Good for Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for removing all doubt about the state commitment to affordable airfares at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport by signing the funding mechanism as part of the legislative session’s final budget bill for fiscal 2007. Because of the hard work of the area delegation and business and local government leaders, $5 million a year for five years will come from the state, via the Regional Economic Area Partnership, to support the crucial regional effort to add low-fare airlines and routes to Wichita’s air service. As this program helps ensure that Mid-Continent’s flights and ridership will increase, it is sure to stimulate the Kansas economy as a whole. Well done.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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32 Comments
Be careful what you wish for, as “growth” killed Dallas.
It’s now a great place to be murdered, robbed, or destroy your lungs.
When do I get socialized flights out west? Or to Chicago? New York?
Chicago fares have already been reduced.
Southwest might be coming into Wichita soon, so your flights out west will become a reality.
Joe Williams,
With regard to Southwest, I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. But I’d be really surprised if Air Tran let that happen without a major fight. Can you fill in the picture a little?
I want to run a business that loses money so the state will give me handouts
Will Southwest be looking for a handout as well? Or will they just do their normal thing of operating well, keeping a line on costs, make money and kick other airlines in the tail?
Personally, I do not like flying on Southwest, but have to admire their business model..they are profitable.
I don’t fly so I don’t have a dog is this fight or a seat on a flight.
But I would be for more of this sort of thing. I’d like to see a government run airline.
Long-term welfare is for the lazy.
Long-term corporate welfare is for the politically connected. I wonder if the Eagle has done any homework on this one. Big questions are:
How much does this stimulate the economy?Who lobbied for this?How much are the compaign contributions from those lobbists to which politicians?
And the final question, can ProudMan spell?
Joe – I’ve been hearing that about Southwest for decades. I’m not holding my breath. Haven’t seen any significant reductions in Chicago; I’ve been on that route from time to time for 20 years.
Your a fool if you think Southwest is even looking at Wichita. It does not fit their business model for starters. Long term Wichita has no future for growth.
As reported in the Wichita Eagle on April 20, 2006, and the Wichita Business Journal on May 12, 2006, both the number of flights to and from Wichita and the number of passengers has decreased over the past year.
How can we reconcile this reporting with Rhonda’s editorial?
KCL! The decrease wasn’t all that much and many airports experiece the same if not largert decrease in passenger travel.
The airline industry as a whole has been suffering for quite awhile. Didn’t they shed more than 90,000 airline related jobs since 2002?
With Delta and Northwest in bankruptsy, they had to scale back their flights and destinations and Wichita lost the recent non-stops to Detroit and Salt Lake. But this isn’t an exclusive Mid-Continent problem. It’s been happening everywhere and every airport.
The Legacy carriers are in big trouble and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few of the big ones go bust in the next 5 years.
Remember TWA (Trans World Airlines). They used to have flights out of Wichita. Actually TWA used to be headquartered in Kansas City, but they left KC because they didn’t have enough airline passenger traffic and it wasn’t a business friendly enviroment and TWA moved to St. Louis, which is a much larger airport.
But TWA went bust and whoever got consumed by American Airlines is only a few. The KC TWA maitnence hangers and anything related to TWA is long gone and not a single employee left.
I love your tactic Joe. You imply that the subsidies are leading to growth at Mid-Continent. Then when it is shown that it is really falling you respond with “well, so are some others.”
As for Southwest – well, maybe I’ll hit the Lottery – seems about as likely.
The subsidies is a long term strategy. It’s not going to do anything for growth in the short term.
Did you know we are building a new airport? A lot of people don’t know that, be we are actually going to build a brand new airport, not a renovation of the old terminal.
That is going to do a lot for Mid-Continent.
Yes, Joe, I know we are building a new airport? So, what does that mean?
If Wichita was hemerging jobs and flatline on economic growth, and Mid-Contentant was such a vast ghost facility, then why would they go through the trouble to build a new one?
Or just another white elephant again. We might as well the be international sanctuary of white elephants.
Joe – I fear you answered your own question.
Joe, how do you know all these things? And what do you really know?
For example, you stated that “KCL! The decrease wasn’t all that much and many airports experiece the same if not largert decrease in passenger travel.”
The Wichita Eagle article on May 12 reported that Wichita traffic decreased 4.75%. The same article reported that nationwide, the decrease was 1%. So it appears that Wichita traffic was down quite a bit more than the nationwide average.
As to the subsidy as a long-term strategy: The effect of the subsidy is the same as price controls. Price controls lead to a reduction in the amount of the good or service being supplied, and a reduction in the quality of what is supplied. That’s why there is less air service being supplied in Wichita. How is this supposed to help Wichita?
KCL
Is that the same that Alliegent Air expanding flights, United Airlines (non-subsidized) cutting their fairs to Chicago drasticlly, and Delta adding Orlando to their list of destinations?
Let me give you the straight facts KCL.
Mid-Continent Passenger Numbers:
2001: 1,129,3872002: 1,337,2702003: 1,431,6102004: 1,498,7492005: 1,486,590
I see growth in those numbers, even if 2005 was down a bit from the year before, it is historically high. And if you want to know, 2005 was the second highest on record. 2004 is the record year of Mid-Continent. That should tell you something.
What should it tell me? Comparing growth in passengers at ICT with the nationwide trend, we see nationwide growth in passengers from 2002 to 2005 to be about 20%, while in Wichita, the same number is 11%.
Yes, traffic in Wichita is up, although much less than nationwide. Is that the mark of the success of the subsidy?
Why did United cut its fares, do you know?
KCL
We still have quite a few people in and around the Wichita area that are still going to KC or OKC to fly. I don’t know the average number that do, but it has to be quite a bit.
That is the catch-22. More people would be flying out of Wichita if the fairs were cheaper, but the airlines will not lower their prices because the demand and passenger volume is not there. If you increase passenger volume airlines would compete for those increase customers and more airlines would come in, because they see a profit making route. Low passenger volume means high prices and limited routes.
Southwest said that they would come to Wichita, because they even go to smaller markets than Wichita, but they said they don’t because everybody that is flying Southwest from Wichita is driving down to OKC.
What the fair fares are trying to do is reduce the prices of fairs to help increase passenger levels and to encourage all of those driving to OKC and KC to fly Wichita instead. Why do you think that have all those PSA television ads on it.
United lower their fairs because they feel they can make a good profit and fill their seats and the fair they are offering. Supply and Demand and the happy equalibrum of profitablity.
Thanks for the numbers KCL. Reminds me of some of Joe’s claims about population growth that did not withstand scrutiny.
Joe, could you please tell me how you know what Southwest said?
How do you (or anyone else, for that matter) know how many people from Wichita drive to other airports for flights?
I wonder, Joe, if passenger counts increase at the current level of fares, why would airlines then decrease their fares?
Check your facts, Joe. I just did a sample. For a June 12 to 15 trip to MIA, fares from ICT are about $100 lower than from OKC.
For the same dates to LGA, it’s cheaper again from Wichita.
Dont waste your time Ben. Joe and I had this same conversation about airport statistics on another thread, months ago. The same numbers were refuted in the same way.
I guess he totally forgot that discussion and just went back to his routine. NO matter that it was already shown to be WRONG! Dont bother to confuse him with the facts, he wont remember the correct ones anyway!
Geez.
What am I wrong on. I came out with the hard stats, you guys talk rhetoric.
And Ben! I wasn’t all that far off in my population growth either. Yes! I made a generality that there was in increase in 100,000 in the last 15 years. You said only 60,000 in Sedgwick county. I asked about Bulter County and you didn’t come up with anything. But I wasn’t far off really, by making a generality. Yes! I said you won.
United Airlines dropped its fairs to compete against Southwest Airlines flights from KC to Chicago. Southwest Airlines is the third most used Airline used by travelers in the Wichita Market, but they drive to KC or OKC to get there.
Between 2000 to 2006, The Boyd Group/ASRC Inc. did a study and found that Wichita Mid-Continent Airport would be the third fastest growing airport in the nation. Growing at a rate of 26% during that time. The Boyd Group researched the top 130 airports in the nation to come up with the comparison.
It’s only a matter of time before we attract Southwest.
No matter what, Wichita is growing and that means its airport will too. You cannot deny the fact.
Joe – how can Wichita be the third fastest growing when it is below average? Oh yea, you said “would be” whatever that means. “We hope it might happen”?
As for “it’s only a matter of time for southwest” are you speaking in geological time scales?
And as for Butler County I didn’t see your question – since we had been talking about “Wichita proper” initially I doubt that Butler makes a major impact; however I will look.
The difference between 60K and 100K is substantial.
Joe, Wichita’s air traffic has grown at about half the rate as traffic nationwide. Didn’t you read that?
Butler County – grew about 11,000 1990-2004.
So, the entire Sedgwick/Butler combined grew about 70K while “Wichita grew 100K” all by itself (sic). NOT!
Ok! Thanks for doing the research. I’ll use your stats for future use.
If you take that statitics of passenger growth, Wichita Mid-Continent has grown at a rate off 30%+
You better come up with stats that show the national average.
Joe, could you explain how you get the 30% figure, please?