Delta: Airport has rebounded

BY BILLY BRUCE
The Valdosta Daily Times

June 29, 2008 01:35 am

— VALDOSTA — In the very month of May, when Delta Airlines cut one of three daily flights to Atlanta from service to the Valdosta Regional Airport, load factors on the remaining two flights rose to 91 percent — the highest rate in more than a year.
That means that 44 or 45 of the 50 seats available on the commuter jets flown from Atlanta to Valdosta and back by Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) have been booked by passengers on each of the two daily flights during May.
Interim Airport Manager Patti Clark said Thursday that Delta’s route planner in Atlanta confirmed that May was the first month in many that delivered a profitable margin for the Valdosta flights.
ASA contracts with Delta to provide smaller market airports like Valdosta local commercial service. In May, Delta, through ASA, removed one of three daily flights to Valdosta because load factors were not meeting profitability margins.
And with the ever-rising cost of fuel, that margin increases each time the price of gas goes up, Clark said.
“In April, we had to have an 82 percent load factor for the airline to break even on operations costs,” she said. “And the price of fuel has gone up since then.”
Valdosta’s load factor in April was 79 percent, not enough to reach a profitable margin for Delta, Clark noted.
Those 50 seater jets can hold a full tank of 2,100 to 2,200 gallons of jet fuel. Though the jets don’t require that much to make the 45 minute flight from Atlanta to Valdosta and return 45-minute flight to Atlanta, it’s costing all the airlines in the Southeast an average of $5.70 a gallon — or approximately $12,000 — to fill up one commuter jet, Clark said.
Valdosta has had good load factor ratios averaging between high 60 percent to low 70 percent ratios over the past few years, but as the area has grown, load factors have risen.
In 2008, load factors for the three daily flights (before that was reduced to two in May) averaged 67 percent in January, 73 percent in February, 80 percent in March, the 79 percent in April, and the record breaking 91 percent in May.
The last highest load factor that came anywhere close to May’s 91 percent was recorded in September 2007, when it reached 82.6 percent, Clark noted.
Delta has committed to returning the third daily flight to Valdosta on July 7, after some successful lobbying efforts by Clark and Valdosta — Lowndes Regional Airport Authority Chairman Joe Prater helped convince the airline’s bean counters that Valdostans will support and needs three flights.
That flight will depart Atlanta at 10 a.m., arrive at Valdosta at 11:14 a.m., and depart for Atlanta at 11:39 a.m. It will serve the airport on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Whether Delta can keep its promise to add a third flight on Sundays is yet to be seen due to the ongoing fuel cost crisis.
“Airlines typically review their operations costs and current flying schedules in September, after the busier summer months end and leisure travelers get back to work and school,” Clark said. “Delta has said they may cut 3 percent of their flights in September. How that will affect us is yet to be seen. With more and more Moody AFB personnel needing that Sunday flight to get to training assignments that begin on Mondays, we may be able to keep the third flight on Sunday. We’ll see. Nothing is guaranteed.”
Reviewing past data on load factors, the 11:14 a.m. Valdosta flight showed the lowest load factors of the three flights, so it’s obvious why Delta cut that particular flight, Clark said.
“This is not about providing people a flight to Atlanta,” Prater said. “The airlines don’t look at it that way at all. This is strictly business to them. They are going to maximize the value and profitability of every seat on every plane. For the 50 seats on a local flight, they probably have 25 different fee structures for those seats. They will not give those seats away. They have shareholders to answer to like any corporation.”
She and Prater urged local flyers to utilize the Delta/ASA flights as often as ticket prices allow them to. When flights out of Jacksonville or Tallahassee are maybe $50 to $75 less than Valdosta flights, flyers need to factor in the cost and traffic danger of driving to larger cities, paying for parking, and driving back to Valdosta before they choose what appears to be a cheaper way to travel, they said.
Valdosta tickets to Atlanta connections have been staying competitive with those markets, so on any given day, the Valdosta airport’s parking lot is full of cars of local flyers utilizing available flights.
The loss of that third daily flight right when the busier commercial flying months of summer arrived has caused a lot of headaches for local flyers. In June, it might not be a surprise if the load factor comes in at higher than 91 percent, Clark said.
“Every time I’ve asked them, (the airline) has said they’ve been right at 48 to 50 seats sold, or they were overbooked,” she said. “There have been times when we’ve had eight to 10 people waiting on standby trying to get a seat. This has made it difficult for business travelers who can’t book flights three weeks in advance. Just trying to book a seat two weeks in advance has been difficult at times. My husband has to travel to Dallas for business, and he’s had to use other airports because seats have not been available when he tried to book two weeks or less in advance.”
Prater acknowledged that Delta’s route planner might argue that May’s 91 percent load factor and resulting profitability was a result of cutting back the third flight. But he also re-emphasized the argument that the Valdosta area’s growth will continue to push load factor ratios up.
“This is going to happen. More and more people will fly as Valdosta continues to grow,” he said.
What remains to be seen is how the ever rising cost of fuel will impact Valdosta’s ability to retain ample commercial air service.
When fuel in 2000 accounted for 15 percent of an airline’s total operational costs, it has risen to an alarming 40 percent of total operational costs this year, Clark said.
But history has recorded higher proportionate increases in fuel costs, she noted.
“Although the cost of a gallon of jet fuel didn’t rise to the average of $5.70 a gallon as it has in the Southeast today, in the 1970s during the energy crisis, fuel costs did rise 100 percent,” she said.
Clark and Prater reiterated that they and the Airport Authority are committed to keeping a close eye on the situation to make sure that Valdosta’s growth is not hampered by a lack of commercial air service. Meanwhile, they continue to bring other improvements to the airport.
They’ve successfully wired up the commercial terminal for wireless Internet service so customers can take care of business while waiting on flights, and they’ve attracted a new food vendor to come in and open up a breakfast and lunch snack bar in July, among other improvements approved in the fiscal 2009 budget. (The fiscal year begins July 1).

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