IN-DEPTH: Exploring Abilene’s airport industry & possibility of new airlines
ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – Have you ever wondered how Abilene stands in relation to the airport industry? In a two-part series, BigCountryHomepage will delve into the bolts and nuts of the airport industry, both locally and nationally.
In this segment, Air Service Strategy and Development Director Martin Kammerman shared his insight on the possibility of bringing new airlines to Abilene, costs, and the pilot shortage.
Kammerman shared that there are ongoing discussions with United and their operator, SkyWest.
“Ultimately, we’re going to be meeting with United and SkyWest in the future because we think that Houston is still one of those opportunities. So, United Airlines also happened in Denver. When we originally talked about Houston, the goal was that if Houston was successful, then the next place would be in the opposite direction towards Denver. And so those are still part of the discussion that we have with United. When we look at Denver, we see all these connections that go beyond, and even though DFW is a great hub and connects to a lot of places, There are a lot of points that you have to make, two or three stops from Abilene to get to where over Denver. It’s just a single connection,” Kammerman shared. “So what about American? Well, they’re already here. So that’s an easy obstacle that’s already overcome. They have hubs in places like Phoenix and Chicago. Also, American has a successful maintenance base here in Abilene. And that gives them one extra encouragement to consider Abilene when they’re trying to make their plans for the future. We’ve met with them. And they’ve basically told us it is not a bad idea. But we’re not really ready for that.”
Kammerman also shared what flights look like at other airlines that could potentially connect to Abilene.
When looking at Frontier Airlines, Kammerman said it’s possible to work something out, but they would run into some challenges.
“We also meet regularly with Frontier, but you might remember from that earlier slide of aircraft size where they went from, like, 113 to like 190. So it’s not impossible for them to make something work here. But in Texas, they fly to Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso. So they have flown to smaller places before, but that was more when they were flying smaller aircraft. It’s not impossible for us to work something out with them; our connections, potentially to Denver, where they have a hub and beyond, could be a big positive in terms of being able to generate enough passengers to fill those planes. So we’ll continue meeting with them. But at the same time, I wanted just to let you know some of the challenges that we have with meetings like that,” Kammerman said.
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Another airline that’s relatively new is Avelo. While they tend to stay on the coast, stops are made in Brownsville.
“When analyzing their numbers, it’s actually not too bad. So far, they’ve been doing reasonably well. And so when we meet with an airline like Avelo, what the airline is looking for is if something works, what’s the next best version of what works, and we’re hoping that Abilene could be something that would work that would serve the places like Orlando and LA and Las Vegas, that Avelo is big in that we might be able to get them to consider Abilene,” Kammerman said.
He added that they look at other hubs, but some most likely wouldn’t work for various reasons such as length, demand, and future outlook in Abilene.
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“What’s interesting about Southwest is Southwest flies to mostly bigger places within the US. There are exceptions. And some of those exceptions are in Texas. That’s in part because Southwest started in Texas. So, they fly to places like Corpus Christi, which wouldn’t have made their map if they hadn’t started in Texas. Is it possible they might consider it as well? There are going to be some changes to what’s known as the right amendment, which affects service in Dallas that’s coming up. So, some of the Texas options become more of a possibility. However, there are places in the state that are bigger than we are and don’t have Southwest service. So while it’s not impossible, and we do talk to them, and they’re generally friendly, they usually give us a friendly but no, let’s talk about it again in a few months, sort of a discussion,” Kammerman said.
One man at the meeting asked that since Southwest is going in and out of Lubbock and Midland, what would be the likelihood that they would want to try Abilene?
“The biggest benefit that they would have is that they’d be able to take passengers that otherwise would go to DFW instead of Love, and essentially establish basis here. When Southwest begins a new city, they don’t start with one destination; they usually start with two or three and multiple flights a day. So ultimately, if you remember from that leakages page, where all of those people are going to other destinations, mainly DFW, the goal would be if they were to come here that that number of passengers, the percentage that use ABI would go up substantially in the event that they were to join us here,” Kammerman said.
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Kammerman shared that the three biggest things that work in favor of ABI Regional to obtain another airline are low airport cost, above 80% load factor, and historically high fares to most destinations.
“I think that’s encouraging American to keep that capacity and then, as a plus or a minus, historically high fares. We all know that the fares are higher here than in Dallas, or even in some of the other potential airports. But what that does is it also encourages other airlines to say, Okay, if the fares are relatively high in Abilene, maybe that would essentially allow us to earn some extra funding, you know, revenue for the cost of our flight,” Kammerman shared.
He added that there’s another factor that is both a blessing and a curse: the Eagle Aviation Envoy Maintenance Base.
“It’s a blessing, in part because the Eagle Aviation Envoy Maintenance Base, at the very least, American are going to fly a few flights here, just to maintain those aircraft. We’re above that level today, as we have been for a while, in part because it’s not just maintenance that’s necessary. It’s passengers that want to fly. And that’s that demand has helped us, it provides local jobs. And it provides some assurance that a competitor won’t cause American to leave. So if other airlines came in and took passengers away from American, the fact that there’s a maintenance space would give them a stronger inclination to want to stay. There are occasions when airlines will come into a new city, and then the existing airlines, for whatever reason that economics don’t work anymore, will be on the curse side. So in a minor way, discourages other airlines, in part because they know that American is going to keep a certain level of seats no matter what,” Kammerman explained.
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One question asked was, “Would there be any routes that they [American Airlines] could use out of Abilene other than DFW that would be profitable for them?”
“So in the Phoenix and the Chicago case, because there’s enough demand that goes not just to Chicago, but on those Kentucky points beyond? And the same thing for Phoenix? So, the answer is, I think there’s a certain point where you have too many flights at DFW. And the reason why is if you’ve been to DFW, you’ll notice there’s a bank system there, there are flights coming in, then flights going out. And there’s only so many banks you can have, so there’s a certain point where you’ve reached that maximum limit. Five is not the maximum; the limit is probably more like seven. But ultimately, there’s a diminishing return. Five is a good number; six might be better, and seven might be too many. At that point, they would say, ‘Well, how can we get people that are going beyond?’ I’ll give you an example. So, I’m from Nashville, and I’m going to fly over to DFW to get back to Nashville later this evening. But you know, I couldn’t theoretically connect over Chicago to get back to Nashville. So there’s definitely possibilities that exist for this. So when we talk with American, the first thing we ask is, how’s DFW doing? What can we do to help? Are there any issues or certain times of the day that don’t work? And then right after that, we say, well, here’s our latest thoughts on other opportunities. And we’ll often bring up Chicago and Phoenix when we meet with American specifically,” Kammerman responded.
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One person at the meeting mentioned the cost of flying from ABI, including airfare, food, and hotel if a flight is missed due to traffic or other factors.
“I do understand that they need to have some sort of noun and analytics that say, it costs me x to drive three hours, and I may not get there in three hours. Not only that, but if it’s a late flight, and I miss that flight, now I have to have a hotel room, and I have to have food… It just can’t simply be, well, this flight from Abilene is going to be, you know, $680. And if you flew it out of Dallas, it’s $450. Your time was worth something. And those numbers need to be reflected in there somewhere,” he asked.
“That is exactly what you describe in terms of small communities when they fly to the hub. It’s going to cost you more, typically speaking, but the other aspect of it is competition. I’ll give you an example: today, we were studying back at the airport. We were looking at fares and the differences. So, if you want to fly from here to Las Vegas, and you look at the fare from Abilene to Dallas to Las Vegas, and you look at the fare from Dallas to Las Vegas only. There are between the two Dallas airports, there are I’m going to guess seven airlines that will take you from Dallas Fort Worth have to Vegas. And so, the relative fare from here to Vegas is quite a bit higher than the fact that competition is forcing that price down. The opposite example we noticed was with Salt Lake City. So, from Salt Lake City, besides American, I think only Delta flies to Salt Lake City from the Dallas area. It’s American plus one other one. So, the fares from Abilene to Salt Lake City were only slightly higher than what we saw from the Dallas area to Salt Lake City… But at the same time, when the airlines make their pricing decisions, it’s often driven by competition. And in places like Vegas, airlines come and go sometimes, sometimes the fares are just too low to make it worthwhile for them, where they can’t get enough passengers, or we’re such, but it’s really a mix of both what you say and then the company with competitive factor,” Kammerman responded.
With the pilot shortage, another question is if training will move down from the 1,500 required hours.
“I’ll describe the situation. So this crash occurred in New York, and Senator Schumer is a relatively senior senator. And he’s very supportive of this. Whenever the various aviation organizations try to move that needle down a little bit, immediately, the victim families get brought out. And so, the discussion kind of comes to a quick end. There may be a point where this won’t be as much of a factor, and there are other things that might happen that could help. But then there are also other negatives. For example, the pilots’ unions generally don’t want to see that number reduced, even though before 2013, 250 hours was the standard that all those people worked with. So, there are factors at a big-picture level that have an impact on this… But at the same time, airlines have been coping by doing more things to attract more people to become pilots,” Kammerman said. “When I was a student, I graduated from my university in 1991. And I’ve considered being a pilot, but I heard so many stories about, you know, how low pilot pay was for the first ten years and how often you couldn’t get a job unless you were in the military first. So today, it’s a totally different story. If you’ve got a heartbeat and 1500 hours, you can be a pilot, and the pay starts at six figures.”
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Kammerman added that air traffic control had made major improvements thanks to technology, but there’s still a way to go.
“There are parts of the country where air traffic control issues are a much bigger deal. The northeast and Florida and to and from Florida, for example, had been in the news lately. But for Texas, you know, we have a combination of some wide-open spaces and separation of some of the major airports, and so far, I would say the biggest factor since 1990 has been improvements in technology. Now, there’s still room to go. A lot of air traffic control places still use handwritten paper and tablet things to show how flights are moving through their system. This is an effective system, but we all know that it could probably be better. And so over time, we’ll probably see additional improvements,” Kammerman said.
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