Dillon

Passenger traffic at T.F. Green Airport dropped again last month, as the airport recorded its lowest January tally in the past four years.

It was a rough start to what is lining up to be a difficult year in aviation nationwide.

For the month, 345,465 travelers landed or boarded flights at Rhode Island’s largest airport, a 2.1-percent drop from the same period last year. In January 2005, 380,622 passengers used Green Airport, a 9.2-percent higher total than last month.

The Rhode Island Airport Corporation announced the January data one week before Kevin Dillon is set to arrive as the agency’s new director. (He had earlier planned to start yesterday.)

In a brief visit to Rhode Island last month, Dillon promised bold moves to reverse the airport’s slump, promising to speed the planned runway expansion, aggressively recruit new carriers and prod local businesses to increase their use of the airport.

He has his work cut out for him. In December, Green Airport recorded 354,641 passengers, 5.6 percent fewer than the same period in 2006 and 17.1 percent fewer than in December 2004.

In all, Green Airport moved 5.02 million passengers last year, down 3.5 percent from 2006. That decline followed a 9-percent drop the year before.

Airport spokeswoman Patti Goldstein could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Green Airport has been hurt by the exodus of Independence Air, in January 2006, and Spirit Airways, last April.

Of the remaining carriers, American Airlines recently ended service from Providence to Dallas and Chicago. Last June, Southwest Airlines announced plans to cut one of six daily flights from Providence to Philadelphia, and one of two daily flights to Phoenix.

Those cuts, coupled with a general shift toward smaller jets, have damaged Green Airport’s finances. In the last fiscal year, the airport suffered a revenue drop for the first time this decade.

Not every airport is struggling.

Nationally, air traffic has been growing, crowding the skies above major hubs such as John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Domestic and international passengers on U.S. airlines for the first 11 months of last year grew by 3.2 percent compared with the same period in 2006, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

At Logan International Airport in Boston, 28.1 million passengers arrived or departed last year, a 1.4-percent increase from 2006.

But a portion of that growth is tied to booming international travel, a boost that Rhode Island has missed entirely. Without an expanded runway, Green Airport is unable to offer nonstop flights to destinations east of London.

Global passenger traffic also rose, by 5.6 percent, in 2007, according to the Airports Council International, an industry group in Switzerland. In December, airports worldwide saw passenger traffic grow by 4 percent, propelled by 7.7-percent growth, on average, in international traffic.

U.S. airlines carried 82.8 million international passengers during the first 11 months of 2007, up 4.6 percent from 2006, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported.

In Boston, Logan logged 39,458 international flights last year, up 8.7 percent from 2006. Last month, US Airways began weekly service from Boston to the Grand Cayman Islands.

Logan, which now offers nonstop service to 31 foreign destinations, is hoping to further improve its international activity.

This month, it announced a plan to recruit new international carriers through a series of subsidies. The Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan, has offered landing fee credits and free advertising to carriers starting new routes to China, India, Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East and Mexico City.

“To maintain our competitive edge on the global stage we must challenge ourselves to be innovative in how we attract new business and retain existing businesses,” Daniel O’Connell, secretary of the state Housing and Economic Development Department in Massachusetts, said in a statement. “Massport is meeting that challenge head on by being aggressive in their efforts to attract new international destinations to our priority overseas markets.”

In addition to international travelers, frugal domestic fliers are also being lured away from Green Airport.

Last year, Portland International Airport in Maine saw passenger traffic jump by 17 percent after low-cost airlines JetBlue Airways and AirTran Airways initiated service. In April, Sprit plans to start flying daily from Logan to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a Sprit hub where flights to 23 cities in Latin America and the Caribbean originate.

The intensifying regional competition comes at a time of potential strain for many U.S. airports, particularly those dependent on less profitable domestic travel.

Rising fuel prices pushed most airlines into the red in the fourth quarter of last year, including Northwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, US Airways, American Airlines and JetBlue. Even Southwest, which remained profitable, has announced plans to reduce domestic service.

The average price of jet fuel rose 1.6 percent in the third quarter of 2007, according to the Air Transport Association of America, a trade association in Washington. Fuel now makes up 27 percent of airline spending, up from 10 percent a decade ago.

As airlines try to adjust to rising oil prices, an economic slowdown is threatening to kneecap major carriers, dampening demand for both business and leisure travel.

“The slowing economy and sky-high fuel prices are putting tremendous pressure on U.S. airlines to reduce non-fuel costs,” John Heimlich, the association’s chief economist, said in a recent report.Stalled

Passenger traffic in January at T.F. Green Airport was the lowest since 2004

-

Source: R.I. Airport Corporation

bgedan@projo.com