Stillwater Gets Grant For Airline Service to Dallas

[Bunty]

Hopefully, this can work to attract more business and industry to Stillwater without overly high air fare:

The city of Stillwater will receive $447,000 to be used toward establishing commericial air services between Stillwater Regional Airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe announced Tuesday. - See more at: BREAKING NEWS: Stillwater airport receives grant to pursue commercial airline » Local News » Stillwater NewsPress

[Bunty]

After Enid failed with its air service, due to lack of ridership, it's finally Stillwater's turn, a faster growing city, to see what it can do with such an opportunity. It's encouraging to note that Manhattan, KS, only somewhat bigger than Stillwater, is doing well with its passenger air service. In 2008 it had 16,489 passenger boardings. This figure increased to 68,955 boardings in 2012. In addition to Dallas, Manhattan has flights that go to Chicago. Source: Wiki.

[venture]

The details are all in the Commercial Aviation thread since this was actually put out on the 27th - but I guess 4 days after is Breaking News for Stillwater. LOL

http://www.okctalk.com/transportatio...tml#post690305

[Bunty]

An additional story: Stillwater Regional Airport lands grant to take flights » Local News » Stillwater NewsPress

[Dubya61]

Will this damage OKC's numbers any? Tulsa's? None of the above to any measurable extent?

[ou48A]

Good for Stillwater... This should do fairly well considering the low population base.
But it really needs to have great ridership if its going to last... federal grants for this type of air service to many locations are not likely to last much longer or else be seriously curtailed.
Maybe they can pull in passengers from Ponca City and Enid?

[venture]

Here is an evaluation I did a few months ago when the application was filed. It is relevant to this so I'll repost it.

Stillwater (SWO) application is available now.

DOT-OST-2013-0120-0057 - Proposal of Stillwater Regional Airport (City of Stillwater, OK) - Federal Notice

Fed Amount Requested - $447k
State cash contribution - $36k
Airport cash funds - $0
Non-airport cash funds - $3.365M (all local)
Airport in-kind contribution - $160k
Other in-kind - $250k
Total Project Cost - $4,258,600.00

• Target American Airlines (Eagle/Connection) service to Dallas/Fort Worth.
• Air service study indicates 674 local pax per day each way (pdew) overall - not just DFW.
• In-kind airport portion would be waived fees.
• SWO catchment area covers 195,000 residents.
• True market study shows 20.4 pdew for SWO-DFW local O&D market. 61% use OKC with 36% using TUL and 3% using DFW.

Planned Service

2 Daily Round Trips
ERJ-145 50-seat RJs
Expecting an 82% load factor
Starting April 2014

Total cost for the year would be $11.8 million with a revenue shortfall of $1.5 million over the course of the year. By January of 2015 they expect it to be in the black making $40-45k per month.

Alternate Plan if AA declines would be United to DEN or IAH.

This is a pretty large proposal based on other SCASD grant applications, but a significant chunk of that is for the purchase of equipment to handle an airline at SWO. That is all being lumped in here as part of the revenue guarantee to ease the entry for American.

My overall feeling is 50/50 on this one being approved. The application is well done, but I'm not sure how well it'll go over. They are only asking for a relatively small portion from the DOT, so that is always a plus. The big thing here for SWO is to get 10,000 ticketed passengers through the airport per year. Why that number? As soon as they qualify they will go from getting $150k a year to well over $1 million a year from the Airport Improvement Program fund. That's huge.

I wanted to hit on the True Market Study for SWO. I love these since they show what the market (catchment) area is actually doing. I recently asked if there was one for WRWA and Ms. Karney said there wasn't a need for one so they haven't done it. So for the SWO catchment area, which is essentially North central OK or roughly 40 miles around the airport. A lot of good information here. Not huge numbers by any means, but I think it shows that SWO could support more. I think they might be a good shot at Allegiant. Regardless, the goal for them is to get over that 10k pax mark to get making more money.

Below's chart is the market share for the SWO catchment area and where people are driver to. Vast majority go to OKC unless they are going to Washington for some reason.

	OKC	TUL	DFW	MARKET	PDEW
Las Vegas	71	27	2	20,617	28.2
Washington,	21	79	0	20,503	28.1
Houston,	75	24	0	20,006	27.4
Denver,	71	29	0	19,214	26.3
Orlando,	62	36	2	17,027	23.3
Phoenix,	55	43	2	15,249	20.9
Dallas,	68	32	0	14,858	20.4
Chicago,	60	39	1	12,101	16.6
Atlanta,	57	40	3	12,024	16.5
Baltimore,	64	36	0	11,545	15.8
San Diego	74	25	1	11,240	15.4
San Antonio	65	28	7	10,797	14.8
Domestic	61	37	2	455,881	624.5
International	63	30	7	36,431	49.9
Total	61	36	3	492,312	674.4

[venture]

Will this damage OKC's numbers any? Tulsa's? None of the above to any measurable extent?

Based on the information I posted...the max threat to OKC's numbers right now are 411 passengers a day. That is assuming everyone stops driving to OKC. That isn't going to happen. The 411 is pax each way...so 822 pax use OKC each day instead of SWO. If...IF...AA decides to take up the grant and start the service they are only going to be offering 200 seats in the markets per day - total. They are expecting it to grow to an 82% load factor after 1 year and that is still only 164. So really...OKC at worst should expect 100 pax hit per day. Allegiant is going to cover that.

[venture]

Good for Stillwater... This should do fairly well considering the low population base.
But it really needs to have great ridership if its going to last... federal grants for this type of air service to many locations are not likely to last much longer or else be seriously curtailed.
Maybe they can pull in passengers from Ponca City and Enid?

SCADS grant is only $10 million a year now...it isn't going anywhere since it is so minuscule. Success rate is fairly low overall thought and there isn't a guarantee that American will start the service. There are many grants that go unused.

[Bunty]

The great success that Manhattan, KS has had with its air service can surely in significant part be explained that the nearest big airport is around 120 miles away in Kansas City, MO, compared to Stillwater being around 70 miles from OKC and Tulsa airports.

A look at the Stillwater airport terminal building:

[onthestrip]

I could see one round trip a day but Im not sure I see the need for 2. Im sure the OSU students from the DFW area will like this though.

[catch22]

The problem for most college students (and the leisure traveler) is, these flights will be very expensive.

[venture]

I could see one round trip a day but Im not sure I see the need for 2. Im sure the OSU students from the DFW area will like this though.

You can't connect to a hub & spoke based system with one flight a day. You also can't justify the costs of the station for such low frequency. Granted the goal in all of this though is just to get 10,000 pax boarded with in a calendar year. They do that, SWO gets a $1 million plus pay check from the DOT.

[Bunty]

The problem for most college students (and the leisure traveler) is, these flights will be very expensive.

On the other hand, OSU alumni from Dallas are bound to want to fly in to watch OSU games. There's local executive demand. There is much more business and industry in Stillwater now than back around 1970, or whatever year it was when Frontier Airlines ended service to OKC and Tulsa.

[Bunty]

Stillwater council accepts airport grant » Local News » Stillwater NewsPress