Flint Bishop Airport filling available seats in March, but number of seats remains down

Published: Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 8:30 PM
By Cathy Shafran, mlive.com

FLINT, MI -- The latest passenger numbers from Flint Bishop Airport confirm what airport officials suspected. The number of people flying out of the Flint airport continues on a downward trend, and will likely continue to do so through the year.

"This year we will likely be down 10-20 percent," said Bishop Airport spokesperson Pat Corfman.

Corfman made the prediction after load factor numbers were presented at the Bishop International Airport Authority regular board meeting Tuesday evening.

"In March we were down 5.5 percent with the number of seats filled," said Corfman. "The good news is that although we are down in available seats, the seats the airport does have are consistently full."

Corfman points to what the airline industry calls its 'load factor' as proof of a continued passenger interest in Flint's airport. The load factor is the percentage of full seats for every seat available.

"The load factor tells us we were 81.7 percent full in March of this year," said Corfman. "That means we were up from the prior month when the load factor was closer to 79 percent."

Corfman says the problems for Bishop Airport continue to involve airlines serving Flint which are in a state of flux.

"American is in bankruptcy, Continental is in the United merger, Delta is still thinking of what to do with the Northwestern flights and Frontier has been dismantling the Milwaukee hub," Corfman said.

As a result of all the unknowns, she says, American Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines have all reduced the number of flights out of Flint, and the Frontier flights to Milwaukee were lost. AirTran flights have remained the same despite a takeover from Southwest Airlines.

Corfman says she was expecting the light at the end of the tunnel next year when she anticipated Southwest Airlines could begin adding flights from Flint.

"But now Southwest is having problems with code share with AirTran, Corfman said. "It will be difficult to add new Southwest flights until the codeshare is fixed."

Source:  http://www.mlive.com