Growth of regional airlines benefits small cities
By Don Sadler
One of the biggest travel trends in the past few years has been the growth of regional airlines and their expanded service to smaller cities.
While total domestic airline capacity has dropped about 6 percent since 2009, regional airline capacity has soared nearly 150 percent, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Traffic for major carriers also dropped during this time by 2 percent, but regional airline traffic increased by more than 200 percent.
The trend has had a positive impact on the convention and meetings industry in smaller cities across the country. In Greenbrier, W.V., for example, Delta Airlines begins daily regional service from Atlanta and New York LaGuardia this summer. Greenbrier, with a populations of 34,000, is currently only serviced by daily flights from Cleveland.
“Meeting planners have many options to choose from, and one of the first things they look at when considering potential cities is accessibility,” says Kara Dense, executive director of the Greenbrier Convention and Visitors Bureau. “Once we have flights into Greenbrier from three different major cities, it will go a long way toward helping us secure more meetings and events.”
Another city to benefit from regional airline growth is Cheyenne, Wyo. (population 55,000). American Airlines will begin offering daily nonstop flights to and from Cheyenne from Dallas Forth Worth International Airport (DFW) this summer, in addition to its current daily commuter flights to and from Denver. “This is huge for us,” says Darren Rudloff, CEO of Visit Cheyenne. “It will present all kinds of new opportunities for planners to come to Cheyenne and allow us to compete for conventions and meetings that have not considered us before.”
In 2007, DFW expanded regional jet service to and from Roswell, N.M. Four direct flights a week to and from Los Angeles were also added last year. “There’s no doubt that this has increased our meetings and convention business significantly,” says Brian Michaelz, the assistant marketing director for the city of Roswell, which has 45,000 people.
“Regional flight service has given us the opportunity to bid on out-of-state conferences and continuing training and educational opportunities that we did not qualify for in the past, when our primary focus was on inner-state and regional drive markets,” adds Reneé Roach, the manager and marketing director for the Roswell Convention and Visitors Bureau. Roswell has landed bids for the Association of Counties (coming June 2011), Association of Museums (awarded October 2008) and the Governor’s Conference on Tourism (awarded April 2008). Since October 2008, Roswell has experienced a 47 percent increase in visitor traffic, an 87 percent increase in facility rentals revenue, and a 16 percent increase in event, conventions and professional meetings, says Roach.
