Airport hopeful carriers will stay

With the airline industry creaking under the weight of fuel prices, officials from the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport anxiously sought signals about what’s next for the local operation during an industry marketing meeting in Pittsburgh last week.

Their takeaway: Some flights are being cut here, while others may be added.

Major carriers now serving Charlottesville, though, offered some reassurance that they are satisfied with business here, even as recent passenger traffic has declined and low-fare competitors in Richmond lure local travelers to that airport.

And overhanging everything — oil prices continue to surge and add to general uncertainty about how the airline industry will be affected.

“Yes, we are in challenging times,” said Barbara Hutchinson, executive director of the local airport. “As I see it we are a thriving community and the airport has an excellent chance to come out of this relatively unscathed.”

Passenger traffic at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport has held steady and even inched up for most of the airport’s current fiscal year, which ends June 30, compared with the previous year.

Passenger traffic has grown by an average of 4.9 percent annually since 1982, according to airport statistics. Year-over-year declines in the current fiscal year, however, began in March.

The number of passengers boarding flights in May dropped by 18 percent, to 14,000, compared with May 2007.

Though June has gotten off to a good start, Hutchinson said, the trend has been worrisome.

Hutchinson also recently learned that Delta plans to suspend two daily roundtrip flights between Charlottes-ville and Cincinnati in September.

At the same time, she and the airport’s marketing director, Jason Burch, are hoping to convince Delta to add a third roundtrip flight to Atlanta.

Delta’s suspension of Cincinnati service could help the airport convince Continental to add service to some Midwest markets from Charlottesville, though there is no timetable on that effort.

Other changes recently set include US Airways cutting two direct flights to Charlotte, N.C., and replacing them with two flights to Philadelphia in September; as well as the temporary addition of a fifth daily flight to Dulles International Airport for the summer months by United Airlines.

Hutchinson said the airport’s general aviation operations — the side that includes private aviation such as corporate jets — saw business increase by 38 percent through April, compared with the previous year.

Despite some positives, and Hutchinson’s general sense that major airlines aren’t too concerned about the Charlottesville market, no one knows how rising fuel prices will play out.

Airlines have added carry-on bag fees and other charges, as well as raised ticket prices in general and slashed jobs to combat jet fuel costs that have surged in concert with the rising cost of oil.

One group, the Business Travel Coalition, last week issued a dire report forecasting airline liquidations and widespread economic trouble across the country as a result.

Airline industry consultant Michael Boyd was not as dramatic in an interview Friday, but said fuel prices will continue to fundamentally change air travel. The cost of air service will continue to climb, and nonstop service to markets such as New York or Chicago from Charlottesville will be less likely.

“Today, you’re looking at continuing your access to places like Atlanta,” he said. “You’re not dying, but you’re not going to see Southwest Airlines come into town.”

Hutchinson said the loss of a major carrier serving the Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport would cause obvious problems. If it happened, airport officials would encourage remaining airlines or others to add flights here, emphasizing the relative strength of the economy.

Though last week’s Pittsburgh trip was reassuring overall, Hutchinson conceded that industry struggles caused by fuel prices remain the most important and unknown factor.

“I can’t make any cheerful predictions because nobody knows what is going to happen,” she said.