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After losing main carrier, airport may try for others

With the pending loss of ATA service, the St. Petersburg-Clearwater airport looks to rebound.

By JEAN HELLER
Published January 28, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Facing the loss of 75 percent of their passengers, officials at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport said Thursday they would consider all options to rebuild - even trying to lure carriers away from the larger airport in Tampa.

"I'm going to be looking at any and all opportunities, and I will talk to any airline that wants to add service here or move from somewhere else," airport director Noah Lagos said, though he declined to name the airlines he is courting.

Lagos said as recently as early December that several airlines had expressed interest in the mid Pinellas facility but were holding off making decisions to see what would become of the airport's largest carrier, the financially shaky ATA Airlines.

Now they know. ATA, which carried half the airport's passengers, announced Wednesday it was cutting service drastically in April and eliminating all five flights at the St. Petersburg-Clearwater airport.

The ATA announcement was the second body blow to the airport in two months, coming eight weeks to the day after Southeast Airlines, the second-largest carrier, ceased operations abruptly on Dec. 1. Southeast accounted for 22 percent of the airport's passenger traffic.

The loss of the carriers would mean lost revenue of about $400,000 a year.

ATA's announcement also comes a month after Pinellas commissioners approved a master plan that calls for investing up to $223-million at the airport over 25 years and after approval earlier of an extension to the main runway to accommodate 747s.

Lagos said the runway extension, in the design phase, would go forward, but other improvements would be made only as revenue permits.

The airport's other major domestic carrier, USA 3000 Airlines, flies about 300,000 passengers per year and is expected to expand service soon, Lagos said. And three Canadian carriers, Jetsgo, Air Transat and Canjet, should serve about 100,000 passengers per year, Lagos said.

"We estimate that without the addition of any new service, (the airport) will serve approximately 500,000 passengers in 2005," Lagos said, though he acknowledged that this number is a far cry from the record 1.33-million passengers who passed through the airport in 2004.

"This airport has a roller-coaster history when it comes to service," he said. "There were 600,000 passengers in 2002, 1.3-million in 2004, and now, without ATA, we're looking at 500,000."

The 500,000 projection includes passengers ATA will serve before it stops flying; once the airline goes, the airport will have lost about 75 percent of its passengers. Lagos said he is not interested in becoming an international charter airport, as Sanford is for Orlando. He will concentrate on adding domestic and Canadian service.

And he would not rule out trying to lure away airlines that serve Tampa International Airport, a move that TIA executive director Louis Miller said he expected.

"I think that airport might be attractive to a smaller, new-entrant carrier, and I would expect Noah to seek them out," Miller said. "Delta wouldn't move. Neither would Southwest. In fact, most of the larger carriers and some of the small ones have long lease agreements with us. If Noah's going to get anyone from here, it will be carriers that operate month-to-month, paying for gates and ticket counters as they use them."

Among those carriers are Frontier, America West, British Airways, Independence Air, Cayman Airways, Midwest Express and Sun Country.

One of the attractions of St. Pete-Clearwater is the lower cost of doing business. When operating costs are divided by the number of passengers flown, it comes to about $2 per passenger at the Pinellas airport. At TIA it is $4.50. That includes landing fees, fuel surcharges and other costs.

One Delta 757 flight into TIA in December paid the airport $66,038 in fees. At St. Pete-Clearwater, that same flight would have paid $29,333.33.

Some airlines flying out of Tampa have increased service to Indianapolis and Chicago-Midway, the two places served by ATA out of St. Pete-Clearwater, Miller said.

Pinellas County officials declined to push the panic button over the ATA announcement.

"We're all just devastated about it, but we're confident in Noah's ability to rattle industry cages to shake out some new service," said Commissioner Karen Seel. "The impact of this on business and the tourist economy is paramount. I just hope they're not bitten by this."

Commissioner Calvin Harris said he hopes that whatever carriers begin serving the airport, they're in better financial shape than those that came before.

"In this bad business climate, weak companies are not going to survive," Harris said.

"Our challenge is not to look for the weakest or the cheapest companies, but companies that are strong financially and have a history of great service."

Times staff writer Michael Sandler contributed to this report.

[Last modified January 28, 2005, 00:20:16]