Record number of passengers travel through Sonoma County airport

The Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport ended 2014 on a high note, setting another record for commercial air traffic as airport officials try to woo other airlines to serve Sonoma County.

After completing a $55 million runway improvement project in October, airport officials hope that a sixth straight year of growth will help entice a new airline to begin service to destinations east of California.

But with small regional airports around the country competing for limited flights and airlines still wary about expansion, attracting service to Denver, Phoenix or Salt Lake City is proving to be difficult, said Airport Manager Jon Stout.

The airport is entering a critical period in its effort to court an airline. A $1.3 million grant to offset an airline’s startup cost expires at the end of the year. Any new airline would want to start a new service by summer, a peak air travel season, Stout said, so a deal would need to be in place in the next two months.

Stout, who has had multiple meetings with airline executives in the past few years, plans to have another round of talks at an air travel development conference in Denver next month. He said he will tout the airport’s growing traffic and the newly expanded 6,000-foot runway that can accommodate regional jets, but he said other airports including Monterey and San Luis Obispo are all vying for additional service.

“We’ll argue our case that they need to give us more service,” Stout said. “The biggest problem is that airlines have many opportunities. They are going to put their limited aircraft where they can get the most money.”

A total of 238,917 passengers flew into or out of the airport last year, an increase of 4.5 percent from 2013 and a 20 percent increase since 2009, when the airline industry took a hit during the financial downturn. October had the highest monthly traffic with 24,000 passengers passing through the airport, according to data released earlier this month.

Airport officials are in talks with Alaska Airlines, the airport’s only commercial carrier with daily flights to Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles and San Diego, about resuming service to Las Vegas. The airline operated a Sonoma County-Las Vegas route from 2008 to 2012 but scrapped it in favor of adding service to San Diego.

An Alaska spokeswoman said the airline was considering expansion at Sonoma County Airport, or STS.

“We love Sonoma County,” Halley Knigge said in an email. “It’s a great hidden gem with a strong population base that has really embraced our service and supported us. We keep a close eye on STS for potential future growth.”

Part of the reason for the increase in air travelers at Sonoma County Airport is additional flights to Los Angeles and Seattle that Alaska added last year. The airport’s load factor, a measure of how full each flight is, also increased by one point over the previous year to 78 percent.

Industry analysts said airline consolidation and dropping fuel prices could result in record earnings for carriers that have since the recession been engaged in capacity discipline, a strategy of keeping route offerings low in order to fill flights and maximize their bottom line. As oil prices continue to fall, airlines could choose to invest profits this year in expanding service, and the kind of growth the airport just outside of Santa Rosa has experienced could help secure more flights, analysts said.

“Santa Rosa is in a good spot to attract new service with the growth they’ve had,” said Brian Clark, a partner with travel consulting firm Hudson Crossing. “In the environment airlines find themselves, they will be looking to invest. One way for them to invest is to increase their footprint.”

Stout has meetings scheduled next month with seven airlines, including United, which could offer service to Denver; Delta, with potential service to Salt Lake City; and American, which has a hub in Phoenix. Of those, he said American has expressed the most interest in expanding in Sonoma County.

“I think they see the market here as being pretty good,” he said.

Sonoma County tourism officials and businesses have long wanted air service to the east, which could help travelers connect to onward destinations. A direct flight on a regional jet to Denver, a major United Airlines hub, would be ideal because of the city’s location nearly halfway to the East Coast.

But United has expressed reluctance about starting the route, Stout said. For one thing, the carrier recently dropped it s Monterey-Denver flight despite having an 82 percent load factor. United officials have said for a Sonoma County-Denver flight to be profitable, the flight in a 50-seat regional jet would have to operate at near capacity and tickets would have to cost $40 more than the $160 average ticket price out of San Francisco, Stout said.

While additional service remains up in the air, an increase in commercial traffic is an indication of an improving local economy, Sonoma County economic analysts said.

“It certainly tells the story of how Sonoma County has done a great job attracting tourists,” said Robert Eyler, director of the Center for Regional Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University. “It’s a sign of economic growth to see people traveling more.”

You can reach Staff Writer?Matt Brown at 521-5206 or matt.brown@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @MattBrownPD.