Airport feeling effects of economic downturn

MONTROSE — Booked flights into Montrose Regional Airport are down 8 percent compared to the same time last year, based on advanced reports. Officials said the drop in activity reflects the nation’s overall economic state and fare competition with Grand Junction.

The neighboring Western Colorado airport has gotten more flights and additional carriers, which is helping it keep fares lower than Montrose, said Scott Stewart, director of air service for the Telluride Montrose Regional Air Organization (TMRAO).

Most carriers in the country, not just in Montrose, are doubling and tripling fares, Stewart said.

The good news is the airport did well the past winter, considering the sharp increase in fuel prices, he said. “Based on how full the flights were, we did very well in that tough environment. The problem is the environment is even tougher now.”

As recently as Thursday, national carriers took steps toward downsizing their businesses. Continental Airlines announced that starting in September it will cut 3,000 jobs, or 6.7 percent of its staff, and ground 67 planes because of high fuel prices, according to several national published reports. United Airlines said it would discontinue Ted Airlines, it’s fleet of 56 Airbus 320s; remove 100 aircraft from its fleet and layoff up to 1,600 employees.

In a time when small airports across the nation are losing their service because of these cutbacks, Stewart said TMRAO is putting plans in place to weather the storm.

“It’s going to be a challenging winter. It’s one of the reasons why our organization is putting some significant resources to marketing,” he said. “Typically we leave it to other organizations to do but because we’re expecting a challenging winter, we want to put in our best effort to maximize flight usage.”

TMRAO plans to contribute $500,000 to advertising resources to augment efforts underway by Telluride and Montrose visitor industry groups. Stewart said the organization is going to work with them to coordinate and maximize resources.

“Hopefully, we’ll improve revenues ... and we don’t get into a position of cost exceeding revenues, whereby (carriers) want to drop this market.”

In general, Stewart said TMRAO is working on crafting a plan to create a dedicated funding source instead of relying on the city’s general fund. “Our goal is to try to find a way that users of services are the ones bearing the burden, so that we can strengthen the funding in the long-term as well.”

Montrose City Council last year directed the organization to explore another funding source.

“Because the economic outlook for this year started trending down, finance said we need to look at something we could count on in the way of a dedicated funding stream, something along the lines of a lodging tax increase,” said former Mayor David White. Another option would be to increase the per passenger fee now collected to help compensate for services such as security, he said.

“There are no guarantees the city can continue funding the air organization at the same level it has,” White said. “There’s a commitment to fund the organization but it certainly would be better to have a (dedicated) funding source.”

Contact Lisa Huynh via email at lisah@montrosepress.com