Mercer County residents
may have noticed the blizzard of print and radio ads, the roadside
billboards and the signs hanging in local shopping malls advertising the
flights that Frontier Airlines has begun offering at Trenton-Mercer
Airport.
What they didn’t know was
that Frontier plans to make the little-used Ewing airport its East
Coast hub and is pulling its domestic flights out of Philadelphia
International, where routes cannot be expanded easily.
Since November, in very
rapid succession, Frontier has initiated flights to Orlando from
Trenton-Mercer and has announced plans for nine more destinations from
the Scotch Road airport, all of them set to begin by mid-April.
The Denver-based airline
flies the majority of its flights on routes originating from Denver
International Airport, but it needs a base of operations on the East
Coast, and Trenton fits perfectly, said Daniel Shurz, Frontier’s vice
president of finance.
“As we move forward in the future Denver, is going to be crucial,” Shurz said. “But we know we have to find ways to diversify.”
On Monday, while
announcing additional routes to be added at Trenton-Mercer, Frontier
also moved to cease domestic flights from Philadelphia International
Airport. Shurz said the goal is to avoid having Frontier compete with
itself to fill planes at both airports.
In addition to the
Orlando service already established at Trenton-Mercer, in three weeks
Frontier will begin flights to three other cities in Florida — Fort
Myers, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa — as well as New Orleans. The second
week in April, the airline will begin service from Trenton-Mercer to
Atlanta, Chicago (Midway), Columbus, Raleigh-Durham and Detroit. It is
unclear how many more flights would be added to build the hub that
Frontier has envisioned.
Trenton-Mercer has been
underused for years as numerous small airlines tried to establish
themselves there and failed. Frontier, with routes all over the domestic
United States and into Central America, should be far better
capitalized to succeed at the Mercer hub initiative.
Mercer County officials
last week announced their intentions to take a fresh look at the airline
terminal and decide what sort of improvements would be necessary to
accommodate Frontier’s growth.
Former county executive
Bob Prunetti, now the president and CEO of the MidJersey Chamber of
Commerce, said the limited success of the airport, which also serves
corporate traffic and flight school operations, has long been a concern
for the county. In 1998 the county, under Prunetti’s administration,
sought approvals to expand the terminal to attract and retain commercial
passenger carriers.
Prunetti said that Frontier’s preliminary success at the airport is indicative of the possibilities he saw back then.
“What Frontier has done
is, they see the realities that the major airports are getting more and
more crowded,” Prunetti said. “I absolutely think that eventually it is
going to be attractive for other airlines.”
He warned that before the
county brings in another airline or more flights, officials should
consider reconfiguring the airport’s terminal because it is too crowded.
Airline consultant Ross
Aimer, who is a retired United Airlines pilot and now CEO of Aero
Consulting Experts, said the move into smaller airports is a
well-established trend.
“This was started by
Southwest many years ago where, instead of going into major airports —
which are not only expensive but are limited in the number of operations
and traffic flows — they started in smaller, non-hub, airports,” Aimer
said.
Aimer said the thing that
makes Trenton-Mercer such a desirable place to start such a venture is
its proximity to larger markets around Philadelphia and Newark, where
there are many air travelers who would find Ewing a convenient
jumping-off point.
Prunetti’s attempts to
upgrade Trenton-Mercer for larger commercial flying operations were
buffeted by intense community debate over the noise and other
environmental pollution and traffic congestion that more air traffic
would produce. Frontier may face the same obstacle, though the major
group that opposed expanded Trenton-Mercer operations has since
disbanded.
In addition, Frontier will have to succeed where many other airlines — 14 since the 1970s — have failed.
Shurz said Frontier
acknowledges the failures of those airlines, but, he said, the airline
has tried to learn from others’ mistakes. Shurz said the company’s size
may make a difference, and he said the expansion at Trenton-Mercer
Airport is an “experiment” for Frontier and they are committed to seeing
it become successful.
“This is part of a new
business strategy for the company and it is important that we give it
our full best efforts to make it work,” Shurz said.
A chief difference in
Frontier’s business plan is its emphasis on flying to vacation
destinations, Shurz said. Many of the failed commercial airlines were in
the market for business travelers and didn’t fly to locations that
leisure travelers would want to visit.
Freeholder Lucylle
Walter, a Ewing resident who has long been critical of activities at the
airport, said she hopes that the county will be cautious before putting
money into terminal improvements.
“I have always been
concerned about putting money into the airport until we have proven
revenues coming in,” Walter said. “We have a great start to Frontier
Airlines, but things will settle down a little bit.”
The airline acknowledges
that the introductory excitement over the low fares will be temporary.
“We are in this market and we know it is going to take some time to get a
steady level of performance,” Shurz said.
The biggest challenge for
the company, Shurz said, is to increase customer awareness about
Trenton-Mercer airport and about Frontier Airlines.
“The vast majority of our
target market has never flown out of Trenton-Mercer and we have to make
sure people know that the airport exists,” Shurz said.
Story and Photo: http://www.nj.com
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