By Francis B. Allgood
fallgood@scbiznews.com
Published Nov. 12, 2010

After five years of declining passenger traffic, Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport is budgeting for 700,000 passengers for 2011, a 15% increase.

“We’ve fallen off fairly significantly over the last few years,” GSP Executive Director Dave Edwards told an audience this morning at the Upstate Transportation Summit held at Michelin NA.

The airport averaged slightly more than 600,000 passengers in 2009, and is estimated to do about the same for this year. The weak economy and the airlines cutting flights due to shrinking demand played a large role, Edwards said.

The record high came in 2005 with 900,000 passengers. At the time, Independence Air was credited with the rise in passenger traffic, but by January 2006, the low-fare carrier ceased operation after its parent company, FLYi Inc., filed for bankruptcy.

The airport currently offers 46 daily, nonstop flights to 17 cities.

“It’s not that we don’t have service to a lot of cities, we just haven’t had service to a lot of cities at a competitive cost,” Edwards said. “That’s what we are trying to do as we move forward. Don’t get me wrong, we continue to look at adding cities and airlines to the mix.”

The addition of Southwest Airlines, which will begin service from five destinations in March 2011, will have a significant impact, Edward said. Delta Airlines currently accounts for the majority of passenger traffic at 27%, but that will change.

“From day one, from a seat capacity standpoint, Southwest will become the largest carrier at the airport, which is amazing to have happen over night,” Edwards said.

Southwest will bring a total of 350,000 seats annually to GSP compared to Delta’s 325,000 seats. Edwards estimates the average $377 roundtrip ticket out of GSP will be $100 less with the addition of the low-fare carrier.

“If you equate that to all the people who flew out of GSP a year ago, that would have been about a $70 million savings to those people traveling in and out of GSP,” he added.

Edwards expects GSP to reach 1 million passengers annually by 2015. The GSP International Airport Commission is considering an expansion of the terminal and Concourse B that would prepare the airport for 2 million passengers annually by 2040.

The Upstate Transportation Summit also included updates on highway improvements, the S.C. Ports Authority, high-speed rail and rail freight transport.

For more on the summit, check out the Nov. 22 edition of GSA Business.