Last march, Gary announced a deal with a new airline, Skybus. Airport director Chris Curry.
CHRIS CURRY, Director, Gary/Chicago Airport: We were very excited to have Skybus. They had a great business plan, in our opinion. They had significant financial backing from Morgan Stanley and Fidelity. It doesn't get any better.
They came into the industry with $160 million in revenue, which was $30 million more than JetBlue did when they came into the industry. They started here, flew for about three weeks, and they went out of business.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The reason was clear, says Curry.
CHRIS CURRY: The high cost of fuel. When they came into the industry, the price of crude oil was $62 a barrel. When they left the industry, it was $116 a barrel.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The loss of Skybus was yet another blow to a community that has been economically depressed for years. Although the city has a new Minor League Baseball field and some downtown renovation, a revived airport is a necessity, according to Mayor Rudolph Clay.
MAYOR RUDOLPH CLAY, Gary, Indiana: Well, first of all, the airport is the engine, really, that's going to make northwest Indiana turn and soar like an eagle. That airport is extremely important.
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY SPOKESMAN: Well, the airport will hire people.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: To make that engine turn, the director of the recently created Regional Development Authority makes his pitch for the airport everywhere he can, including this cable access show.
The authority put up $20 million of a $92 million airport expansion plan. The rest of the funds came from the federal government and the city of Chicago.
Chicago has long urged the airlines that fly in to overcrowded O'Hare and Midway to use Gary as an alternative airport. But so far, no major airlines have agreed.
What Curry now hopes is an expanded runway and the addition of a customs facility in the terminal will help him snag his latest target: an international passenger airline.
CHRIS CURRY: We do have one airline in mind. Several months ago, we were approached by an airline operating in Mexico by the name of VivaAerobus, which expressed interest in flying daily flights from Monterrey to Gary.
We have a large population base of Hispanic and Latinos within close proximity, 9.5 million people in metro Chicago, of which 1.9 million is Hispanic and Latino, and 80 percent have Mexican ties.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But with the high cost of fuel forcing flight cutbacks and layoffs in the major airlines today, Schwieterman says it's very difficult to continue to look upon regional airports as an area's economic engine.
JOSEPH SCHWIETERMAN: Airports today are like railroads were a hundred years ago. That's the first place municipal officials look to sort of brand themselves, to sort of make a statement to the business community.
And so big money is pumped into these airports, but there's one part of the equation they can't control, and that's the decisions of the airlines, and clearly the airlines aren't interested now in a whole lot of new routes.
ELIZABETH BRACKETT: That doesn't mean Gary and Terre Haute won't continue going after a passenger airline. It just means right now the going is pretty tough.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business ... 07-03.html
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