Passenger traffic at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport improved in 2024, with a 6% year-over-year increase from January through November, but traffic levels dipped during the later part of the year and remain below pre-pandemic levels. Looking ahead, 2025 will be a big year for the airport with two major projects expected to begin: a 337,000-square-foot
Already a subscriber? Log in
To continue reading this article ...
Subscribe to BizTimes today and get immediate access to our Insider-only content and much more.Learn More and Subscribe Now
Brian Dranzik[/caption]
Dranzik: “I think that’s one piece of it. When it comes to the passenger side, I think that’s the biggest piece. When we came out of the pandemic there was a rush to travel. I think that’s kind of leveling back off again. And, in the second half, really fourth quarter, of 2024, not just here but across the country, a bit of schedule softening by the airlines. There’s a few other things going on within the industry, related to that as well, that are some headwinds for the industry. The delivery of aircraft is one. There’s still a bit of a staffing shortage in certain places, whether it’s pilots in some cases or crew members in others. There’s still some industry elements that need to be overcome in order to really fully get back. And so, as we’re now four or five years beyond the pandemic, I think last year we’re really looking at as a true reset. Because everything from here is going to be market or condition related. Boeing strike last year for example. That put a slowdown in the industry in terms of (new airplane) delivers, which were already delayed.”
How do you see the next year or upcoming years going for passenger traffic?
“I think because of what we saw in the fourth quarter of 2024, which softened a bit, I think that’s going to (continue during) the start of 2025 and possibly through mid-year of 2025. I don’t know if we’re going to see the growth that we saw last year. Last year we saw it very much at the front part of the year and then it tapered off towards the end. I’m hoping for some level of stability of where we are and maybe some incremental growth here and there, some city adds here and there, like towards the end of last year Southwest announced daily nonstop service to Austin (Texas), that will start in March. I’d like to see frankly in some cases with some of the airlines a little more service to the cities that they’re serving. If it’s two flights a day to a certain city we’d like to see that at three flights or four flights. Things like that. Part of it is increasing the number of cities served but it’s also increasing the cities served with more volume or more capacity. Those are the things that we’re in constant conversations with the airlines. This is the time of year when we start refreshing those conversations for what the ’25 outlook looks like and beyond.”
Any other developments coming up with new routes or additions to existing routes, other than the service to Austin that you mentioned?
“Just after Christmas, Sun Country started their fairly large seasonal push of international and domestic routes. So, they’re serving Cancun (Mexico), Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) and Montego Bay (Jamaica). They’ve also beefed up their service to places like Phoenix, Fort Myers, the warm destination routes, on a seasonal basis. That’s another kind of under the radar good news story, because by them coming in and offering them as scheduled service and having two aircraft dedicated to Milwaukee, that’s to me a good sign of them looking at the market and seeing positive things. So those are the areas that we can hopefully grow from, you would hope. Hopefully as they operate in the market and see how the market reacts, hopefully that relays some positive confidence that this is a good market to invest in.”
For a long time you have pushed the local community to ‘Fly MKE’ and not drive down to Chicago to fly out of O’Hare, saying that doing so is essentially ‘connecting by car.’ Is that still a focus? Do you feel you’ve made progress there?
“We’ve made some good progress in terms of awareness for at least the local community to understand that’s one of the biggest and most impactful ways that the community can demonstrate its support for the airport and things of that nature. I get that it doesn’t always work for people on an individual basis. By and large that is one of the big things that airlines are going to be looking at when they are looking at making decisions. It’s a challenge. We’re in kind of a unique environment. There’s a few comparable markets like this in the U.S., but not many, where we’re kind of in competition with another city, a much larger city, with a much larger network. So, it’s not only the conversations we are having with the public more or less to say fly MKE, fly the hometown airport because it does matter when airlines are looking at where people are coming from and where tickets are purchased from. It’s also the conversation we are having with the airlines to understand that we have enough market presence to stand alone and be competitive. And I think we can offer a bit of a relief valve (for Chicago). I think it’s one of the things that’s emerging on the cargo front for the project we have going on there. But I think it can also be seen that way on the passenger side. If you’re trying to push all of this traffic into a heavily constrained environment like Chicago, where there’s not enough gates, how about balancing that out? If you look at it as a region then there’s maybe a possibility to balance that out and have some of those flights operate out of Milwaukee. We see northern Illinois traffic. We hear from businesses in northern Illinois that they’re telling some of their staff, ‘Hey if you can get a flight into Milwaukee it’s much more convenient.’”
Has that grown? How is that Illinois business doing?
“It’s growing, it’s stable. It’s something that we continually message on because it’s just a big challenge to get people to think differently about that. But it’s a lot easier now with the I-94 corridor, with the way it’s been improved (widened to four lanes in each direction). If you’re living in those northern Illinois counties, I would think it’s in some cases easier to get here than places like O’Hare. You’re still offsetting the issue of more direct flights, more options and things like that, but when it works for people, we see it. When you see people walking through here with Cubs jerseys and Bears jerseys, you know you’re pulling that traffic.”
You said we could be a relief valve to Chicago. How receptive are the airlines to that idea, if they can’t get into O’Hare, do they look here?
“It’s a challenge, to be honest. You have to change the mindset of people that really, it’s not in their backyard. (Other than United, which is based in Chicago) you’ve got to convince someone in Atlanta or Dallas or somewhere that this is an option. Those are the things we just try to continually keep messaging on and try to get that to sink in at some point.”
You mentioned at the beginning that you have a lot going on here with projects. What do you have coming up?
“Two of the biggest ones that have been out there now for a little while is the cargo development project that will transform the (former 440th Airlift Wing base) site on the airfield to a modern cargo facility that can accommodate five 747-sized aircraft at one time, that we’re doing in conjunction with Crow Development. We should be able to kick that project off this year and get that going. We went after a 
Rendering of the South Cargo Logistics Hub planned at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.[/caption]
There are some airports, I think of Rockford (Illinois) in particular that has really built itself up as a major cargo airport. The anticipation is this project will significantly increase your cargo shipping here, correct?
“Yeah. It took Rockford a long time to get to the place they are (3.1 billion pounds of air cargo in 2023 compared to 129.7 million at MKE). They’ve done a really good job. I think where we have a little bit of a leg up, all of the airfield infrastructure is already in place. We have a 24-7 tower. We have instrument landing system capacity here. There’s not things that have to be put in structurally or infrastructure-wise to accommodate. We need the facility. That’s basically what we need. Everything else is in place. So, I think we can hit the ground running a little bit better in that regard. And just being along the I-94 corridor just lends itself a little bit better I think to advance the progress of a project like this perhaps quicker than what it took in Rockford where it took some time to really build out the infrastructure, build out the footprint of the airport and accommodate those things.”
[caption id="attachment_577868" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]
A rendering of the South Cargo Logistics Hub.[/caption]
Do you think you can do the level of cargo shipping that they do (in Rockford)?
“I think so. When you’re talking about the ability to accommodate five 747s at one time, that’s a pretty substantial footprint. We’re certainly hopeful that it takes off from there. Then we could look at other areas to provide for additional growth. It’s a challenging industry to break into. You’ve got the business transacting the cargo need of moving goods, you’ve got the transportation provider, you’ve got the forwarder-the intermediary. You’ve got these three entities to kind of try to pull together and get on the same page. Hopefully when we get this project up and running, we can demonstrate that it can be successful, it will show others fairly quickly that, OK, we can jump into this. That’s our goal, that’s our hope.”
[caption id="attachment_598031" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]
Site plan for the South Cargo Logistics Hub planned at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.[/caption]
You mentioned some of the cargo shippers are showing interest already. Who would that be?
“Some domestic and some international. Some international, it could be forwarders, it could be carriers, it could be a combination of some of those.”
Can you name specific names?
“I can’t. Because nobody has really committed. It’s just general interest. All of those elements have to come together. The reception has been good. The conversations have been good. We just need it to gel, we need it to solidify.”
You think that project will begin this year?
“We believe it will begin this year. It’s probably about a year and a half build-out.”
What else? You said there were two big projects this year.
“The other one is the E Concourse renovation.”
[caption id="attachment_596389" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]
Shuttered Concourse E at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport[/caption]
That’s the new international terminal project, right?
“Right. So that’s taking that facility, removing the current one and replacing it with a modern, two-gate facility that can accommodate international and domestic passenger traffic. Right now what we have is a disconnected facility off the main terminal. Our traffic right now for international, the vast majority of it is vacation-based and seasonal. What you get with that in a lot of cases is a bit of a nontraditional traveler who hasn’t been used to using the airport. So, they depart from a gate on the C or D concourse on the main terminal, they come back to the international arrival building, which is not connected to the main terminal, not connected to the parking garage. It creates a situation where they are now deplaning at that facility and then off into the street. Not good on the passenger side, equally not good operationally for the airlines (because after deplaning at the international arrival building the aircraft has to move back over to a gate at the C or D concourse).”
“(The international arrival building) it’s a building that was built in 1975 and doesn’t even really fully accommodate a full aircraft full of people at one time. So, it’s very limited. The new buildout will allow us to have two operational gates at the same time, it has that great separation for international arrivals which is pretty much what you have when traveling internationally for that customs clearance process to occur. But then you could turn that aircraft around and fly it out domestically. So, they don’t have to push off and go to another gate or things like that. It will help modernize that process and get it to a place that then we can be competitive for greater international traffic in the future.”
Do you think this will help you attract additional international service?
“We hope so. It gives us the ability to do that. Right now with what we have today I would say it wouldn’t happen just because of how difficult it is to operate with the facilities that we have. So, this at least gives us the possibility to do that. I think what we will see probably is growth in closer-in international travel, still the vacation-type destinations and things like that and as things evolve in the international travel side of things to places like Europe. We basically know from a market standpoint out of this area we are sending about three planeloads of individuals a day to Europe (through layovers). So, if that’s concentrated through a destination like London or Amsterdam or something like that, that is something (that’s possible).”
I know there has been talks for years of somehow trying to convince, maybe with an incentive, like other markets have done, to attract an airline to offer a nonstop European flight from Milwaukee. Is there any talk of that going on?
“Not until the facilities are in place. We’re always having a conversation with airlines. It comes down to their equipment and things of that nature. There’s newer aircraft coming online that are getting better and better in terms of range. There’s different aircraft sizing that could help our cause, that can make a longer haul with less capacity. Otherwise, you’re looking at a 300-plus person capacity aircraft. You have to fill that plane in the shadows of a place like Chicago where they already have a large concentration of service. It’s an uphill battle for sure, but without the facilities you’re not going to have it.”
Are there any other projects that you are planning down the line?
“We’ve got a few things coming out of our master plan from a few years ago. We are looking at a redevelopment of the northeast corner of the airfield, which is closer to Cudahy, that area, which we believe we can improve the business and general aviation footprint up there.”
Rite-Hite is building a hangar there right now, correct?
“Yeah, so (hoping to attract more of) those types of users. More and more business users are going to a larger-sized aircraft than what the hangars around the airfield can support. So, there’s some looking at investing in sizing of hangars that can support Gulfstream aircraft for example, and things of that nature. And I think it’s hopefully a benefit for the business community because of how easy it is to get from downtown to that area. You can be from downtown to your aircraft in 10 or 15 minutes. You can be wheels up in 20, 25, 30 minutes from being in the downtown area. So, I think there’s some potential there. We’re going to be putting that out for a development RFP fairly soon in the first or second quarter of this year.”