Continental ends flights to Alabama capital

— -- Community and airport leaders in Montgomery were forced to accept that Continental Airlines was leaving the market. The last flight to Houston takes off today. Now, they have to figure out exactly what that means.

When Houston-based Continental announced in June that it was dropping its twice daily service between Montgomery Regional Airport and Houston, leaders expressed hope that they could convince the airline to stay put. Failing that, they wanted to find another carrier to take its place.

Those efforts barely got off the ground.

Airport and business leaders are left to put a happy face on a tough situation while figuring out exactly how badly it is going to hurt.

Officials at the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce promised a no-holds-barred fight to keep the airport's only flight west of the Mississippi River when Continental made its announcement June 12.

Ellen McNair, the chamber's senior vice president of corporate development, said there simply was no way to keep Continental.

"We have come up empty. This is a tough time," she said.

Calls to Northwest to arrange meetings yielded nothing. Efforts to meet with airline executives were rebuffed. Other airlines didn't want to talk with Montgomery officials about serving the airport.

Jerry Kyser, a member of the airport authority and chairman of its marketing committee, said he had little leverage to use with Continental.

On average, the flights to Houston had more filled seats than most of the airport's other flights — airport officials could not promise to find a way to generate more passengers.

"They were not receptive to meeting with us," he said.

Continental's departure leaves two major problems for the airport: a loss of revenue and a loss of options for passengers headed to western destinations.

Kyser said he thought Northwest, which flies to Memphis, presents at least some options for passengers. Airport leaders are taking a wait-and-see attitude on the revenue.

"I think now we can promote Northwest," Kyser said. "We will try to market and push it."

The head of the airport's marketing department will be expected to shoulder much of that load, but airport officials have been in no rush to fill the position.

McNair said having the marketing job filled would focus more energy on recruiting and keeping airlines, but some airport officials disagreed.

"We need somebody who works on this every day and this is what they do," McNair said.

Kyser and Phil Perry, the airport's executive director, said the head of marketing will have other responsibilities.

"I don't think a marketing head could have done any more than the Chamber, Airport Authority and others," Perry said.

"A marketing director can do a lot of very good things," he said. But airline retention and recruiting will only be one job the marketing director is charged with.

"The economy and the state of the industry will be the dominant factors as airlines consider route expansion, constriction and/or their ability to maintain routes that are now in place."

Continental carried about 10% of all commercial passengers to or from Montgomery, but Perry said the financial impact of the airline's move is hard to measure.

"We are not ready to discuss budget information," Perry said, adding that the staff is working on the fiscal year budget for 2009, which will be presented to the board in October.

Kyser said the authority can quantify Continental's rent and landing fees, but it is more difficult to figure what the impact will be in other areas such as parking.

"We don't know how many of those people are going to fly another airline or just use another airport," he said.

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