Airport Experience® News - Retail Innovation Issue 2024

DIRECTOR’S CHAIR AN UNTAPPED OPPORTUNITY? MHT Director Kitchens Seeks Expanded Service That Would Slow Persistent Leakage

BY CAROL WARD

ditor’s Note: The catchment area for Manchester–Boston Regional Airport (MHT) is a swath that extends down through southern New Hampshire and into northern Massachusetts, into southern Maine and over to southern part of Vermont. But, MHT sits about 50 miles northwest of its much larger competitor, Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) and is plagued by leakage to that market, more so now than pre-pandemic. MHT Director Ted Kitchens is convinced that the right mix of carriers and an increase in the number of airline seats in the market will recapture those passengers, and he is focused on making that happen. It’s a big lift. Even prior to the pandemic, MHT’s passenger numbers were on a downward slide from a 2005 peak of about 4.3 million passengers. Last year, MHT served 1.28 million passengers. AXN’s Carol Ward spoke with Kitchens about his strategies to increase MHT’s appeal. E

WARD: I know Manchester-Boston Regional Airport has struggled to come back from the pandemic. Can you give me a state-of play? KITCHENS: The entire New England region has had a hard time coming back from the pandemic. But with the recent announcements that Avelo Airlines and Breeze [Airways] and JetBlue are coming up here to Manchester after 20 years of us pursuing them, we’re starting to see that some people are realizing that this is a growth opportunity for the airlines, particularly as they’re move capacity out of other airports that may have been oversaturated. We are one of the wealthiest sections of the country in terms of average household incomes. [Our catchment area] has probably the highest [average] discretionary income of any small hub airport in the United States and we have the third-highest average household income of any small hub airport, behind Islip and Santa Barbara. It’s a target-rich environment for the airlines that are looking for any and all revenue sources that they can find right now.

WARD: You mentioned Avelo and Breeze, as well as JetBlue. Are you focusing on ultra low-cost or low-cost carriers, or are you also talking with your current legacy airlines about increasing service? KITCHENS: I’m talking to all of them, but when I got here (in 2018) the gap that needed to be filled was that ultra-low cost airline sector. We were home to American Airlines , Delta Air Lines , United Airlines and Southwest Airlines . They provided terrific service and the community loved it, but we were a high priced airport with high airfares. The community was bypassing us to go to the low fares that were found at Logan. My initial push was to fix that, and part of that challenge was our CPE (cost per enplanement), which was high at $13.50. Pre-pandemic, as a small hub airport, we had the same CPE as BOS. We’ve done a great job of keeping our operating costs down, but what was eating us alive was our debt service. We had to deleverage our balance sheet. We restructured about 70% of our outstanding debt and we help lower the CPE by about $3.

Above: Ted Kitchens, director, Manchester-Boston Regional Airport

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AX NEWS SEPTEMBER 2024