Flyers kicking ‘Calgary habit’: airport

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Flyers kicking ‘Calgary habit’: airport

Kim Guttormson, Calgary Herald, 5 January 2011

Edmonton’s efforts to repatriate locals flying out of Calgary is succeeding, the capital’s airport authority says, citing an increased number of flights from the International.

But Calgary says it is also seeing more flights and passengers, Red Arrow’s new direct daily bus service from Edmonton to the Calgary airport carries about 100 people a day, and one analyst believes the momentum is on the side of the larger southern airport.

"The train has left the station," says Rick Erickson, a Calgary-based independent analyst, citing Calgary’s 12.5 million passengers a year compared with Edmonton’s 6.5 million and the ratio of direct international flights. "(The existing flights) start to build on themselves."

Last spring, the Edmonton Airport Authority launched its "Stop the Calgary Habit" campaign, aimed at convincing some of the 750,000 northern Albertans coming south to fly through Calgary that it offered a choice.

Increasing the number of people flying through Edmonton, it argued, improves the chances of attracting additional flights to the city.

As of September, about 19,000 more locals had decided to fly through Edmonton instead of Calgary, based on postal codes collected by travel agents, Edmonton Airport Authority spokeswoman Sarah Meffen said.

About 1,300 seats a week from Edmonton have been added between November and April, including WestJet’s new flights to Maui, and the "Stop the Calgary Habit" campaign will be relaunched over the next several weeks, Meffen said.

The Calgary Airport Authority says three per cent more passengers used the airport last year, but it doesn’t track where they live.

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