Officials still hope the regional airport will become a cargo hub.

Officials still hope the regional airport will become a cargo hub.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
VIENNA -- It will be an uphill battle to lure any type of cargo or passenger air service to the Youngstown-Warren Regional airport, experts not associated with the facility say.
"This tends to be a momentum business," said Fred Krum, director of aviation at the thriving Akron-Canton Airport.
Airlines tend to expand service where they have been successful, and, unfortunately for the Mahoning Valley, stay away from places where they haven't, he said.
"What is going down continues down, and what is going up continues up," Krum said.
A new low
The local airport hit a new low point this week, when its last remaining commercial airline asked for permission to leave.
If Northwest Airlines' request is granted by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and local officials expect it will be, the last flight will be Sept. 8.
Three other airlines have also abandoned the airport in the past five years.
"It is a huge psychological blow," said Reid Dulberger, the chairman of the board of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the airport.
There have been great plans for the local facility. In 1993, an Ohio Department of Transportation study determined that the airport in Vienna was the best site in Northeast Ohio for an international air cargo hub.
The second phase of the study, released two years later, estimated that the facility had the potential to ship four million pounds of freight a year. The study recommended expanding the airport's runways to facilitate jet cargo traffic.
"There were all types of studies promising this at all types of airports, and it just doesn't make sense," said Bill Oliver, a vice president at the Boyd Group, an aviation consulting and research group based in Evergreen, Colo. "It hasn't developed."
Smaller industry
The problem is that most cargo flies in the belly of passenger planes, he said. Compared with passenger travel, air cargo is a relatively small industry, with only two major players: FedEx and UPS.
"I don't know if Youngstown, or any other airport, could provide enough incentives to convince them to move their regional hubs," Oliver said.
A handful of second-tier companies have good-size operations in one part of the country or another, but the number of these operations is few indeed relative to the number of airports that would like them, Oliver said.
"The opportunity or the possibility of getting someone to move a big cargo hub is very, very slim," he said.
Still hoping
Airport officials still have hope. Earlier this year, the port authority board hired Bruce Miller, former executive director of Rickenbacker Airport near Columbus, in the hope that he will provide the expertise and contacts to more effectively lure business.
"We haven't done a good job marketing the airport for cargo use," Dulberger said. "We just haven't been systematic about it."
He said there has been no single culprit for the slow-motion loss of all the airport's commercial passenger service. There are different reasons each airline could not fill seats and make money off service from Vienna.
Northwest had problems with its service and was caught in the post9/11 airline shakedown, Dulberger said. US Airways and Continental used propeller planes, which customers dislike, and flew to Pittsburgh and Cleveland, destinations close enough for people to drive.
"That is not to say that flights to other distances won't work," he said.
Dulberger dismissed the notion that the Northwest's failure to make money could scare other airlines. Rather, he said, they will see that they can have the market to themselves, with no competition.
Others see more problems with making passenger flights work here.
The general trend in the airline industry has been toward consolidation in larger cities, and the recession and post9/11 fears have prompted further cutbacks from smaller markets, Oliver said.
"The reality is that Youngstown still has air service," Oliver said. "It is just not in your airport."
Other airports close
The Mahoning Valley, with about half a million people, may not be large enough to support its own commercial passenger airport, especially with three other airports -- including two regional hubs -- so close, Krum said.
"You are triple sandwiched with Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Akron-Canton," he said. "It is a tight market dynamic for passenger service. The community has to sit down and say, 'What do we want, and how do we get it?'"
Then, if the answer is passenger airlines, they have to buy tickets.
"We call it butts in seats," Krum said.
To lure passenger airlines, the airport will sometimes guarantee that they will fill a minimum number of seats on each flight, and pay the difference if they don't, Krum said. Deals to share advertising costs are common, and in some areas local companies have stepped forward and pledged to use new air services if they are introduced.
Seeking grant
The port authority is seeking a $1 million federal grant to market the airport and provide incentives for airlines to come, Dulberger said.
He said the airport will continue to pursue business on all fronts: cargo, passenger, charters and private craft.
Planes in the last category are currently the heaviest users of the airport, and may continue to be in the future, Oliver said.
Halfway between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, the Vienna airport will continue to have allure to private and business craft that don't want to deal with those cities' airport congestion, he said.
"At some point, that 9,000-foot runway is going to be used," Krum said. "I don't know if it will be in two years, 10 years, 20 years, but it is going to have its day."