As the airline industry keeps transitioning, the Capital City Airport continues to lose and add carriers, while still making strides to expand its overall services.

“On the passenger side, business still remains relatively flat,” said Robert F. Selig, executive director for the Capital Region Airport Authority. “The flight schedule in and out of Lansing has not recovered from the bankruptcy situations of both Northwest and Delta. The high cost of fuel is compounding our development and recovery efforts. Along with that, Allegiant Airlines has decided, because of the high cost of fuel, to cut back on their long-haul flying, which means Las Vegas service will be terminated on January 4. We are talking with other airlines who have more fuel-efficient aircraft to see if they can pick up that service, because the regional community, and almost the statewide community, demonstrates a real desire to go to Las Vegas, as well as Florida. There’s a real need there. We just need a carrier willing to do that.”

While the airport is losing some service, it is also bringing in a new carrier.

“Continental Airlines starts service on May 4 with three flights a day to Cleveland,” Selig explained. “They’re redoing that complete Cleveland hub. So we’re pretty excited about the opportunities that that brings to us, both in the way of new service connections, but also to fill the void that both Northwest and Delta have been unable to fill after the bankruptcies.”

There has also been growth on the cargo side, and the authority hopes to bring in more shipping business.

“We have lengthened the [cargo] runway to 8,000 feet,” said Selig. “We’re in the process of lengthening that to 8,500 feet. The second phase of the runway extension will require the relocation of DeWitt Road to the east. It will go out and around the end of the runway and hook back up to the existing road near where the State Road intersection is today.

“The whole goal is to land larger aircraft and have them depart to longer destinations,” he continued. “For longer flights, it’s a matter of being able to carry enough fuel on the plane to fly nonstop to the West Coast or Alaska, for example. We’ve also expanded the air cargo aircraft parking area to accommodate more airplanes. We are promoting that availability throughout the country to see if we can bring FedEx and DHL into the market, in addition to our UPS hub. UPS serves all of Michigan out of Lansing with 10 to 12 small aircraft a day. That cargo goes to all the cities in Michigan, including those in the Upper Peninsula. Then those planes bring freight back to put on larger aircraft to send out worldwide. We would like to develop a similar relationship with FedEx and DHL at some point.”

The authority is currently focusing on expanding service by bringing the airport into the international arena.

“Our biggest initiative right now is the expansion and implementation of an international airport program,” Selig stated. “We’ll start off as a U.S. port of entry. Along with that, we will establish a foreign trade zone, and both of those will enable us to land and clear both corporate aviation and air cargo aircraft through U.S. customs. We will open up a federal inspection station that will clear international passenger flights to Mexico, the Caribbean, and even potentially to European destinations. Those would be charter flights, similar to what Allegiant flies. It would not be regularly scheduled services, like you see at larger airports, but there would be special charter flights, which we see a large demand for.”

Eventually, the authority would like to attract an international cargo carrier as well. But, while the authority is seeking new avenues to attract business, its biggest challenge remains convincing local residents that it really is cost efficient to “Fly Lansing,” rather than driving to Detroit, and that not flying locally is a huge detriment to the community.

“For people who want a nonstop flight, driving into Detroit is still a connection, no matter how you look at it,” Selig noted. “People haven’t considered that part. Plus, parking [at the Detroit airport] is something like $23 a day, and ours is $8 a day, and the airfares are competitive. But people aren’t including the cost and time of driving to Detroit as part of that overall trip.

“Our research shows that we don’t have a lot of competition from Flint or Grand Rapids. I think our leakage to Grand Rapids is 5 percent and Flint is 4 percent. Our leakage to Detroit is 35 percent, and it’s really an economic issue for the region. We estimate that approximately 162,000 [local] people a year buy tickets and fly out of Detroit. If you multiply that by the average airfare of $300 round trip, you’re going to come up with an economic loss of probably $54 million a year.”