Springfield's Capital Airport has a problem Michael Boyd can't quite understand.

On paper it looks like a good bet. The centrally located regional airfield should draw executives and vacation travelers alike. Further, the capital city is a frequent destination for lawmakers, lobbyists and everyone else who has business with the state. Yet the number of passengers choosing to fly to and from Springfield has declined in the last four years. In the first six months of 1997, boardings were down 6,000 passengers. The overall decline in the capital city is among the steepest for Illinois airports, according to Aviation Systems Research Corp., a Colorado-based consulting firm commissioned by the state to evaluate Illinois airports. Between 1993 and 1995, the latest dates figures are available from the group, air passenger traffic to and from Springfield dropped by 20 percent.

And that's what puzzles the president of Aviation Systems. "Politicians and lawyers," Boyd says. "That's the best traffic for an airport."

In fact, it's not that fewer people are moving through Springfield. It's just that fewer people are using the airport.

It's true that Capital Airport has had some bad breaks of late. Earlier this year Chicago's Meigs Field — used by many state officials and others doing business at the Capitol — closed temporarily amid a political battle between the governor and the mayor over the tiny airfield's future. And one Springfield carrier — Great Lakes Aviation based in Spencer, Iowa — voluntarily shut down operations briefly this spring after the Federal Aviation Administration raised questions about safety.

But now another carrier, American Eagle based in Chicago, is debating whether to reduce its Springfield service. And that debate gets to the heart of the matter.

Capital Airport's real problems are rooted in just such shifts in the air travel industry. It's cheaper for carriers' — and for passengers — to concentrate service at the busier airports. Federal deregulation of the industry makes that possible. Though one of the busier downstate airports, with more than 100,000 takeoffs and landings a year, Springfield is still small potatoes in the overall commercial airline industry. And many travelers Capital Airport might attract are choosing instead to drive to St. Louis and fly out of Lambert Field. In fact, Capital officials estimate losing as many as 50,000 passengers a year to Lambert.

Springfield is not alone in facing such competition. In fact, regional airports across the state are finding it increasingly difficult to compete in a reorganized airline industry. Between 1994 and 1995, passenger traffic at the Greater Peoria Regional Airport dropped by 17,000 passengers, according to Aviation Systems. In that same period, the drop at Champaign's University of Illinois-Willard Airport was 14,000 passengers. At the Decatur Airport, 5,000.

Decatur's numbers reflect another trend. Though the passenger-loss number is lower, the declining passenger base in that central Illinois city led Great Lakes to drop its Chicago route, leaving Decatur with only one carrier:
St. Louis-based Trans World Express.

"We encourage the community to use their service or they'll lose it," says Capital Airport spokeswoman Karon Keith.

Indeed, fewer downstate passengers are using the service of regional airports. And more airports are losing it.

That shift in air travel is significant — for the state as a whole, as well as for communities that want to boast the availability of air service.

Chicago's airports automatically come to mind when people think about aviation in Illinois, but the state's 119 other airports are important, too: Combined, they contribute $2.1 billion to the state's economy, according to a recent report by the Illinois Department of Transportation. And that means dollars for local coffers. Communities profit directly from the jobs airports provide. They share in the revenues of restaurants, car rental services and other businesses associated with airports. The money

18 / September 1997 Illinois Issues

passengers spend for such services is recycled throughout the community.

Most communities welcome the business growth associated with airports, but changes in the air industry have left some downstate airports in a tailspin. At Springfield's Capital Airport, each passenger generates about $8 per trip. So losing 50,000 passengers annually to Lambert translates into a loss of roughly $400,000 a year.

In response, many are scrambling to find ways to keep passengers. Three strategies appear key: consolidating services with other communities, adding new routes and attracting smaller carriers.

The airline marketplace wasn't always so risky. Prior to deregulation of the industry in 1978, the federal government required carriers to provide service to regional airports in smaller communities. But deregulation was designed to end government's intrusion in the marketplace, save for the imposition of federal safety standards. Airlines are now free to determine their routes, and, for reasons of financial self-interest, they're concentrating their flight plans more and more around "hubs"— large airports where mega-carriers are based.

Illinois has 12 airports throughout the state that handle passenger service through such mega-carriers as Chicago-based United and Minneapolis- based Northwest. But of those 12 airports, only O'Hare serves as a hub. . The other 11 are regional airports that carry shorter routes, many of them feeding passengers to O'Hare to the ; north and Lambert to the south. Illinois' remaining airports handle general aviation — private traffic consisting of business travel or pleasure flying.

Essentially, the state's role in this , deregulated environment is to I coordinate capital improvements at the airports through the Department of Transportation's Division of Aeronautics.

For their part, the airlines operate a "hub and spoke system." Passengers ; fly to a hub and transfer to a connecting flight to their final destination. By fanning out flights from a centrally located hub, airlines found they could efficiently serve more routes — and drop the less profitable ones.

Consumer groups laud deregulation for making air fares more competitive, but another consequence of the hub and spoke system is to leave the smaller, regional airports out of the loop.

"Ever since deregulation, smaller airports have had a problem attracting service and keeping it," says Caria Berroyer, chief of urban planning for the transportation department.

Southern Illinois has been hit especially hard. Since Great Lakes Airlines closed the Carbondale leg of its Carbondale-Springfield-Chicago route last fall, the Southern Illinois Airport has had no scheduled air service. "We're always looking," says airport manager Gary Shafer, "but the opportunities for smaller airports have decreased substantially."

Since losing Great Lakes, the Southern Illinois Airport has carried only general aviation.

While deregulation did contribute to the shift of flights to St. Louis, critics cite a lack of strategic planning for the decline of air service in the region. Airports in southern Illinois should have consolidated their efforts, making one airport the main commercial airport, according to consultant Boyd, That airport could have kept a commercial presence in southern Illinois. Instead, all of the airports gradually lost service. Now the only southern Illinois airport with commercial service to a major hub is Marion's Williamson County Regional Airport. Passenger levels for the entire region are nearly half of what they were a decade ago and projections from Aviation Systems show that, if the trend continues, southern Illinois will lose commercial air service entirely by 2006.

Consolidation is a bitter pill few communities — which could end up losing air service — are willing to swallow. Yet aviation trends suggest that, in time, downstate passenger traffic will consolidate into several regional airports. In short, fewer airports will handle more traffic. With more and more passengers using Lambert, southern Illinois isn't likely to be part of that picture. Without a demonstrated passenger base, attracting and keeping any kind of commercial service in that region will be difficult, if not impossible, says Boyd.

Airports in central Illinois are in better shape. Yet, with Lambert as its primary competitor, Capital has been consistently losing passengers. From a peak of 132,000 passengers in 1993, passenger levels at the Springfield airport last year fell below 100,000 for the first time in more than 20 years. Analysts chalk that up to the cost of flying a plane. Put simply, regional airports have difficulty generating the ' passenger traffic necessary to make regional routes profitable. Because fewer people fly on the shorter routes, air carriers have to charge more per passenger to make the routes pay.

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Federal aid still exists and, theoretically, any community could build an airport. But the boom years are over.

Most central Illinois airports offer passenger service to Chicago and St. Louis, but travelers — calculating their own costs — often choose to drive and park instead.

In an effort to increase the number of passengers, officials at some regional airports are attempting to add routes. Service to more hubs, they reason, would expand a passenger's options. Capital Airport, for example, is discussing with Northwest the possibility of adding a route to Memphis, Tenn., one of that carrier's hubs.

"We have always looked for other services to supplement our existing service. That's an ongoing issue," says Capital's Karon Keith. But the addition of the Memphis route, or any route, is in the airline's hands. If a route isn't profitable, an airline won't maintain the service. Still, the strategy can pay off. And most analysts believe access to major hubs is a key to the growth of any airport. Champaign's Willard Airport, for example, carries nonstop service to six connecting hubs via airlines such as Northwest and United.

At the same time, the departure of established airlines from smaller airports has created opportunities for regional airports to market themselves to low-cost carriers. And few airports have been as aggressive — or as successful — at pursuing that strategy as Bloomington's Central Illinois Regional Airport. Passenger levels at that airport have risen steadily every year since the mid-'80s. In fact, Bloomington's Central is the only regional airport in the state that isn't suffering declines. Airport officials believe it's partly because travelers at Bloomington have more choices. They can buy tickets on American, Northwest or TWA. But they can also choose airlines with lower profiles — and often lower fares. Denver-based Frontier and Orlando-based AirTran are hardly household names, but those airlines have found a niche serving regional airports like Bloomington's.

Because the nation's largest carriers control more than 90 percent of commercial air travel in the United States, the niche carved by these low-cost carriers is a small one. But by serving shorter routes to smaller airports, they are competing well against the megacarriers.

The expansion of Southwest Airlines into Chicago's Midway Airport may be the best example of a low-cost carrier stepping in to fill a vacuum left by a more established airline. The Dallas-based carrier already had a sizable fleet in St. Louis and had also been flying out of Midway since 1985. When Midway Airlines closed in the fall of 1991, Southwest seized the opportunity to pick up those flights and shore up its Midwestern presence. Now, most of Midway Airport's flights belong to Southwest. And Midway accrues the benefits.

Still, adding a low-cost carrier might not be the answer for every regional airport. An airport with a declining passenger base would be hard-pressed to convince any carrier to locate there. And a low-cost carrier may not want to relocate near an area where a competitor is already entrenched.

The story of air travel in Illinois has always been about change. When Midway opened as the Chicago Municipal Airport in 1923, its traffic was mostly mail — typical of airports at the time. But by 1932, passenger service made it the busiest airport in the world. Passenger service, though not widespread, was clearly growing in Illinois.

Congress took note of the growth in this state and others, establishing the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1930. One of the board's objectives was to create a national system of airports. The use and domestic construction of planes during World War II helped promote aviation's popularity and, in 1947, the federal government began a program of matching grants to any municipality that could come up with the cash to build an airport. Those grants spurred airport construction in Illinois, including Springfield's, Decatur's and Mattoon's Coles County Memorial Airport in central Illinois, Quincy's Baldwin Field on the western border and Meigs in Chicago.

Federal aid still exists and, theoretically, any community that meets federal guidelines could build an airport. But clearly, the boom years are over.

According to the transportation department, Illinois averages one new airport every three to five years, all for general aviation. The newest is the MidAmerica Airport in Belleville, a general aviation airport designed to relieve Lambert. Scheduled to open in October, MidAmerica won't necessarily lure passenger service to southern Illinois, as some of its promoters hope. Any general aviation airport that wants to expand must first convince carriers it has the passenger base to support them. With proximity to Lambert, travelers might just as easily drive across the river to St. Louis.

Some airports will weather the latest changes in the industry. The rise of Bloomington's airport, for one, is a standout. Yet, for others, the forecast is grim.

And the transportation department's Berroyer says the state has no formal plan to intervene. Success or failure for any Illinois regional airport, she says, will depend on planning by airport officials at the local level.

"It's pretty much up to the individual airports and the communities to decide what to do." �

20 / September 1997 Illinois Issues