Federal grant could help add traffic at Boise Airport

Business travelers can’t do much in the short term about Boise Airport’s recent loss of service to a couple of regional destinations, like Reno and Idaho Falls. Trends such as high fuel prices, bigger planes and an increased focus on larger hubs are leaving Boise behind.

But things could turn around. City officials plan to apply for a federal grant that could help Boise subsidize air service, perhaps by offering incentives or guaranteeing a minimum level of revenue for a flight. The grants, through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Small Community Air Service Development Program, range from $20,000 to $1.6 million.

“It may be appropriate to think about can we apply for this funding and use it to lure a carrier to provide service to Dallas or do some connections with Sun Valley,” said Rebecca Hupp, the  director of the Boise Airport.

Hupp spoke at a Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce panel on air travel May 15. She took the Boise director’s job in January, moving from the director’s job in the smaller Bangor, Maine, airport.

Hupp stepped into the 75^th busiest air market in the country at a difficult time for local air travelers. In 2007, Boise had eight airlines and 21 nonstop destinations. Now it only has five airlines and 15 nonstop destinations, Hupp said. The Boise airport sees about 2.6 million passengers annually.

The Boise Metro Chamber has long promoted adding air service as a key economic development strategy. Three companies that the Boise Valley Economic Partnership helped attract this year are from the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s not a coincidence that there are three nonstop flights between Boise and that area, said Boise Metro Chamber President and CEO Bill Connors.

“If you are going to be a tech player, that is a strategic route,” Connors said.

Boise has been hard hit by the changes in the airline industry. The Airline Industry Association, in a first quarter report and forecast, said U.S. “available seat miles” are dropping. An available seat mile is one seat transported one mile, the most common measure of supply or capacity.

Total seat miles were down 1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier and are expected to be down by less than 1 percent for the rest of 2012, the association said.

Capacity at Boise Airport, which the Federal Aviation Administration considers a small hub, is down 18.7 percent from May 2011, association spokeswoman Victoria Day said. For all small hubs, it was down 2.4 percent.

But it’s far from the only small city watching its regional flights disappear. And ticket prices are rising.

“This is the name of the game; it’s happening all over,” said Mike Boyd, a Denver-based airline consultant who also spoke on the panel. Boyd said airline fares have gone up 16 percent around the country in the last year, and as much as 23 percent in some markets.

Seaport Airlines introduced service between Boise and Idaho Falls last summer after surveying businesses about their need for the service, but halted its flights in December after little more than a dozen people rode the planes each way.

“Airline economics don’t work well anymore in small, intra-regional markets,” Boyd said. “Driving is just more convenient.”

Southwest Airlines last summer dropped two daily Boise-Salt Lake City flights, two daily Boise-Seattle flights and the two daily Reno flights. Other players served Salt Lake and Seattle, and Reno flights were under-used, Boyd said. He does not expect Reno non-stop service to return, he said.

Hupp said offering extra money, through the grant or through some other means, will be key to recruiting more air service. But the funding source must be continuous, she said. She’ll be working with the city on Boise’s Small Community Air Service Development Program grant application, which is due in June.

“When we try to recruit an airline, the key thing they want to know is if they’re going to make money in the market,” she said. “ They’re not going to come to Boise based on a promise of a minimum revenue guarantee. They’ll go through a revenue guarantee quickly or the money will be gone. If you have money you can put toward marketing and incentives, and the other community doesn’t, that’s going to put Boise higher on the list.”