incompatible with a merger with another airline. AirTran is now trying to strong arm the Midwest shareholders by taking out ads in papers and convince them somehow that the merger is in their best interest. AirTran has even gone as far as saying that they have received “un-solicited” calls from Midwest shareholders and that is why they are taking out the ads. Any one else believe that?? I didn’t think so.
As we were talking about this, YNGAIR told me to just forget about Midwest, that they would be bad for Youngstown and his point was that their fares are too high. I conceded the argument and we moved on to other things before I had to go and get dinner for my family, which reminds me, I need to stop eating dinner so late!
YNGAIR is a smart guy. He told me that I need to stop putting some posts in the general area of the downtownyoungstown.com website because the county is really the one who runs the airport, not the city. He is right. Both Mahoning and Trumbull counties run the airport. That got me thinking even more, because I have said that I think that the airport should tie itself, somehow, to the city and not just Youngstown but, Warren too.
The city of Youngstown is going through a transformation of sorts. They are gaining national recognition with their 2010 plan and Warren is not far behind as they see the benefits of this comprehensive plan. There have been some grumblings of Warren adopting it’s own “revitalization” plan in the very near future. The main focus of the 2010 plan is for the city and the surrounding areas to realize that they are in fact, shrinking. With that comes the tough job of trying to figure out what to do with a dwindling population and provide for them the services that they need, all the while, trying to attract new business and clean out the garbage.
Now I know what you are thinking; “Will he ever get to the point, and what does the city plan have to do with the airport and for that matter, wheredoes your conversation with YNGAIR fit into all of this?”
The city of Youngstown is shrinking, and so is the entire area. Mahoning, Trumbull, Portage and Columbiana counties are shrinking as well. We, as supporters of the airport, need to understand this as well especially when we are getting ready to write our new 2007 plan for the airport. We need to understand that the population in the area is not as large as it once was, and to that effect, we need to ask ourselves; “What can the airport support with the shrinking population?”
Right now, Allegiant is one of the best low cost airlines in the industry, and they fly out of our airport. They are doing very well and it wouldn’t surprise me that they add one or two more destinations to and from YNG. (Just my own personal feelings of course.) The percentages of passengers are very good right now and the thought of another low cost airline coming in would put a damper on that. If another low cost airline were to come in, they would have to provide flights to other destinations that Allegiant doesn’t fly to out of YNG, namely any other state other than Florida, and they would have to provide more flights, possibly daily. It would be hard for Allegiant who is doing well in our market to warm up to the idea of another carrier coming in and taking some of their overhead away. However, a carrier that offers flights to other destinations at mid range prices, I feel that Allegiant would welcome another carrier like that. Plus, with a shrinking population, I believe at this moment the airport can only support about two, maybe three airlines. In comparison, Akron Canton right now is supporting 6 different airlines and is one of the fastest growing in the country. Until businesses start expanding, or relocating here to reverse the trend of population shrinkage, two to three airlines is all that YNG will support.
With the knowledge that we are a smaller community, all around, than we can think about who we can bring in here, whether it be a Midwest (if they survive the AirTran bullying), JetBlue, or any other midsized carrier that will bring more stops, more frequently. We must also not forget about cargo possibilities as well with DHL and FedEx, especially since the distribution center in North Jackson is going to be one of FedExs’ largest. Looking at other airports our size or even smaller to see what they do is another way to garner ideas.
To the point of bringing a midrange price carrier into Youngstown, I say “Why not!”. It is about time we take advantage of our success with Allegiant, and use what we have learned to slowly and smartly bring this around. In a way, the airport, along with the community and our help, needs to come up with it’s own comprehensive plan to recognize what affect a shrinking population has on the airport. Hopefully by the end of this month, you will see one from the posters of this blog, and so will the new governor.
DougK
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