Nonstop flight to Europe is on radar
The airports serving Cleveland and Cincinnati recently landed nonstop flights to Europe. The news has thrown a spotlight on the still-unsuccessful efforts in Columbus to do the same.
However, some local observers say it won’t be long before John Glenn Columbus International Airport offers such service.
On Aug. 23, both Icelandair and upstart ultra-low-cost carrier Wow Air added Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to their route maps, flying nonstop to Iceland with connecting service to more than two dozen European cities.
The same day, Wow also announced flights out of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Wow fares start as low as $100 each way to Iceland, and $150 to other European destinations.
Those Iceland flights are scheduled to start in the spring.
David Whitaker, chief commercial officer for the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, said Iceland air has met with him at Columbus’ request several times over the years, but Columbus hasn’t yet been in serious consideration.
Wow has “studied” Columbus a bit more and asked more questions but passed on the city without specifying the reasons, Whitaker said.
Whitaker and usually someone from the local business community meet regularly with officials of key international airlines, British Airways in particular. The London-based carrier announced last month that Nashville will get one of its coveted nonstop trans-Atlantic flights, reportedly beating out St. Louis.
Airlines look a several factors when committing to new routes. Incentives, called revenue guarantees, have become common. They’re essentially a promise by a government or private entity to make up any shortfall between an agreed-upon revenue amount and actual revenue over a set period, often two years.
The city of Columbus and Franklin County pledged a combined $1.7 million in revenue guarantees to land a nonstop flight to the San Francisco area (Oakland) on Southwest Airlines in 2015.
Whitaker said he does not think that incentives were the deciding factor in Columbus losing out to Cleveland and Cincinnati. The Columbus airport authority has incentives available of up to $675,000 in cash for new international service, plus waived fees for two years. That’s roughly comparable to other cities’ offers.
The Greater Cleveland Partnership, an alliance of business leaders, is providing financial support for the Wow flight, but the group declined to say how much, according to The Plain Dealer in Cleveland. A representative of REDI Cincinnati, an economic-development group, declined to comment on incentives for the Wow service.
Federal Aviation Administration rules limit what airports themselves can offer. Most, including John Glenn Airport, offer waived or reduced fees and matching funds up to a certain amount that can be used for marketing.
So incentives from non-airport sources are important, although they are not usually the deciding factor.
“Other things being equal, an airport with a lot of money in a small (market) is going to be less attractive than one in a large (market),” said Andrew Vasey, an Indianapolis-based aviation consultant.
In deciding where to add routes, airlines look first at the size of the market, followed by demographics and the other air service at an airport, Vasey said.
Both Cleveland and Cincinnati have had nonstop trans-Atlantic service, although Cleveland lost its in 2009. Delta Air Lines offers a flight to Paris from Cincinnati. Cleveland Hopkins had about 4 million passengers boarding planes last year, compared with Columbus’ 3.5 million and Cincinnati’s 3.2 million.
Stephen Lyons has joined Whitaker in some meetings with airline officials in his role as executive vice president of the Columbus Partnership, a group of local business leaders. Lyons also is part of a Columbus air-service task force, and as such he said he is “disappointed” that Columbus didn’t land flights to Iceland, although he added that the Cincinnati and Cleveland flights are good for Ohio. Lyons and Whitaker are confident that Columbus will get a nonstop flight to Europe soon.
Michael Boyd of Colorado-based consulting firm Boyd Aviation Group also told The Dispatch this summer he sees that happening in the near future.
Lyons added, “Like everything else we take on, you don’t win every time you’re at the table. For us, it’s about continuing to tell our story. We think eventually we’ll be at the top of the announcement.”