Airport poised to set record
Mitchell concourse expansion will accommodate more passengers
By Andrew Weiland, SBT Reporter
In the next few days, General Mitchell International Airport is expected to set a record for the number of passengers using the airport in one year.
"They’re anticipating that sometime between Christmas and New Year’s, we’ll break that record," said Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker.
The old record of slightly more than 6 million passengers was set in 2000. Passenger traffic at the airport dipped in 2001 and then dropped to 5.6 million in 2002.
Lower airfares, additional service and the ease of using the airport have contributed to the record passenger numbers this year, Walker said. Those factors have also helped the airport boost its passenger numbers by attracting more Illinois passengers.
"None of those three things are exclusive or stand alone," Walker said. "I think they are all interconnected. It was always very appealing, very attractive, very easy to get to here. But then you add in more service, lower fares, all of those things kind of fueled that (passenger increase)."
The Milwaukee airport’s passenger growth is exceeding the national trend. For the first 10 months of 2003, the number of passengers using General Mitchell was up 8.2% compared over to the same period a year earlier. The national volume declined 3% during that span, according to the Air Transport Association.
Plans to build an addition with eight more gates to Concourse C at General Mitchell, put off after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the county’s budget crisis, are back on track, Walker said.
A $14 million project to widen and remodel the concourse is already under way. After that project is finished, work to add the eight-gate addition will begin and is expected to be completed in 2007 or 2008.
County officials have not reassessed the cost of the gate addition, but prior to Sept. 11, it had an estimated price tag of $25 million. The improvements will be paid for with fees collected from airlines and passengers that use the airport. No property tax revenues are used for airport projects.
"I think in the last quarter or so, as the airlines have seen the growth coming out of Mitchell, they’re very comfortable with us going forward with this," Walker said. "Even though the county controls (the airport), we tend to react to the airlines, and we’re not going to make moves if they don’t feel comfortable in supporting that …. You’ve got a number of the airlines there that want additional gate space."
Concourse C is currently used by ATA Connection, America West, American Eagle, Comair, Delta and USA 3000.
Several airlines expanded their service at Mitchell this year, including AirTran Airways, which added three daily nonstop flights from General Mitchell to Baltimore.
AirTran, a low-fare airline, entered the Milwaukee market in 2002 with flights to Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa and Ft. Lauderdale. The airline flew more than 200,000 passengers through Milwaukee in its first 12 months at General Mitchell.
"We’re very encouraged by the response we’ve received in Milwaukee," said Tad Hutcheson, director of marketing for Orlando-based AirTran Airways. "We liked it because we felt that market was underserved and overcharged."
The success airlines such as AirTran have had offering low-cost service in Milwaukee has prompted others to follow suit by adding more service and attracting more passengers to the airport, Walker said.
"Once one or two of (the airlines) started it and were successful in attracting passengers, then I think that fueled the interest," he said. "They all started competing."
The new travel options for Milwaukee travelers include:
— Northwest Airlines began offering low-fare nonstop service from General Mitchell to Boston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York LaGuardia, Orlando and Washington, D.C.-Reagan National in July. In February, Northwest will add another Las Vegas flight and a Phoenix flight through April 1.
— Delta Connection added a sixth daily low-fare nonstop flight between Milwaukee and Atlanta in July.
— Midwest Airlines began its Saver Service with low-fare flights between Milwaukee and Denver, Orlando, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles in August.
— Frontier Airlines began low-fare service from Milwaukee to Denver in August.
— Philadelphia-based USA 3000 started offering non-stop, low-cost service from Milwaukee to Fort Myers and St. Petersburg, Fla., earlier this month.
Like AirTran, representatives for Midwest, Northwest and Frontier said their new Milwaukee services have been successful so far.
"They’re meeting our expectations," Northwest Airlines spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said. "It always takes time for a new flight to mature."
In 2002, Milwaukee travelers generated almost $100 million in domestic revenue for Northwest, more than any of the airline’s other non-hub U.S. airports, except Seattle. The airline’s U.S. hub airports are Minneapolis, Detroit and Memphis.
Milwaukee "is a very important market for us." Ebenhoch said.
The addition of low-fare service and more flights, plus the ease of using Mitchell has attracted more travelers from northeastern Illinois and is encouraging more Milwaukee travelers seeking a discount to fly from the hometown airport, Walker said.
In the past, many Milwaukee-area travelers drove down to Chicago to obtain cheaper fares on flights from O’Hare International Airport or Midway International Airport. Now, low fares on Milwaukee flights are reversing that trend.
Travelers who want to fly nonstop to the top markets served by General Mitchell and return the next day can often find lower airfares in Milwaukee than they can at O’Hare or Midway.
The top flight destinations from Milwaukee are Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Orlando, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Las Vegas, Phoenix, Minneapolis and Denver.
"Consistently since the middle of summer, Mitchell has been lower than O’Hare in 10 of those 11 markets," said Pat Rowe, manager of marketing and public relations for the Milwaukee airport.
As a result, many bargain-hunting residents of Chicago’s northern suburbs are flying out of General Mitchell. About one-third of AirTran’s Milwaukee passengers live in Illinois, Hutcheson said.
"We get a lot of people from the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor that find General Mitchell is less congested than O’Hare or Midway," Hutcheson said. "The northern suburbs (of Chicago) know we serve General Mitchell."
Two rail transportation projects could help attract more passengers to General Mitchell from Northern Illinois.
A new Amtrak station will be built at the airport for train travelers between Chicago and downtown Milwaukee. Construction is expected to begin next summer and could be completed by December 2004, said Ron Adams, director of the bureau of railroads and harbors for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.
Government officials are also studying a proposed extension of Chicago’s Metra commuter rail service between Kenosha and Milwaukee, with a shuttle bus from a Cudahy stop to the airport.
"Both of those would help expand that northern Illinois (market for General Mitchell)," Walker said.
The increased passenger volume could attract more airlines to provide service at General Mitchell. Even more important, said Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce vice president Peter Beitzel, is convincing the airlines that already serve the airport to offer more flights and serve more destinations.
"We have enough carriers," Beitzel said.
The airport plays a critical role in the economic growth of the region, Beitzel said. Businesses need access to direct flights to other key metropolitan areas.
"A lot of companies complain they can’t get from here to somewhere else and back in one day," Beitzel said. "We’re very dependent on having a hubbing airline here, which is why Midwest (Airlines) is so important."
To reduce its costs, Oak Creek-based Midwest Airlines, which has struggled financially since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has reduced the number of flights it offers on some routes.
If business travel, the backbone of Midwest Airlines, increases, the airline will consider additional flights on some routes or new routes, said Randy Smith, vice president of sales and distribution for the company.
Midwest Airlines is replacing its DC-9 aircraft with slightly larger Boeing 717 and plans to increase the size of its fleet.
By the end of 2004, Midwest Airlines will have three more aircraft than it does now, which will allow the airline to add more flights if passenger demand grows, Smith said.
The airport’s long-range plans include the expansion of Concourse D to accommodate future Midwest Airlines growth, Walker said.
However, Midwest Airline officials have said they may have to rethink the company’s growth plans in Wisconsin because a tax break for airlines with a hub in the state was recently ruled invalid by a Dane County Circuit Court. Northwest Airlines had challenged the tax break.
Midwest Airlines is asking state officials to appeal the ruling and restore the tax break.
Dec. 26, 2003 Small Business Times, Milwaukee
