Officials with the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport are working on ways to engage the business community and help corporate customers understand the importance of supporting the local airport as a way of, ultimately, increasing flight service here.
In conjunction with an economic impact study that began in May and will be completed next month, the airport is reaching out specifically to local businesses to determine what they need and also to ask for their help.
“We’re trying to get the community to give us more support,” says airport Executive Director Anthony Marino. “If we’re getting 50% of their volume, we’d like to move it up to 60%. Those increments can make a big difference because to expand we have to make sure what we already have is full.”
Airlines typically want all their flights out of a given airport to be 80% full before they will consider adding new service, Marino says. This year, the Baton Rouge airport is slightly below that threshold.
“If you fully utilize what you have, it dramatically improves your chances of getting new flights,” says airport spokesman Jim Caldwell.
Airport officials say they are constantly trying to get new and existing carriers to add routes to Baton Rouge, which does not serve as a hub and has no direct flights to major destinations. Those efforts involve putting together incentive packages, though federal regulations bar airports from spending more than a certain amount of money on direct airline incentives.
Marino says part of the airport’s new corporate outreach effort will involve trying to raise private funds to help put together incentive packages to increase air service. The campaign will also involve trying to stem “leakage,” or business that goes to Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans.
“We want them to understand that while our fares may be a little more expensive, by the time you drive to New Orleans and pay for the parking you’re not saving any money,” Marino says.
Earlier this week, Daily Report reported that lack of direct air service was a factor in the decision of Baton Rouge-based Amedisys to open a satellite office that will house the majority of its corporate executives.
Local consulting firm Emergent Method is working on the corporate campaign as well as the economic impact study, which jointly are costing the airport about $80,000.
—Stephanie Riegel
