Why is American Airlines ending service in Columbus? Here’s what impact it may have
American Airlines’ decision to end service in Columbus due to low demand and the pilot shortage will reduce the airport’s economic impact by millions of dollars.
The Columbus Airport was informed that American Airlines would end service to Columbus on April 3 late last week, Airport Director Amber Clark told the Ledger-Enquirer. The airport had little notice beforehand that this might be a possibility, she said.
American Airlines does not have any team members located in Columbus, said Andrea Koos, senior manager of corporate communications. The airline contracted with a third-party vendor to handle its ground operations in Columbus, she said.
Before making a decision to stop servicing an airport, airlines have to determine how many aircraft they can fly, airline analyst Robert Mann told the Ledger-Enquirer. Mann, who previously worked as an analyst for American Airlines, provides analysis and consulting services to airline management and industry-related firms.
“In this case, it’s not so much how many (aircraft) you have,” Mann said. “It’s how many you can actually find a crew to fly.”
Some airlines have reported that in the first quarter of 2023, the number of flights will be around 15% below what it was in the same quarter of 2022, he said. The next issue is once an airline decides on how many planes it can fly, Mann said, they then must decide where it is most economical to fly.
American Airlines has three flights in and out of Columbus: two flights to Charlotte and one to Dallas.
Airport officials had been watching how many passengers were on the routes and had been hopeful that the numbers were sufficient, Clark said.
“We have over 250,000 people that fly annually,” she said. “So there is enough demand.”
The problem was that fliers in Columbus were not using American Airlines’ service, Clark said. Typically, when airlines are looking to be profitable, they’re looking for about 80% of the seats to be filled, Clark said, and the community did not use it enough to get to that range.
Impact on the airport, other businesses and Fort Benning
A carrier making the decision to stop servicing an airport is devastating to two kinds of revenue, Mann said.
This includes the aeronautical revenue, which is money made from passenger charges, airline terminal space and security rentals and airline landing and usage fees. The second lost revenue comes from airport concessions, retail and parking.
Losing the American Airlines routes will cost the airport $1 million, she said, but the economic impact on the community will be more. The Columbus Airport has an economic impact of about $94.5 million annually, according to a 2020 study by the Georgia Department of Transportation.
“And we just lost $3 million dollar economic impact by losing this airline,” Clark said. “So, we need to make sure that we’re supporting the service.”
The airport impacts Columbus’ economy with travelers staying at hotels and eating at restaurants when they visit the city, she said. With Fort Benning nearby, families travel through the airport during graduation, along with travelers who come to the city for business or other reasons.
Fort Benning doesn’t anticipate American Airlines ending service to Columbus to impact its operations, according to a statement to the Ledger-Enquirer from the Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning Public Affairs. Officials will continue to engage with their community to ensure service members’ needs are met.
“...We work diligently to ensure they travel to and from the installation safely,” the statement reads. “This includes leaders knowing their soldier’s leave travel plans, service organizations supporting permanent change of station moves for families and cadre of the 30th Adjutant General Reception Battalion welcoming our newest trainees.”
Pilot shortage and the pandemic
A regional pilot shortage contributed to the decision to end services in Columbus, according to a statement by American Airlines.
The reason for the shortage began before the pandemic began, Mann said. In 2018, airlines knew that there would be a large number of pilots retiring who joined the companies when the industry was growing rapidly in the 1980’s.
“At that point, if you go and talk to any of the airlines involved, you would have heard them say we are going to be hiring pilots forever,” he said.
However, the pandemic brought a long and protracted downturn to the industry. Demand was down 90% early on, Mann said, but the airline’s costs continued.
“It’s like having the store open,” he said. “But the cash register was closed. That’s a problem.”
In response, airlines decided that since labor and fuel were their largest costs, they didn’t have a need for all the employees. Airlines began offering incentives to pilots who were close to age 65 to retire.
Once a pilot reaches the age of 65, by law they may no longer fly commercial planes.
Thousands of pilots took those deals, Mann said, and other pilots who were not close to retirement age were given opportunities to work part-time or take voluntary separation.
“Within a few months, we saw the industry starting to recover,” he said. “We saw the government providing grants and loans to the industry.”
When demand for flights began increasing again, Mann said, those large airlines suddenly didn’t have enough pilots and began hiring pilots from regional carriers. This resulted in a shortage of regional pilots, he said.
Some airlines have started their own pilot schools, Mann said, but this is not a quick solution. Since new pilots must have 1,500 hours of experience to earn their air transport pilot certificate, bringing in new pilots has been slow.
“So, there’s this disconnect between the issue of schools and what it takes to actually go fly as a first officer at one of these airlines,” he said.
Delta is now the only carrier servicing the Columbus Airport, Clark said, but officials are always talking to carriers and looking for an opportunity to bring another one to Columbus.
“We know that we’re going to continue to move on,” she said. “We know that our community is going to continue to support this airport, and we will have more airlines to come.”
This story was originally published January 11, 2023 at 12:00 PM.
