The future of the Flathead economy may not rest solely on the shoulders of business owners and the employment market, but also on the wings of the planes flying into and out of the valley.
The ability to fly the friendly skies above Northwest Montana will also play a major role in the future of the economy’s stability, according to the panel of speakers at a recent Kalispell Chamber of Commerce luncheon.
“We cannot exist – we’ll be dead in the water – if we don’t have access to markets and markets don’t have access to us,” Joe Unterreiner, the Kalispell chamber president, said.
Transportation to and from the Flathead continues to be a focal issue for the chamber and many businesses throughout the valley. Businesses can start here, but if there isn’t a feasible, timely way to get their product out or customers in, they will likely stall, Unterreiner said.
Glacier Park International Airport, the valley’s largest air travel hub, continues to serve a consistently high number of travelers, with more than 452,500 passing through the gates one way or the other in 2014.
Already this year, GPIA has seen more than 109,700 travelers, according to the state Department of Transportation statistics, with increases in arriving and boarding passengers in January, February and March when compared to the same months of 2014’s record-breaking year.
And this year, the airport wraps up a nine-year, $32 million capital improvement project that has improved the infrastructure and appearance at the hub.
“We have pretty much rebuilt every piece of pavement out there and added more,” Cindi Martin, airport director at GPIA, said.
The hope is that better facilities will make the airport more attractive for current visitors, but the main goal is to be more attractive for air carriers that could potentially add flights to the valley’s schedule.
“We’re also charged with air service development, but this takes a village,” Martin said.
Air traffic has increased at the airport, she said, but the goal is to improve flight numbers in the shoulder seasons of fall and spring to bring them more in line with the burgeoning flights during the summer and winter.
Great facilities play a part in bringing in more flights, Martin said, but as more small airports try to attract such expansions from air carriers, it’s become important to have a revenue guarantee to help make adding flights more palatable for the risk-averse airlines.
Since the Federal Aviation Agency prohibits airports from providing such guarantees, private groups like Glacier AERO are becoming staples for small airports across the country, she said.
AERO, formed in 2012, is responsible for the $235,000 minimum revenue guarantee that wooed United Airlines in 2014 into providing a weekly direct flight to and from Chicago-O’Hare on Saturdays.
With that money, the airline can be reimbursed for any losses they might have if flights aren’t full enough. Dan Graves, CEO at Whitefish Mountain Resort and member of the AERO board, said the airline estimated each round trip would cost $27,000; the flights from December through April were 67 percent full, and AERO only ended up spending $16,000 of the $235,000 revenue guarantee.
“It was pretty darn successful,” Graves said.
The Chicago flights catered to 750 passengers, and the airport’s direct flight to Denver was not aversely affected, Graves noted.
United decided to renew the Chicago flight for 2015-2016, Graves said, and is considering adding a midweek flight in addition to the Saturday trips. The renewal is also an opportunity to negotiate a new revenue guarantee with the airline, he said, and it will likely end up at 30 percent less than the original agreement.
With the Chicago flight considered a success, AERO hopes to bring in more flights to GPIA, Graves said, including to somewhere in the southern part of the country – likely Texas, he said – and the Bay area in California.
Martin said the airport’s direct flight to Portland, which started last year and only occurs during the summer season, has also been successful, and the airport is in discussions with Alaska Airlines about expanding the service into the fall and winter.
And while much of the external focus on increasing air service to the Flathead is placed on tourism, visitors on vacation only account for 34 percent of all travel to the valley, including travel by highway and train.
Most of the travel is for business, and Graves said more air travel has made a difference at Whitefish Mountain Resort, where he estimated the new Chicago flight brought in at least 250 skiers.
“It was very much a success in my mind,” Graves said.
Martin acknowledged the high price of flying into the Flathead, and said the airport has nothing to do with setting prices; rather, it’s a matter of supply and demand.
“We have very full aircraft in the summer, and if someone doesn’t want to pay for the $600 seat, someone else will,” she said.
With the future of the Flathead economy resting partially in the clouds, Martin said the airlines must be convinced to expand here, and AERO has already experienced success in this regard.
“In order to bring more people here, we’re going to need more seats in the market,” Martin said.