Whither the airport?
The Salt Lake City International Airport is going through an identity crisis. After 17 straight years of growth, passenger trips have declined the past three years. Mayor Rocky Anderson intends to scale back an ambitious expansion. Costs are high, and the airport's No. 1 tenant, Delta Air Lines, is complaining.The problem, said Gordon Bevan, an airport strategy and marketing consultant based in Manchester, England, is that Salt Lake City is trying to be all things to all people.
Bevan spoke at a "Utah Air Service Summit" Thursday in the Little America Hotel, a broad-based gathering of government and business leaders whose purpose is to figure out the issues facing the airport and how to address them.
Other airports, Bevan said, have certain roles. Portland is known as the gateway to the Pacific, Atlanta is known as the main Delta hub ("If you go to hell, you have to go through Atlanta" as the saying goes), New York is the United States' primary international gateway.
The Salt Lake City International Airport is known for something a bit less flattering.
"It is the least profitable Delta hub," Bevan said. "That is its role."
To combat that dubious reputation, it is essential that Salt Lake City adopt an identity, something that makes it stand out, that it can do better than anyone else.
The stakes are high. Roberts Roach & Associates Chairman Philip Roberts, an airline and airport consultant, estimated the airport's annual economic impact on the area is $1 billion. It is the fourth-largest employer in the state (12,500 people) and indirectly generates 19,000 jobs.
Bevan suggested trumpeting it as a gateway to the West -- people fly to Salt Lake City and take a connecting flight to the West Coast -- or a gateway to and from Canada.
"That is your territory," he said. "Claim it. Stake it."
The worst thing it can do is try to compete with the general-service big boys.
"You're locked into a position where you're competing against everyone," Bevan said. "A bit of a barroom brawl: 'Come on, I'll take you all on.' You need to reinvent yourself."
Bevan was one of several speakers at the summit, the first gathering of its kind.
"This is the first time we have had a group like this," airport consultant David Dague said. "There is some momentum building."
It may result in some changes in direction. For a long time now, Salt Lake aviation officials have dreamed about and tried to obtain a direct flight to London. But many of the speakers Thursday said that's the wrong thing to be working toward.
"Shouting about a London service is self-defeating," Bevan said. "Often, emotional things overshadow business decisions."
"It's a tough sell," echoed Roberts.
Find instead a relatively modest niche and fill it, was their advice. And involve Delta, Southwest and the other tenant airlines.
"View your airlines as partners," Roberts said. "Delta's your partner."
State officials recently agreed to a retroactive property tax valuation settlement with Delta in excess of $3 million. That will come out of taxpayer's pockets in the form of judgment levies or other means.
The relationship between airport and airline has in fact been rocky at times. But there are bright spots.
"I love Delta Air Lines," said Rep. Merrill Cook, R-Utah. "Their food is actually pretty good."
E-mail: alan@desnews.com