The Baton Rouge Metro Airport saw a slightly more than 4% decrease in the number of passengers in 2015, a drop one airport administrator attributes to a decrease in seating capacity last year.
In 2015, 753,443 people either got on or off a plane at the Baton Rouge Metro Airport, compared to 786,061 people in 2014, a 4.1% decline, according to data provided by the airport.
Jim Caldwell, marketing and air service manager for the airport, says seating capacity at the airport dropped 5% in 2015—meaning there were fewer seats available to customers—because of fewer flights coming in and out of the airport.
Aviation DataMiner, a predictive analytics program from Boyd Group, predicts a 3.7% increase in passenger enplanements, or those boarding an aircraft, at the Baton Rouge airport in 2016. The program does not offer predictions on deplanements, or those who arrive in at a given airport.
Caldwell says the analysis is done by compiling several factors, including the airport’s load factor, seating capacity and the flights already scheduled for the coming months.
The best months for the Baton Rouge airport in 2015, and in years past, were in the second and third quarters, while the weaker months were the first and fourth quarters, Caldwell says. Baton Rouge is hurt in the winter months by not being considered a “destination market,” like New Orleans, Orlando and Las Vegas—meaning people fly to those markets for vacations to escape the cold up north and for vacations.
The Baton Rouge Metro Airport’s main competition for passengers in south Louisiana, the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, saw a 9.1% passenger increase in 2015. More than 10.9 million passengers flew out of New Orleans last year, a number that airport officials attributed to new nonstop flights and new airlines that have started using the airport. DataMiner predicts a 0.8% increase in passenger enplanement in New Orleans in 2016.
The Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport in Gulfport, Mississippi, is a solid comparison to Baton Rouge, because the two airports are similar in size and capacity. The Gulfport airport suffered a decrease of nearly 11% in the number of total passengers in 2015, but, according to DataMiner estimates, that airport is projected to have a 2.6% increase in passengers enplanement in 2016.
Baton Rouge Metro Airport officials took steps this year to grow the airport. In November, Baton Rouge airport officials unveiled a detailed strategic plan to increase use of the airport and bring more direct flights to the Capital City. The plan focuses on stopping the “leakage” of local business travelers to New Orleans and other area airports. More than 60% of travelers in the Baton Rouge area opt to use airports outside the city, according to the report.
And the airport’s Board of Commissioners recently accepted a request for proposals from Holiday Inn representatives to study the feasibility of building a hotel with a Mike Anderson’s Seafood restaurant on the airport property.
—Ryan Broussard
