Passenger traffic dips at Toledo Express again in ‘11

The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority obtained a $750,000 federal grant in September to support air-service development at Express. THE BLADE Enlarge | Photo Reprints

Passenger traffic at Toledo Express Airport declined in 2011 for the eighth straight year — the past three of them setting record lows for the 56-year-old airport — but leveled off in December despite the absence of Delta Connection service that had ended in March, Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority statistics show.

The 145,050 passengers who got on or off planes at Express last year were a 16.87 percent decline from 2010’s passenger traffic.

But during December, business was down just 0.21 percent — 30 fewer passengers — with traffic up on all three airlines still serving Toledo.

“It looks like we have stabilized,” Paul Toth, the port authority’s president, said, noting the nearly break-even number for December despite the statistical hangover from Delta’s pullout.

Although year-end numbers included slight declines in travel on Allegiant Air, one of two vacation-oriented discount carriers flying between Toledo and Florida cities, and on charter flights, Delta more than accounted for the latest drop in passenger traffic.

Delta Connection had carried 42,612 travelers to or from Toledo in 2010 but flew just 1,662 in or out of the local airport last year before yanking its last flights, a daily round trip to Minneapolis-St. Paul, in mid-March.

The Twin Cities service was short-lived, having replaced Delta Connection flights to and from Detroit in late 2010.

The long-running Detroit route, operated under the Northwest Airlines banner for decades before Delta bought Northwest in 2008, had withered as increasing numbers of travelers drove to Detroit Metropolitan-Wayne County Airport instead of using the connecting flights.

Delta’s withdrawal left American Airlines, through its American Eagle commuter affiliate, as the last traditional network carrier serving Toledo.

In August, the airline increased service to four daily round trips from three on its Toledo-Chicago route after the port authority approved a one-year, $200,000 subsidy. The route’s business in December was up by just over 40 percent and for the full year grew by 21.2 percent, to 70,939 travelers — nearly half of Express’ total passenger traffic.

American parent AMR Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in November, and its new chief executive predicted modest service cuts as part of its reorganization. But Mr. Toth said he believes the Toledo-Chicago route’s strong performance should protect it from such cuts.

“We don’t see that as an issue out there. There are markets where regional jets work, and Toledo-Chicago is one of those,” Mr. Toth said, referring to the smaller jets that dominated service at Toledo Express during the early 2000s before falling from grace with the airline industry because of their high per-passenger fuel costs.

In September, the port authority obtained a $750,000 federal grant to support air-service development at Express, matched by a $250,000 local pledge to offer a $1 million revenue guarantee to a new carrier for the first two years of operation. The application also promised more than $1 million in additional incentives, including $235,000 in advertising subsidies from “media partners” that include $50,000 worth of print and on-line advertising from The Blade.

The Small Community Air Service Development grant application identified a Toledo-Denver route on Frontier Airlines as the port authority’s top prospect, and port officials said in September that they hoped to have such a service going by May.

Frontier provided a letter of support to the grant application, but did not commit to flying the route.

An inquiry to Frontier’s communications office last week yielded no response.

Mr. Toth said port authority officials’ discussions with Frontier continue, but if no progress is made by spring, “we’ll probably start looking” at other options, such as a Dallas route on American or East Coast destinations with United Airlines or US Airways — “options that are sustainable,” he said.

On the air cargo side, 2011 was a difficult year for Toledo Express with BAX Global shuttering its hub on Sept. 1.

Although BX Solutions reopened the hub in mid-November to handle truck freight, that operation so far does not include any air cargo. But the Toledo Express cargo numbers got a modest recovery later in September when DHL, which had booked space on BAX planes, started its own flights between Cincinnati, Toledo, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, using Toledo as a truck-transfer point for Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich., freight.

By year’s end, according to the port authority, DHL had moved just over 7.8 million pounds of freight through Toledo Express, using the cargo building on the airfield’s north side.

“Those nine flights a week are doing 20 to 25 percent of what BAX was doing,” Mr. Toth said.

Contact David Patch at: dpatch@theblade.com or 419-724-6094.