While passenger volume at Baton Rouge Metro Airport has grown 8% over the past two years, the amount of business the airport is losing to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport is also still growing.
The airport has also seen a growth in revenues, though airport spokesman Jim Caldwell says that’s likely due to a combination of increased passenger volume and premium seating options.
The stats are part of the preliminary findings of a leakage study, ordered by the airport earlier this year, which aims to determine the airport’s true “market demand” and looks at where the airport’s passengers are coming from, as well as which regional airports Baton Rouge is losing business.
The Baton Rouge airport has seen a 6.3% increase in passenger revenue in the past year, earning some $163.2 million in passenger revenue from July 2018 through June 2019, marking the highest jump in revenue since 2011.
The metro airport sees a lot of business passengers, Caldwell says, who tend to book closer to their departure date and sometimes buy premium seating options. Business passengers are also more likely to fly business class international, which brings in higher revenue.
“Aircraft upgauges at Baton Rouge mean most flights now offer premium coach and first-class seating options rather than just coach seating when smaller aircraft were used,” Caldwell says, adding that international revenue has also grown significantly from premium purchases. “Fares have been flat recently and likely only been a small part of the increase.”
Despite an increase in passenger volume, the Baton Rouge Metro Airport is still losing business to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. Leakage to New Orleans increased some 5.4 percentage points, from 56.6% to 62% in the past year, according to the study.
Leakage isn’t unique to Baton Rouge and happens at airports across the country, though, says Jim Caldwell, spokesman for the airport. Baton Rouge also catches leakage from other airports, like Lafayette and Alexandria. The Baton Rouge airport pulls in four times more traffic from Lafayette Regional Airport than Lafayette pulls from Baton Rouge, according to the preliminary findings of the study.
Last year, more than 800,000 passengers went through the airport, the second largest passenger volume in the state behind only New Orleans. The airport also has a higher volume than the Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport in Mississippi and the Mobile Regional Airport in Alabama.
The top domestic destinations for Baton Rouge are Atlanta, Los Angeles, Orlando, Denver and Dallas-Fort Worth. Top international destinations for those flying out of Baton Rouge are Mexico City, Cancun, Toronto, London and Monterrey, Mexico.
