NORTH BEND — Airlines across the country have seen at least 10 percent cuts in passenger traffic recently, but in North Bend ridership linking with Portland has plummeted more than that.
The problems airport officials face with the Portland-North Bend flights are not just due to the economy.
Ticket prices, lack of connections and inconvenient flight schedules for business travelers have been identified as factors in under-filled Portland North Bend flights.
From November 2007 to November 2008, passenger traffic on the Portland flights at the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport has dropped 40 percent, and 39 percent between December a year ago and last month, according to Mike Boggs, business unit leader for the Eugene aviation services firm Mead & Hunt.
The lack of passengers has cost the district more than $72,000 — $14,000 in October, and $58,000 in November — with December’s price tag yet to be determined.
If ridership is below the airlines’ break-even point, the Coos County Airport District must reimburse SkyWest Airlines. The district raised $713,000 to guarantee the airline would break even in the first year it flew between Portland and North Bend.
On Thursday, Boggs offered suggestions to improve passenger counts.
The 5:30 a.m. departure from North Bend to Portland is too early for most business travelers, he said, especially with new security rules advising passengers to arrive at least an hour or two early.
Airport district commissioner Joe Benetti said the afternoon return flight from Portland isn’t convenient either.
“It leaves at four o’clock,” Benetti said. “You have to be at the airport at three o’clock or earlier.”
Boggs advised commissioners to talk with SkyWest officials about rescheduling flights, and to explain how seasonal this area is.
“They need to understand golfers come in here in May. They need to understand the best is yet to come,” Boggs said of the airline.
The company needs at least 64 percent of seats filled on each flight to break even. In October, when the airline began providing Portland service at the airport, the number reached nearly 50 percent, according to the report. But in November and December it dipped into the low 40s.
Boggs also suggested the board handle its own marketing analyses. Airlines just don’t have the familiarity or resources to do it.
“If you want to be successful, you have to do it yourself,” he said.
Other recommendations are to drop to one round-trip flight a day, provide more connections to Seattle at the Portland International Airport, see if Horizon would lower its Portland to Seattle ticket prices and create a two-year plan.
“Don’t wait until this spring,” Boggs warned.
There are other factors working against SkyWest, too.
Some people still want to earn frequent flyer miles on the Alaska Mileage Program they had before Horizon Air pulled out.
“People may be driving to Eugene to collect their miles,” Boggs said.
Commissioner Helen Brunell Mineau doesn’t want to sit back waiting for something to happen. Working with Katherine Hoppe, director of promotions and conventions for the Coos Bay-North Bend Visitor and Convention Bureau, and a few volunteers, she is planning a ticket give-away contest in which bloggers can log on to a Web site for a chance to win a free round-trip ticket to Portland each week. The district will pay for the tickets with money they would have had to give to SkyWest Airlines if the seats weren’t filled anyway.
Commissioners approved the contest through the end of February, on the stipulation SkyWest approves. It would allow Mineau to spend up to $90,000 on tickets, under the assumption the district would have to pay the airline $30,000 for the remainder of January and $60,000 for February anyway.
“I’d rather spend money on people in our community getting somewhere than give it to a corporation,” commissioner John Briggs said.
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