The Bradford Regional Airport Authority is looking to businesses
across the region to help increase passenger levels at the facility
by targeting which cities they travel to most.

The goal of the effort is to provide incoming carrier CommutAir
and parent company Continental Airlines with a “snapshot of the
community” and match up destinations from Cleveland that are most
used by the local region.

“With this being a regional airport, the more information we can
give CommutAir about the counties and businesses in them the
better,” Airport Director Tom Frungillo said Wednesday. “We can
give them a snapshot of the community and help turn this thing
around.”

Airport officials are looking to market the small, rural airport
through federal grant money in the Small Community Air Service
Development Program. The matter is particularly important now in
light of an impending change in carriers from Colgan Air Inc., to
RegionsAir and a switch in hub cities from Pittsburgh to
Cleveland.

The airport – which is under the umbrella of the federal
Essential Air Service program – has been looking to regain its
number of enplanements to pre-Sept. 11, 2001, levels. Prior to the
terrorist attacks, the airport realized passenger levels above
10,000 people yearly.

Authority member Ken Wingo of Potter County said passenger
levels have begun creeping back down to 2002 levels. In March, the
airport had 297 enplanements compared to 244 deplanements.

“Things are all right up here, but we need to continue to push,”
Frungillo said. “The authority members have to set the tone in
their communities. I just think the destinations that we can’t get
out of Pittsburgh and us being in this limbo status has not done us
any favors.”

Local officials have cited a need to change hub cities and
carriers from Pittsburgh and US Airways in order to give the
airport a chance at hiking enplanements.

For several months, airport officials waited to learn whether
Colgan would retain service at the airport as part of the airline’s
attempt to renegotiate its two-year contract with the U.S.
Department of Transportation under EAS.

In announcing it would be seeking a new contract with the DOT
last October after citing increased fuel costs and slipping
passenger levels, airport officials sprung into action and, along
with high-ranking officials from the federal government on down,
pressed the DOT to change hub cities to Washington, which offered a
multitude of international destinations for both business and
leisure travelers.

However, the DOT eventually chose RegionsAir to provide the
service, in large part due to a nearly $1 million difference in EAS
subsidy proposals between the two airlines.

“Obviously, we wanted the Dulles (Washington) connection, but we
feel Cleveland has a lot to offer for connections,” Frungillo said.
“It came down to a financial issue. But we have received assurances
the flights out of Cleveland will be convenient for travelers. This
is going to be the smoothest transition possible. Neither
Continental or RegionsAir will jeopardize its EAS subsidy by
screwing around.

“EAS is a strapped program,” Frungillo said, adding since Sept.
11 the amount of airports using the program has doubled. “Of the 16
primary commercial airports in Pennsylvania, eight of them are now
on EAS.”

Frungillo said if airport officials know where businesses are
most often flying to “we can work with Continental and
RegionsAir.”

Wingo said Potter County business TelCove most often flies into
Pittsburgh, while Adelphia goes to Denver, where its headquarters
is now located. Denver is the second most traveled to destination
by business travelers; Pittsburgh is currently 11th, according to
officials.

In other news, the construction on a concrete deicing pad near
the airport terminal began last week.

According to engineer Ed Nasuti, the project will also entail
drainage and repaving work. It should be completed in early
June.

Nasuti said the run-off from the deicing fluid would either go
into a storage tank or be transported elsewhere, possibly through
the sanitary sewer system to the sewage treatment plant in Foster
Township.

“Either way it’s not a huge expense,” Nasuti said. “If we send
the fluid at a slow rate to a large municipal plant we are OK.”

Meanwhile, a natural gas pipeline being directed to the airport
is 85 percent complete, officials said.