Tallahassee Regional Airport

[poonther]

^Finally someone who really can explain it. Thanks SD!

As a very frequent flyer (I was just out at TLH yesterday) I am definitely NOT grateful for the strangle hold that Delta has on this market. Like I've said before, I will do everything in my power NOT to fly Delta. I have a trip coming up in late June to SF and Delta's ticket price was $100 more than all the other airlines and I was very flexible w/my times and dates. However Delta would fly me out of Valdosta for the same price the other airlines would fly me out of TLH. That one I've never understood....why Delta is cheaper out of Valdosta especially since Delta is the only airline there. Of course using the other airlines than Delta means using a CRJ, but hey I'm short so it's no problem for me.

And GG, the quote you pulled out before about what the Mayor said.....well that's called a "spin job." Ever heard of the concept?

[Go Gators]

And GG, the quote you pulled out before about what the Mayor said.....well that's called a "spin job." Ever heard of the concept?

Why no, im not familiar with the concept!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/or...business-promos

[stjoe]

I used to be a Delta Platnium and now just a gold, but I like flying out of Tally and Delta. Bottom line it sucks flying unless you are on a private jet.

But if you are not happy about Tally....it is about to get a LOT worse because Panama City is about to open an international airport that will kill Tally.

So get ready for change.

[Florida]

I think local officials have done a poor job preparing this community for the comptition that we've long known has been coming from Panama City.

[poonther]

I used to be a Delta Platnium and now just a gold, but I like flying out of Tally and Delta. Bottom line it sucks flying unless you are on a private jet.

But if you are not happy about Tally....it is about to get a LOT worse because Panama City is about to open an international airport that will kill Tally.

So get ready for change.

Always just been gold here SJ. Glad to hear you like flying out of TLH, so do I....it's so easy.....if you can get a price and time you like.

I think the PC airport is still a good 5 to 10 yrs off? I could be wrong about that, but I did drive by the site about a week ago and nothing is happening yet. While I think this will be a threat, I'm still not sure how much of a one it will be. It's in West Bay which puts it about 130 miles from TLH and the drive there isn't that easy. PC's air traffic is considerably lower than ours and I'm not sure how many new airlines will follow them out there since most of their traffic is seasonal. I do think they will really start to beat us in the air cargo game before they beat us in passenger traffic.

Did you know PC's airport already is an international airport? They got this designation years ago b/c they use to fly a charter jet in from Canada a few times a year for the snowbirds that wintered there. Now w/not that many Canadian snowbirds in the area anymore, I doubt they still fly that charter.

But TJ you are correct, our officials should begin preparing now.

[Florida]

Poonther,

One of the biggest concerns I've gotten about our airport came when I was speaking to a high ranking city official who basicially had this "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it" attitude. This is exactly what we OUGHT NOT DO. Like you said Poonther, now is the time to act and I think our buddy SkyDave has a great start-up plan. But I will not back down from my position that we need a discount air carrier. I know our airport gets a major boost from government and educational users, but there are passengers that are still driving to other cities to fly because of lower fares. We need to get those people back, and we need to reach out to our region as SD has said many times.

Why not get Tallahassee an international designation as well? I'm sure with all of the sisiter city activity we've got going on, there is some destination that we could have a few flights a year to. We need to peep Panama City's edge before it becomes an issue. If we start now, the only advantage they'll have over us is the Fresh paint. I still think this may affect Pensacola a bit more than ourselves.

[SkyDave]

Tallahassee will be less affected by Panama City Airport relocation. Their new location puts them in direct competition with the Ft. Walton Beach Airport. Both airports are highly seasonal and will compete for the same geographic area.... Bay County, Walton, Washington, Okaloosa, and Holmes Counties.

I really believe Tallahassee has a prime opportunity to actually pickup market share with Jackson, Gulf, Calhoun and Liberty counties if we become more aggressive in our marketing efforts.

Also, I am currently considering writing the mayor and his airport management team to commend them for visiting Delta headquarters and communicating "an understanding of intentions". http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a.../705030338/1003

I want to encourage them to do this with US Airways, Northwest, Continental, American, and United. I will encourage them to bring more to the table in their negotiations for more point to point destinations if Delta falls through. (i.e. Washington, NYC, Chicago) This will give these airlines an incentive to include Tallahassee for potential new routes. The more competition we have the lower the fares. The lower the fares..... the less we have people driving to Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville or Atlanta.

[Florida]

How about we all get behind this. I wish there was a way we could all sign it, like a petition. SD, I'd really like to start rolling out "The Plan" soon.

[poonther]

SD I agree that the new PC airport will almost absolutely kill the Okaloosa (FWB) airport. But then I think maybe that's what they want since this airport shares space w/Eglin AFB.

I also agree that this move by PC will put the counties you mentioned (Jackson, Gulf and Franklin etc) closer to our airport and not PC's. Port St. Joe will now be 1.5 hrs away from PC same as from TLH, but the drive here will be less congested since they won't have to go all the way through PC and PCB on US 98. In Gulf and Franklin you are starting to see tremendous change w/St. Joe's properties WindMark Beach and Summer Camp and as always SGI tourist traffic.

WindMark Beach IMHO is about to become and exclusive and high-end resort w/this announcement from JOE:

The St. Joe Company (JOE) announced today it has signed an agreement with Miraval Holding LLC to jointly design, develop and operate Miraval Village at WindMark Beach, which will be the next incarnation of Miraval's acclaimed, signature experiences in an inspired town and resort destination.

Separately, Exclusive Resorts, the world's largest luxury destination club, plans to purchase 30 home sites at JOE's WindMark Beach and its Southern Accents Home. Exclusive Resorts intends to build luxury residences and offer its members privileges and access to the amenities and programs in the planned Miraval Village at WindMark Beach. (Thanks to Glenn for my head's up on this.)

So you are right, now is the time to market ourselves to them.

Now if I had my wish list for TLH realistically it would read something like this:

A United flight to ORD (Chicago)

An American Eagle flight to DFW

A flight to DIA or DCA (Washington)

An in state flight to RSW (Ft Myers)

And bring back the direct PBI flight

And as always the long shot wish: discount airline coming back.

Any progress in the above connections would be great and helpful and I don't think all or part of this wish list is too far-fetched if we had the right motivated people running the airport.....say like a private management company.

[Go Gators]

I thought "Intl Airport" designation had more to do with agricultural stuff rather than actual international flights?!?!

[SkyDave]

Alright Folks....Here is the letter: Give me your thoughts

Dear Mayor Marks,

Subject: Airport Future

I would like to express my elation and gratitude for you and your airport management team for taking the initiative to meet with Delta Airline officials. I would like to also commend Mr. Austin, Mr. Paul Inglese and Randy Hanna for being proactive in trying to gain an understanding of Deltas future intentions. Great Job Team! As a frequent flyer and user of our fine Airport I would like to offer my support and encouragement for you and your team to continue these efforts. I am no expert but I would also like to offer some suggestions to help move your team to think outside the box in order to generate passenger growth that would enable us to have more airline competition resulting in lower fares.

Tallahassee Airport needs an independent web site. I have researched via the internet airport web sites in cities of similar size or smaller than Tallahassee. They all have an independent web site dedicated to serving their region outreach. Unfortunately, the Tallahassee web is buried within the City of Tallahassee's web site. It is neither informative nor user friendly for the traveler of today. The following links instantly proves my point.

http://www.hsvairport.org/hia/index.html Huntsville, Alabama

http://www.gspairport.com/ Greenville, South Carolina

http://www.chattairport.com/ Chattanooga, Tennessee

http://www.tys.org/ Knoxville, Tennessee

http://www.gra-gnv.com/ Gainesville, Florida

If we are going to negotiate with the airlines, they need to know that we mean business and we will market their flights aggressively using ALL means of communication available.

Mr. Mayor, monies must be allocated to ensure that the message goes out across the entire region that Tallahassee Airport wants your business. Our new web site must communicate that we have our red carpet out, and we are ready to make traveling easy.

We must be aggressive in Marketing our Airport. We need to hire an ad agency to help market our airport to the entire North Florida and South Georgia region. Mr. Mayor, you have a unique opportunity to stop the current slide in passenger usage by taking the lead in being "the center of gravity" in ensuring that Tallahassee Regional lives out its mandate as the "Airport of Record" for Bainbridge, Cairo, Thomasville, Quitman, Moultrie, and Tifton on the Georgia side. Also, make it on the Florida side in Apalachicola, Marianna, Blountstown, Carrabelle, Crawfordville, Perry, Monticello, Madison, and Live Oak. This is our true market and we need to own it!!! This is a region of 18 counties and almost a million people. There is NO reason for us not to be actively pursuing the traveling dollars in our region. Here is an example:

http://www.chattairport.com/testimonials/index.htm

Your airport team needs your leadership on this. We need a top notch aggressive advertising campaigns that will help keep the passenger levels up during the summer seasons and ensures the airport will fulfill its capacity in the fall and winter.

Negotiate for Point to Point Destinations: We need to expand our current Airline offerings by meeting with all the legacy carriers. We need meetings of understanding with US Airways, Continental, Northwest, as well as United and American airlines. Mr. Mayor, your personal attention in driving this proposed initiative could result in more point to point routes for Tallahassee Regional. Key cities of interest are New York, Washington, Chicago, Dallas and direct commuter flights to Ft. Myers and West Palm Beach. I believe all these cities are consistently in the "top ten cities list" for tickets purchased at TLH. This would be a great selling point for getting United and American into the market with their regional jets United Express and American Eagle. I would urge you not to promise any deals with Delta until you explore all avenues with personal visitations by you and your team to these other carriers. The links I provided above will show you that each of these airports have successfully negotiated with ALL carriers in order to improve service in their region. We need to be aggressive in order to catch up with other airports of similar size.

Mr. Mayor, we have a gorgeous airport with excess capacity and tremendous upside potential. We need to continue our pursuit of leveraging this asset with the end result of landing a true discount carrier like Jet Blue or Southwest. As you know, this will never happen until we get passenger levels up. The traveling population exists within our region. We need to be proactive and aggressively pursue them.

Lastly, I would like to suggest a challenge for your Airport team. Why not have mandatory yearly targeted goals for your airport team to meet. (i.e.5% passenger increases each year, with yearend bonuses for exceeding targets). Your Airport team will have a singular purpose of doing everything they can to meet their goals thereby ensuring we get the results we need.

[Florida]

Great letter SD! I was just dying for you to roll out the mat. I'll get to work on a few visuals. I think once the letter is recieved by the mayor, we should do a presentation at a city commission meeting or schedule a citizen's meeting with him and the commissioners to share your ideas.

Well done SD!

[Florida]

I'm at work so my access to software is limited, but here's what I was able to scratch up in terms of TLH's direct connections to other cities.

[Florida]

SD, what do you think of "Tallahassee Metro Airport"?

[SkyDave]

TJ, It appears our current designation as a Regional Airport is the last step before International Status. We just need to become what our designation infers. The pecking order looks to be as follows:

1. International
   
2. Regional
   
3. Metropolitan
   
4. Municipal
   

Check out this web site:

http://www.freesearching.com/airport_na.htm

This is why I would like our leaders to pursue making our Airport area a free international trade zone. This appears to be the quickest route many other cities our size are taking to get to the next level classification. Check out these web sites from Huntsville, AL, Columbia, S.C., and Wilmington, N.C. There are many more examples I could pull, but I chose these because they are in the southeast and have the same challenges we face. The difference is in Leadership and Vision.

http://www.hsvairport.org/ Huntsville, Al. (click on International Intermodal Center)

http://www.columbiaairport.com/ Columbia, S.C. (click on Columbia tab, cursor down to Free Trade Zone)

http://www.flyilm.com/index.asp Wilmington, N.C. (click on Business Park)

[poonther]

SD I think your letter about the airport is great. I commend you for taking the time to research all the info. and then to put it together and send it to our leaders.

I like the fact that you first start off thanking and congratulating them and not bashing them from the get-go as so many of these type of letters do.

I agree w/all your points and especially your second post about the trade zones. That is such an important thing to do and w/the size of our runways and the vacant land we have out at TLH, there's no reason at all not to pursue this idea. I can't believe the powers that run this place haven't been working on this yet.

It's pretty sad and telling when a Metro less than half our size and an airport way smaller than us w/only one airline servicing it has an easier to access web site than we do: FLYDOTHAN

This is just a suggestion, but often on first contact w/people, they are more likely to read your letter to the fullest if it's only one page if it is typed and sent and in an email, you will loose readers from reading the the entire message sometimes if they have to scroll very much in the email. So if there is a way to make this standard fit your message, without you losing any valuable content, that would be my only suggestion. I also like the use of your links. I see your trying to make this as easy as possible for them.

Good Job!

After you send this out, please keep us posted on any and all responses you get. If you'd like to meet w/the airport people or w/the Mayor or any of the Commissioners and don't wanna got it alone, I'll be happy to accompany you.

[Florida]

I'm still working on those visuals for you SD.

[SkyDave]

TJ, Thanks, let me know if you need any other documentation.

Poonther, I really appreciate your suggestions. I wrote a 3 page type written letter to the mayor and the entire city commission about the airport in January 2006. It took a month for it to work its way through the bureaucracy. I got a type written response from the mayor, an e-mail letter from Commissioner Mustain, and a phone call from Asst. Airport Director Paul Ingelese. That phone call lasted 45 minutes. He asked me to consider being a part of the citizens airport advisory committee. At this point, I could not due to scheduling conflicts. I do hope to revisit that invitation at a later date.

The letter above is about a page and half type written. I tried to make it more concise, but due to the importance of each bulletin point I could get to the one page. Lets see what happens with this one.

Lastly, I would love for you or any other UP member to be with us (TJ and me) when we go before the city commission with our findings.

[Florida]

SD, there's this meeting on the 9th? Do you want to try to make this meeting or would you like to try some other day. I think I can do the upcoming meeting if I get to work right now on those visuals for you. I really like the fact that you've come up with some good comps.

I'll be focusing on Pensacola, Mobile, Huntsville, Greenville for the Airport websites... I may even throw in Lincoln NE and Jackson, MS.

I'll make a chart to show each city's passenger annual passenger count, population, and direct routes flown.

I'll make note of Cities that are served by discount carriers as well.

And try to piece together some ideas for Tallahassee's independent website.

[SkyDave]

TJ, The 9th poses a scheduling conflict for me. Lets try for the next council meeting.

[Florida]

Here are some of the visuals I've put together. I was able to find good info for 3 comps. Pensacola, Mobile, and Huntsville, AL. I searched the other cities I mentioned but information was not available for them.

I'll attach the graphics.

I've also taken screen shots of their websites for comparison.

TJ, The 9th poses a scheduling conflict for me. Lets try for the next council meeting.

Perfect. That'll give me a chance to pull together more information and also allow me to go out with my friends tonight!

[poonther]

SD, if 1.5 pages is as short as you can make it w/out losing content, so be it. Besides if you've had contact w/them before, that helps.

TJ excellent graphs! They show up great. Maybe comas in the large numbers at the bottom of each graph would help them be easier to read?

Two questions:

I'm not really sure where you guys are exactly going w/all of this, but will it hurt, help or make no difference that Mobile and P'cola are geographically so close together and pull passengers from the each other's markets?

And second, where'd you get your Market Area info from? I'm surprised that Huntsville/Decatur's market area is THAT large even if it takes in the The Shoals Area (Florence, Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals.)

Keep us posted on what date you guys plan to do this. If I'm in town, I'd like to show up and watch you guys in action.

[Florida]

The info came from the individual airport's websites. I think I'd like to make few phone calls to get numbers from a person on the market info for the other cities I would like in this comp. I put Pensacola and Mobile on here together to show the affect (I believe) the discount carrier has on the traffic of two airports.

[SkyDave]

Some of those statistics may be dated. I will see what I can find and get back to you.

[Florida]

ok