With More Flights, Short Waits and Lower Fares, Wichita’s Airport is Good Enough That We’re

By Dan Voorhis, The Wichita Eagle, Kan.

Sep. 16–FROM HOME

Wichita Mid-Continent Airport at 6 a.m. on a Monday resembles a Rotary Club meeting without the corny jokes.

Bleary-eyed business travelers start early because they often must hit connecting flights in distant airports before reaching their final destination.

Air service in Wichita has improved dramatically in the past five years, say business travelers and local experts, despite the departure of one prominent businessman who cited a lack of nonstop flights.

Wichita businessman Sandy DiPasquale said last month that he would locate the headquarters of his new company, Newport Television, in Kansas City, Mo., because it had cheaper tickets and more nonstop flights.

In other words: time and money.

Asked whether Mid-Continent Airport hurts Wichita’s business community, business executives and experts say two things:

–Air service out of Wichita is much better than it was and will soon get better.

–Wichita can’t match the number of nonstop flights and general air service in Kansas City, Oklahoma City or Tulsa, all bigger cities.

Wichita has excellent service for what it is — a midsize city, said airline consultant Mike Boyd.

“You’ve got service to 10 connecting hubs,” he said. “That’s outstanding. That shows how hardworking the airport is.

“But the airport cannot change airline economics.”

Prices down, travel up

After years of bitter complaints by the business community, local officials wooed AirTran — in part by offering millions in subsidies — to Wichita in 2002.

Ticket prices on all airlines are down as a result. Sedgwick County estimates AirTran saves eastbound passengers an estimated $25 million to $30 million a year.

And starting Oct. 1, Frontier Airlines will fly to and from its Denver hub three times a day on weekdays. From Denver, Wichita passengers will be able to connect to most major western destinations.

Sedgwick County estimates Frontier will save westbound passengers $15 million to $20 million.

As a result of the lower fares and the general upswing in the economy, Mid-Continent reported its best August ever. For the year, passenger traffic at the airport is up 8.6 percent over last year — putting it on pace for a record year.

That’s impressive considering passenger growth at the airport since 2004 had plateaued just shy of 1.5 million arrivals and departures.

The arrival of Frontier should bump those numbers considerably, said Valerie Wise, air service and business development manager at Mid-Continent.

“They’ll go through the roof,” she said.

Wise said airport traffic could hit between 2 million and 2.2 million passengers in coming years.

Nonstop flights

Still, Wichita Mid-Continent has less than half as many travelers as Tulsa or Oklahoma City, and one-seventh as many as Kansas City.

As a result, Wichita has far fewer flights and fewer nonstop destinations — 12 — than those cities.

That’s troubling from an economic development perspective because it makes business more expensive and less convenient.

The biggest gap among nonstop destinations is Seattle, according to a 2005 study for Mid-Continent by marketing firm Sabre.

It showed that the city was the second-favorite destination from this area, but only the 11th-most common destination from Wichita. The implication is that many travelers are flying to Seattle through Kansas City or Oklahoma City.

But not Spirit AeroSystems, said spokeswoman Debbie Gann.

“Our business travelers fly out of Wichita, period,” she said. “It’s not all about money; it’s about time, too. When you factor in the driving and the two hours at the airport, it’s pretty time-consuming.”

Service at the airport hasn’t hurt economic development, said Patrick French, until recently president of the Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition.

“Lots of other communities struggle with it,” he said. “I think we are seen as a progressive community that is addressing the problem.”

Many Wichita businesspeople agree that the airport has gotten good enough to keep them flying out of Mid-Continent.

Cheryl Doll, vice president for marketing at Lodgeworks, used to live in Kansas City. She loved the number of direct flights but hated the cost of parking and the commute to and from the airport

“It’s a bummer to fly in and know you still have a 45-minute drive home,” she said.

The good news is that as traffic rises so does airline interest in nonstop flights, Wise said.

When ExpressJet started service to Los Angeles in July, United got interested and started service last month.

KC, OKC and Tulsa

Because every airport feels pressure from a larger airport and from their customers, the competition between airports never ends.

Kansas City, Oklahoma City and Tulsa all continue to wield their marketing budgets to lure new service to their airports.

Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers Airport just added nine nonstop flights to cities in Texas and other nearby states on ExpressJet. It now has 28 nonstop flights.

Will Rogers gives airlines a $50,000 one-time payment to start service to a city in a contiguous state and $200,000 for a city beyond that.

Tulsa offers airlines a $10,000 payment, said Alexis Higgins, a spokeswoman for the Tulsa airport, and she knows that’s not competitive.

But the airport will renegotiate contracts next summer and should have more money for incentives after that.

Airlines are learning to demand incentives in order to go into a new market, she said.

“If, all other things are equal, one offers $50,000 and the other offers $10,000, they will go with the higher offer,” Higgins said.

The root of the problem

The real problem, say many Wichita business travelers, is not the Wichita airport, but the overbooked flights, the delayed flights, the too-crowded airports, the mechanical breakdowns and the weather delays throughout the air travel system.

Compared to that, whatever issues Wichita has pale in significance, said Sam Williams, managing partner at advertising firm Sullivan Higdon & Sink.

“Whether you’re sitting on the ground in Wichita or sitting on the ground in Atlanta,” he said, “doesn’t make any difference.”

Reach Dan Voorhis at 316-268-6577 or dvoorhis@wichitaeagle.com [mailto:dvoorhis@wichitaeagle.com].

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