The Fort Wayne International Airport is finally tackling the one thing that can increase its passenger numbers:
Airport officials designed the new site in part to counteract the tendency of people to search for cheap flights out of Indianapolis, Chicago and Detroit. According to airport research, 55 percent of passengers who should be flying out of Fort Wayne aren't. Indianapolis is the biggest draw, taking 31 percent of the potential market.
Holmes said with a little work, and with some help from the airport, people will find Fort Wayne's prices are competitive.
Not sure how this is going to work, though. I'm one of those lost travelers. My sister and I are flying to Texas later this month to visit our brother, and it's costing me $100 less to drive to Indianapolis, stay overnight with my sister and fly out with her. Even figuring in the cost of gas, I'll be about $70 ahead. It might be worth it to me for, say, $25 or $30, not to have to drive back to Fort Wayne once my trip is over. Not $70, though.
We used one of those e-ticket sites that compares the cost of flights coming and going through all the airports around here, not just FWI. Are people going to go to the Fort Wayne Web site to see the best fares for flying out of here, then just accept that without comparing it with the cost of flying out of Indy or Detroit? Don't think so.
Comments
The ONLY reason I ever go to the FWIA site is to register complaints about LOW-FLYING passenger jets that light up my patio at night, shaking the bric-a-brac in the process...or to find a particular flight number to report the incident to the aircraft's carrier company.
((You'd be surprised that they still have non-functioning equipment there (localizer) and can't get parts for it, due to age)...but you didn't hear me say that, 'K?))
Still, it is a nice, "user-freindly" site...I will give them that much...heh, heh, heh.
B.G.