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Pinellas' airport loses Canadian carrier Jetsgo

This means that by next month, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International will have lost nearly 80 percent of its commercial service.

By JEAN HELLER
Published March 12, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - In what has become a litany of bad news, St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport lost a carrier to bankruptcy Friday, the third airline to announce in less than four months that it was shutting down or pulling out.

The abrupt closure of Canadian carrier Jetsgo stranded 101 Toronto-bound passengers at the airport Friday morning. Nearly half of them were able to get available seats on a Skyservice charter flight that left later in the morning. The rest tried for flights out of Tampa International Airport or booked seats on other Canadian airlines over the weekend.

"There had been rumblings in the industry that Jetsgo might not be financially solid," airport director Noah Lagos said hours after the Jetsgo shutdown. "But nobody thought they would stop service in the middle of the (winter tourist) season."

The failure of the Montreal-based Jetsgo means that when ATA pulls out next month, St. Pete-Clearwater will have lost nearly 80 percent of its commercial airline service.

The decline began Nov. 30 when the Largo-based public charter Southeast Airlines abruptly closed its doors. That was followed by the Indianapolis-based ATA's announcement in January that it would pullout of this market.

ATA flew half of the 1.33-million passengers who used the mid-Pinellas airport last year. Southeast's share was 22 percent and Jetsgo's was 6 percent.

The airport's lone domestic carrier, USA 3000 Airlines, flies about 300,000 passengers per year and is expected to expand service soon, Lagos said.

Two Canadian carriers - Air Transat and Canjet - remain at the airport, and flying about 70,000 passengers a year. Jetsgo flew 29,000 last year and 9,500 in the first two months of 2005.

In a statement, Jetsgo president Michael Leblanc blamed the closure on "competitive pressures." He left open the possibility that the airline would start up again, saying it was filing for court protection while it examined its options.

"This doesn't make all that much of an impact on us," Lagos said.

"But they were a year-round carrier, and this is, perhaps, the most difficult time in history to be out pitching new service to other airlines when the industry lost $7-billion last year and, by conservative estimates, will lose $5-billion this year."

Lagos said he talked to Canjet this week about its service next year, "and we're very confident of their future here."

"In fact," he said, "we're sure some Canadian carrier will pick up what Jetsgo has left behind."

On March 24, Lehigh Valley Air will begin service five to six days a week to Allentown, Pa. Lagos said he might soon be able to announce service to another city.

Commercial airlines account for 5 percent of the airport's flights, Lagos said.

Eighty-five percent are corporate and private aircraft and the rest military.

"Because the general aviation component here is so large," Lagos said, "I'm also trying to do things to raise revenue here that are not related to air carriers."

Among the passengers stranded by Jetsgo's closure was Linda DeMille of Toronto, who was scheduled to fly home Friday with her son, Liam, 10.

"We literally found out when we stepped up on the curb outside," DeMille said. "But the airport staff has just been wonderful, helping people make alternative arrangements. And it's sunny here. I have to shovel out my car at home."

DeMille was unsure when or how she would get home, but she and others stranded discovered quickly that it would be expensive.

Skyservice charged $300 for one-way trips, on top of the $300 in roundtrip fares passengers had paid to Jetsgo. And Skyservice was equipped to take only cash.

"My account is limited to withdrawals of $400 a day, and my sister's is limited to $500, so between us we were only able to get $900 for three tickets," DeMille said. "I won't be able to get any more money until tomorrow."

"We don't normally sell tickets here," said Skyservice station manager Christian Pezey. "We only sell last-minute seats, and we have to demand cash because we have no credit card system set up. The $300 is our standard walk-up, one-way fare."

The demand for seats was so great that Skyservice personnel called Wachovia, the bank that services the airport ATMs, to beg for a visit from an armored truck.

"There was enough cash in them for today," Pezey said, "but we're going to have a lot more people tomorrow."

[Last modified March 12, 2005, 01:10:39]