Brian Dranzik on Mitchell Airportโ€™s international travel future and new carriers, flights | Ep. 86

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Milwaukee Mitchell Airport director Brian Dranzik joins BizTimes editor Andrew Weiland to discuss the airportโ€™s rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, the addition of new flights and carriers, the potential for more international travel, and the latest on efforts to relaunch Midwest Express.

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Here are some highlights from their conversation:

On the addition of new destinations like Destin, Savannah, Charleston and Portland, Maine:

Weiland: โ€œI donโ€™t recall Milwaukee ever offering service to destinations like that, am I right?โ€

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Dranzik: โ€œYeah, thatโ€™s correct. Thatโ€™s something that was new. They again were just looking at where they could potentially put flights and see how it went. In some cases I think it might have been a little bit experimental, weโ€™ll see how it goes. It created some unique possibilities for the airlines to look at doing something like that. โ€ฆ Weโ€™ll see how it turned out in our conversations with the airlines, weโ€™ll see if they think about bringing service like that back.โ€

On the potential of a flight from Milwaukee to Europe:

Dranzik: โ€œWeโ€™ve had conversations over time with different carriers about that. It really just takes people from our area making that commitment, so it is a little bit of a chicken and egg thing. We feel if and when we get that first flight to a European destination that will open the eyes of a lot of carriers to a lot the possibilities. Itโ€™s something we work on and hopefully in the future, post-pandemic, weโ€™ll be successful at some point.

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On the status of the international terminal on the E Concourse:

Dranzik: โ€œThatโ€™s a bit of a casualty from the COVID experience that weโ€™ve been going through the past year and a half, almost two years. Those revenues to support that project come from passenger facility charges and concession revenues basically, so as those have gone down, weโ€™ve had to push the project back. Weโ€™re confident that we have a good plan that can get into construction, weโ€™re just monitoring the cash flows and determining when the time is right to restart that project. Itโ€™s probably going to be another year or two before we can get that off the ground. We would have basically, I think, completed that project this year had we been on schedule.โ€

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