SRQ passenger numbers drop 10 percent during summer months

During the summer, Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport lost daily service with United Airlines to Chicago as well as JetBlue Airways’ service to John F. Kennedy International in New York. Those losses led to a 10 percent drop in passengers at SRQ between June and August, according to airport activity reports.

It’s a deeper ding to SRQ’s passenger numbers than last summer’s drop, when the airport’s passenger counts dropped by 2 percent, per the reports.

“August was a little bit worse because of the storm that came through and canceled a bunch of traffic with the hurricane that skirted the area,” SRQ President and CEO Fredrick “Rick” Piccolo said. “We knew it would be that way through the summer and it will pick back up in October.”

To begin SRQ’s seasonal traffic, United’s Chicago flight returns on Thursday and JetBlue begins flights to Boston and JFK airport on Oct. 30.

JetBlue will not provide service to both LaGuardia and Kennedy, both in New York, as it did in previous years. The LaGuardia flight will stop on Oct. 29, the day before the JetBlue JFK flight starts.

United’s Chicago service is bookable on the airline’s website through August 2017.

While SRQ’s new air service to Portland, Maine, with Elite Airways will not entirely offset the losses from the break in the United and JetBlue flights, Piccolo hopes to see SRQ’s relationship with Elite grow and “eventually offset all of it.”

Meanwhile, Mark Stuckey, the airport’s vice president of special projects and development, continues to court airlines for service at SRQ, often with the help of the area’s tourism bureaus.

Visit Sarasota County and the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau have budgeted up to $350,000 in incentives and marketing initiatives for airlines or for securing new air service at SRQ.

Visit Sarasota Executive Director Virginia Haley and Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Elliott Falcione both spoke optimistically about bringing not just additional air service to SRQ, but also adding international flights.

In the first week of November, Haley, Falcione and Stuckey will go to London for the World Trade Market travel show and to Berlin in March for the ITB travel trade show. Though the tourism bureaus provide support in the form of destination advertising to “support the airlines in filling the seats,” Haley said, the bureaus become even more involved around the table with air carriers in international conversations.

“(Stuckey) will schedule airline appointments and because Virginia or I are there, we will sit down with them to get them to understand the visitor that comes here and provide third-party research on that visitor,” Falcione said. “The biggest challenge we have is to attract a nonstop international flight.”

Falcione hopes to see an international flight come to Sarasota in the next two to four years.

SRQ is still working on the second phase of its customs area expansion. When it’s complete, the airport will be able to handle 300 passengers during peak times and clear individuals within one hour. Piccolo said at the moment, other capital improvement projects, such as the replacement of jet bridges, are a higher priority than finishing the customs area expansion.

The jet bridges at SRQ take longer and cost more to repair than in previous years because of their age. To replace the parts of the current bridges, Piccolo said SRQ’s maintenance team often has to make the parts because they’re no longer available to order.

The replacement project is still in the design phase and Piccolo estimates it will go out for bid in the spring. But between now and then, priorities could change, especially if Falcione’s dream of an international flight to SRQ comes true.

“A lot of this stuff depends on what kind of business opportunities come along,” Piccolo said. “You can adjust depending on conditions with funding and from a business standpoint.”

This story was originally published October 4, 2016 at 5:36 PM with the headline "SRQ passenger numbers drop 10 percent during summer months."