Airport Raising Number Of Seats

By Ted Jackovics, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Jan. 13–TAMPA — Passengers will find more seats offered for trips from Tampa International Airport this year, a reversal of a recent national trend to trim flights — and it could lead to lower fares.

Also for 2007, Southwest Airlines is expected to strengthen its standing as the airport’s busiest carrier. And a number of airlines will continue to make up for a decline in capacity by Delta Air Lines, which ranked No. 1 in Tampa three years ago.

Airport Director Louis Miller offered that outlook Friday for the coming year, along with the release of 2006 passenger data.

“We cannot tell yet, but normally fares go down when seats are increased,” Miller said.

Tampa International reported 2006 was its second busiest year, with 9.4 million departing passengers, about 100,000 fewer than the record year, 2005. The airport generally gets an equal amount of inbound passengers.

A telling trend began in October when Tampa International reversed five consecutive months of declining passenger traffic.

“Traffic has rebounded in the past three months,” Miller said. “Demand is obviously coming back, and airlines are bringing in more seats to meet the demand.”

Southwest has contributed part of that growth. The airline has raised its market share at Tampa International from 19.5 percent in December 2003 to 24 percent in December.

During the same period, Delta Air Lines’ local market share declined from 21.1 percent to 14 percent, but the airline has gained ridership systemwide in recent months even while reducing domestic capacity and expanding profitable international routes.

Delta ranks second in Tampa market share, with US Airways third. Delta and Southwest compete only on two routes from Tampa: Hartford, Conn., and Raleigh, N.C.

“Delta’s focus is to offer customers more destinations while providing the right mix of capacity to passengers,” Delta spokesman Anthony Black said.

Airlines can change capacity by using different size aircraft or changing the number of flights. For example, Spirit Airlines increased capacity on its Tampa-Detroit route in December by adding a third flight with a 138-seat Airbus A319, replacing the previous combination of an A319 and a 198-seat Airbus A321.

Southwest Airlines also has added seats. This month, it’s offering 78 daily local departures, with 10,671 seats. That compares with 66 departures, or 9,012 seats, in January 2006.

Here’s a look at some other performance numbers for Tampa International:

–This month, the airport has 235 daily jet departures scheduled, including 136 flown by low-cost carriers. In January 2006, Tampa had 226 daily jet departures, 127 by low-cost carriers.

–The number of seats airlines scheduled this month from Tampa rose 8 percent from a year ago to 34,237 each day, Miller said.

Reporter Ted Jackovics can be reached at (813) 259-7817 and tjackovics@tampatrib.com

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Copyright (c) 2007, Tampa Tribune, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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