KANSAS: Manhattan Regional Airport flying toward success

For Steel and Pipe Supply, traveling to vendors and employees was fairly straightforward: The Manhattan-based company had a private jet.

Bringing customers and vendors in, however, was a different, more expensive, story.

“It was an absolute two days lost in their schedule,” said company president Dennis Mullin.

But since 2009, visits from vendors Steel and Pipe Supply have been on the rise, despite the dip in the economy. And, Mullin said, there is one main reason for that: The daily commercial flights at the Manhattan Regional Airport.

“There’s no question that it’s helped us maintain and even gain new business,” he said.

Steel and Pipe Supply clearly isn’t the business filling seats.

In the two years since American Eagle first flew out of the airport, the Manhattan Regional Airport has doubled its annual passengers — from 25,074 in 2009 to more than 50,000 anticipated this year. It is running at an average of 85 percent capacity, said Shane White, assistant director at the airport.

The demand has increased flights from two a day to, starting Nov. 17, five. In 10 days, American Eagle will offer a second flight out of Manhattan to Chicago O’Hare each day. It is offered one flight to Chicago since November 2010 and three flights to Dallas-Fort Worth since April 2010.

And the airport already needs more space — about 25,500 square feet of it. Construction on some of the expansion is expected to start in 2013, White said.

But the success of the airport reaches beyond its 12,500 terminal, director Peter Van Kuren said.

It is stimulating more business at local companies. It is helping local businesses, even Kansas State University, with recruiting. It is helping the city, with an unemployment rate of 6 percent, weather the economic downturn. The nation’s rate rested at 9 percent.

And the airport is helping keep the millions of travel dollars once lost to Missouri in the state, Van Kuren said.

“The best part about this is not only is it good for quality of life for the individual, it’s a huge economic impact,” he said.

Manhattan’s airport has contributed to $22.9 million in economic activity, the creation of 233 jobs and an additional $6.5 million in payroll, according to a study from the Kansas Department of Transportation.

Still, Van Kuren said, the airport isn’t reaching as far as he would like.

The airport is capturing about 19 percent of its catchment area, Van Kuren said. He would like to see that in the 30 percent range.

The Manhattan airport draws some passengers from Topeka, and hopes to increase that, Van Kuren said.

Despite that, Eric Johnson, director of the Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority, said he loves what is going on in Manhattan — because Topeka can do it, too.

“They’ve got 55,000 people in Manhattan and we’re sitting at 126,000?” Johnson said. “We can do this.”

What Topeka needs, and what helped Manhattan get its airport, is a revenue guarantee to give carriers a little insurance for their investment, he said.

Manhattan secured a $2 million grant from the state so it could compensate American Eagle if its flights flew at 70 percent capacity. The city only had to dip into its local match of $250,000 during the first few months. The agreement ended in August with the entire $2 million going back to the state, Van Kuren said.

To that end, Topeka continues to look for funding, Johnson said, though it hasn’t been successful in the past three or four years.

He is focusing on 50-passenger regional jets to fly to places like Dallas, Memphis, Denver and Chicago.

Although the effort seems to be grounded, for Johnson, the question of whether Topeka will get a commercial airline again isn’t a matter of if. It is a matter of when.

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