Myrtle Beach International Airport wants flights to Dallas, Minneapolis and Indianapolis and is willing to give airlines a free ride initially to get it.
The airport, as part of its annual incentives to lure new service, went a step further this year by naming the cities it wants service to and telling the airlines they won’t have to pay fees to the airport for a year or two if the carriers create those desired routes at least five times a week. Philadelphia, which already is connected to Myrtle Beach through weekend routes, is another desired city, with the airport willing to reduce fees for an airline that serves the city of Brotherly Love at least five days a week.
“We need to throw the kitchen sink at new service,” airport spokeswoman Lauren Morris said. “We are putting every piece of the puzzle in place to make it as appealing to the airlines as possible.”
The goal is to connect to cities where potential visitors might be skipping trips to the Grand Strand because it’s not convenient to fly or drive here, while Myrtle Beach residents also could benefit with new connections to those cities.
Incentives for air service is nothing new; Myrtle Beach officials have been carving out incentives to lure new service for several years, ramping up after a task force was formed when Air Tran pulled out of the market in 2006.
“The business community came together and said, ‘Ouch, how do we fix this?’” Morris said.
This is the first year that the group, which includes Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, added incentives for service to specific markets. Aviation consultant Mike Boyd, who works with the Myrtle Beach airport, said it’s almost a must for Myrtle Beach because airports across the country are already doing it.
“You have to offer or the airlines won’t even talk to you,” Boyd said. “You have to kiss the airlines’ godfather ring. If you show that respect for the airlines, it means it is more likely to work.”
The trio of cities was picked for several reasons, including the number of golf and vacation inquiries from residents in those cities, user sessions from those cities on Golf Holiday’s website and research showing the impressions residents in those areas have about Myrtle Beach, said Bill Golden, president of Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday.
Golf Holiday and the chamber are involved because they promote new air service and have a stake in luring new golfers and vacationers to the Grand Strand. It’s a partnership that impresses airlines, Boyd said.
“Increased direct air service to the Myrtle Beach area from new and different cities results in greater access to potential visitors we maybe haven’t been able to reach with the Myrtle Beach vacation message in the past,” chamber spokeswoman Nora Hembree said in an e-mail. “With direct air service growth there is the potential to capture those first-time visitors that haven’t yet stayed in our hotels, shopped in our stores or dined in our restaurants.”
Minneapolis is an attractive city for air service because it’s a cold-weather market – meaning golfers might be more likely to want to come to the Grand Strand’s milder climate for a few rounds – and it has the highest golf population per capita, Golden said.
Dallas has been on Myrtle Beach’s radar for years because it will open travel to the western United States. American Eagle Airlines, whose parent company American Airlines filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization last week, flew to Dallas between April and October in 2010, but nixed the route after just one season. American Eagle said earlier this year that there weren’t enough passengers to support the flights.
But locals are still confident that a Dallas connection to Myrtle Beach is doable, blaming the small, 50-seat planes American Eagle used for the carrier’s decision not to return. Only 35 of the 50 seats on each flight could be sold because of the golf bags on the flights, which hurt the airlines’ return on their investment from the start, Morris and Golden said. Bigger planes would solve that issue, Golden said.
“We still feel strongly that that is a market that will succeed,” Golden said.
The airport has set aside $1 million for all of the incentives, money that comes from revenues the airport generates through rent and fees that airlines pay, fuels sales, fees from tenants such as car rental companies and passengers, Morris said. Other incentives include reduced landing fees for established service, reduced fees for service to new cities in the United States and a waiver of all fees for scheduled, not-stop roundtrip service between Myrtle Beach and any international destination, including Canada.
The amount spent on incentives has jumped drastically in the last few years, from $10,642 in 2007 to $1.6 million in 2010, according to the airport.
The airport is growing in size and number of passengers. It is amid an expansion that will add six gates – going from seven to 13 – and is on pace to have another record-breaking year.
The number of passengers flying out of the airport is up about 2 percent this calendar year through October, compared to the same 10 months last year, though the number has been down for three consecutive months starting in August. A record 867,106 passengers flew out of the airport in 2010.
Covering the fees for service to the target markets for a year or two sends a message to airlines, Golden said.
“That tells the airlines that we understand it is a risk,” he said.
The target market incentives kicked in July, and airport and marketing officials have pitched them to the airlines that serve Myrtle Beach and others that don’t, though officials wouldn’t say which new airlines. So far, none have taken up the offer. Airlines typically scale back service to Myrtle Beach in the slower winter months and gear up in the spring for the busy summer tourist season.
“We are waiting to see who is going to take advantage,” Morris said. “We’ve had some pretty positive response. We’re hopeful.”
Spirit Airlines, which carries about half of the passengers at Myrtle Beach International Airport, declined to say whether it’s interested in the incentives or comment on what its plans for service are next year. Spirit has added destinations from Myrtle Beach each of the past three years, including five new cities in 2011. Its capacity in Myrtle Beach has increased 140 percent since 2007, according to the airport.
Spirit would be the airline likely to add service to Indianapolis and possibly Dallas, Boyd said.
“We are working on it,” Golden said. “I don’t think we can say it works until we deliver one or more of those markets.”
Getting airlines to try a route is the key, and dangling incentives for a couple of years to lure them will be worth it, Horry County Councilman Gary Loftus said.
Once they try a route, “they tend to stick with it and stay with us,” he said.
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