The new marketing and route development director at Bradley International Airport has heard the message loud and clear: Get Europe in Connecticut.
Greater Hartford’s business community has charged Luis Perez with bringing a European flight back to the Windsor Locks facility.
“Part of selling overseas is your customers like to come see you, and Connecticut is not easy to get to,” said Anne Evans, Connecticut director for the U.S. Department of Commerce. “We have to create a global environment in Connecticut.”
Bradley International hasn’t had a direct European destination since Northwest Airlines cancelled its Amsterdam non-stop last year citing high fuel costs. The only remaining international destinations served direct from Bradley are Canada and Cancun, Mexico.
The number of passengers flying out of the Connecticut airport has dropped steadily from 2005, including a 13 percent drop from 2008 and 2009. With new flights starting this year, the airport has a total of 29 non-stops. Both airline and airport officials are optimistic about the Bradley’s ability to meet the market’s needs and thrive as a convenient alternative to the Boston and New York airports.
In the few weeks since Perez started July 12 as Bradley’s new director of marketing and route development, he’s heard all about European companies, particularly German ones, with operations in Connecticut that want a direct connection and about domestic businesses wanting to expand overseas.
Airlines, especially in the recession, need to know passengers will fill these flights before new destinations are added, Perez said. A strong vocal push from the Connecticut business community is crucial to convincing the air carriers that a European destination is worth the trouble.
A return of the Hartford flight to Amsterdam is a possibility, as are destinations such as Paris and Italy, Perez said.
“Once you get to Europe, you can get anywhere. You just have to get there,” said Perez, who comes to Bradley with 20 years experience in domestic and international aviation management. He’s worked for the Houston and Vancouver airports and his most recent job was overseeing the joint American-Canadian construction of a green airport in the high mountains of Ecuador.
To entice more airlines and flights, Bradley concentrates on marketing the large population of its service area and the relative wealth in Western New England.
“People in Hartford have the money and the means to fly,” Perez said.
But the key to restoring a European route is the business linkage.
Part of President Barack Obama’s National Export Initiative launched in March calls for doubling Connecticut’s exports to overseas markets within five years, as 95 percent of all consumers live outside the U.S., Evans said.
The top foreign market for Connecticut businesses is Europe, and the top growth market is India, which is most easily accessed by air through Europe, Evans said.
Connecticut is home to operations for several European-headquartered companies, such as Germany-based Trumpf in Farmington and Denmark-based Lego in Enfield. Other corporations, such as Hartford-based United Technologies, have operations in Europe.
By having a direct European connection to Hartford, these companies would save $400 per person per flight through increased productivity and decreased ground transportation expenses of traveling to Boston or New York for an international flight, said Sandra Johnson, vice president and director of business development domestic and international for the MetroHartford Alliance.
The regional market served by Bradley includes 22 companies with more than $2 billion in annual sales and 55 companies with more than 500 employees.
Delta Air Lines this year added more flights and bigger planes from Hartford to its hubs in Detroit and Minneapolis. In addition to serving as a one-stop West Coast connection, the hubs offer service to Asia.
Greater Hartford’s business community needs a steady connection to China, and Delta took advantage of a one-stop method of providing it through Detroit, said Neel Shah, Delta’s executive representative to Hartford.
In order for Bradley to be successful, it needs to offer its market a high quality index of service, Perez said, including adding flights the market wants. In addition to Europe, the airport needs more domestic non-stops.
When Bradley enticed JetBlue in 2009 to come to Connecticut, the airport was able to point to research showing the top destinations without non-stop service Bradley passengers flew to. The No. 1 indirect destination for Bradley passengers was Los Angeles, followed by several over West Coast locales such as Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego. Denver and Ft. Myers, Fla. were high on the list.
JetBlue had eyed the Bradley market for some time before announcing in April the airline would bring non-stop service to Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale in November, said JetBlue spokeswoman Alison Croyle.
The financial offices for JetBlue are in Darien and the airline partners with East Hartford-based Pratt & Whitney for its aircraft engines, making Connecticut a very attractive business market for the airline to fly into beyond the passenger profile, Croyle said.
Bradley got a win on June 10 when Delta resumed its non-stop service to Los Angeles, but that only West Coast connection was lost quickly on July 26 when the airline announced it would discontinue the route at the end of the summer. Although the flights were 80-100 percent full over the first few months, bookings and ticket prices weren’t high enough beyond Sept. 30 to justify the flight’s expense.
Despite the loss of the West Coast connection, Delta officials see room for growth at Bradley.
The airline has more flights out of Bradley than any other airline, and on July 28 added non-stop flights to Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. — two markets already served by other Bradley airlines.
With overall passenger seat capacity at Bradley up 8.5 percent from last year, the airport can grow on its 5.3 million total passengers for 2009, which was a 15-year low for the airport.
