Visit To Airport Buoys MidAmerica Officials
Pan Am Buzzing About Possible New Orlando Flight
Mascoutah, IL (September 24, 2000) -- If it's good for Ross Perot Jr., then it must be good for MidAmerica St. Louis Airport.
Local leaders last week visited billionaire Dallas developer Perot's industrial airport in Forth Worth, Texas. They said Alliance Airport's success legitimizes MidAmerica and their development plans for it.
"Much of what they have done, we are doing," said St. Clair County Board Chairman John Baricevic, who made the trip with MidAmerica Airport Director Floyd "Rick" Hargrove and other regional officials Wednesday. "(Seeing Alliance) validated our approach."
Like MidAmerica, success did not come quickly to Alliance.
For several years after the 9,600-acre airport complex opened in 1988, no flights arrived or departed there. Now, more than 100 companies have space at the complex. J.C. Penney and FedEx have distribution centers at the facility. American Airlines maintenance operations are at Alliance and AT&T is one of several other companies that have space there.
Jeff Rainford, a spokesman for the Regional Commerce and Growth Association in St. Louis, which sponsored the trip, said the same kind of development could occur at MidAmerica. "The opportunities over at MidAmerica are going to be just incredible if Alliance is any indication," he said. "There are a lot of companies that would like space around an airport."
Rainford also said one factor in Alliance's success is that there is a rail yard there, and good freeway access at the facility as well. Rainford claims MidAmerica has or will have both of those things as well, and therefore could prove just as attractive to cargo carriers as Alliance.
"MidAmerica is just ripe for a cargo company that needs a national distribution point," he said.
Leonard Griggs, the director of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, said he thinks MidAmerica could develop in the same way Alliance did. Griggs also said he favors bringing in the same kind of major cargo hub operation that FedEx has at Alliance.
"We have been very supportive of trying to develop MidAmerica for that kind of cargo activity," Griggs said. "We could not tolerate the nighttime noise of creating a major cargo hub at Lambert."
Griggs also said there are currently major cargo hubs in the region at Memphis, Indianapolis and Louisville. FedEx controls the operations at Memphis and Indianapolis, and UPS' hub is in Louisville.
Aaron Gellman, a professor at Northwestern University's Transportation Center, said bringing in cargo carriers is critical to MidAmerica's development prospects.
"Cargo is growing at a faster rate than passenger [traffic]," he said. "You might build the [airport's] viability with cargo first - there may not have to be a hub operation."
DHL and UPS representatives have said they will keep their St. Louis area cargo operations at Lambert, because the bulk of their customer bases are in the St. Louis city center and western suburbs, and therefore, MidAmerica is too far away to be a viable alternative.
Downtown St. Louis is about 20 miles from MidAmerica and about 14 miles from Lambert. Baricevic disagrees with the notion that MidAmerica is not viable for cargo traffic. "No matter where you are, you're a long distance from somebody," he said. "Since the day the airport has been planned, we've been marketing the airport to cargo companies - we're talking to the corporate heads who make national decisions for these companies."
Baricevic said the county and airport officials are pursuing new passenger, cargo and industrial service with equal intensity. Rainford said the trip to Alliance, combined with the potential for more passenger traffic at MidAmerica, gives him a good feeling about the future of the metro-east airport.
"It really convinced me, and the other folks who went, of the potential over at MidAmerica," he said. "It's one thing to say in theory what you've got in mind; it's another thing to see it with your own eyes."
Pan Am Buzzing At MidAmerica Airport
New Orlando Flight Is Possible
While St. Clair County leaders woo cargo operators, the passenger traffic at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport has Pan Am executives happy and expecting better things to come.
Pan Am officials said their bookings at MidAmerica are higher than expected. An airline spokesman said Friday that on its flight to Orlando, it is booking between 80 and 120 people a day.
That is more passengers than Pan Am is booking for the Orlando flight out of the Gary-Chicago Airport, located in Chicago's northwest Indiana suburbs. Gary has a much larger population from which it can draw than does MidAmerica.
Pan Am may add another destination to its schedule at MidAmerica.
The airline announced Friday it will begin serving Lehigh Valley Airport in Allentown, Pa., a facility located within a 90-minute drive to both Philadelphia and the New York City areas.
The flights from Allentown will go to Gary. Pan Am officials said they did not know whether connections at Gary to the Allentown flight would be feasible for MidAmerica travelers. A schedule and other details about the flight will be announced Tuesday.
Information provided by the Belleville News-Democrat
David Van Den Berg Article © Belleville News-Democrat
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