The Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport lost 25 percent of its market the night of Sept. 11, 2001. But after Hurricane Katrina devastated southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29, the airport acquired a 192 percent passenger increase.
The additional passengers could be the driving force that will send Baton Rouge flights to new destinations including Denver, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Miami.
The airport administration will meet with Delta officials next month to propose a nonstop service to Salt Lake City or Denver in 2006. They said they hope the airport will generate traffic from larger hubs, which will increase the demand for even more destinations.
The airport is also accepting bids for a consulting firm that will decide in December how to implement an airport expansion in 2006. Tax dollars in the form of airport grants will pay for the $32.5 million project.
Airport officials will pay the chosen firm up to $550,000 for a six-month re-evaluation of the airport’s master plan that was set for 2022, said Ronnie Pickard, airport marketing director.
New projects starting in 2006 could include more parking garages, a hotel at the airport, terminal expansion, more staff, expanded security and acquisition of thousands of acres of land.
These projects come as the airport completes a long-term series of expansion projects expected to handle air traffic for another 15 to 20 years.
After Katrina, airport officials discovered – through qualified polling data by Survey Communications, Inc., an independent marketing research firm – that an estimated 16,000 additional passengers plan to use the airport permanently.
Delta Airlines – the airport’s largest carrier – is adding nonstop service to Washington, D.C., and New York City on Dec. 1.
Nonstop service to Orlando began Nov. 1.
 
crowded terminals
Passengers overflowed the airport in the weeks following Katrina.
Insurance adjusters, Federal Emergency Management Agency subcontractors, Red Cross volunteers, New Orleans evacuees and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flooded the terminal.
The line of cars at curbside check-in was endless. And a Baton Rouge resident was difficult to find.
Now the larger passenger crowds come between 5:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., and pick back up at about 3 p.m. through the rest of the day. But there is still a constant influx of people with flights coming and going.
Passengers still park their cars on makeshift gravel lots with limestone fencing.
Each major airline at the airport – Delta, Continental, American Eagle and Northwest – added extra flights to their schedules to accommodate the shifting air traffic from Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans to BRMA.
But until he was sure at least half of the new passengers would continue using the airport, manager Anthony Marino said he could not allow his administration to invest in expansion.
“Many of the businesses have moved to Baton Rouge. There are people looking for houses and businesses to relocate to. They’re not going back,” Marino said.
Cindy Barker, 46, of Baton Rouge, arrived at the airport two weeks after Katrina to pick up her husband near the baggage claim.
“I normally pull up right out here and pick him up,” Barker said, pointing out the automatic exit doors where cars and taxicabs lined the curb. “But there were no spaces out there. It looks like the New Orleans airport.”
Barker said she noticed the additional passengers immediately.
“There’s tons of people that normally aren’t here,” she said. “As I walked down the outside parking lot, the people looked tired and beaten.”
 
N.o. slashes staff
Before Katrina, the New Orleans airport ran about 174 daily departures.
It re-opened Sept. 13 with four flights – two Delta and two Northwest.
The two airlines, the nation’s third- and fourth-largest air carriers, both filed for bankruptcy Sept. 15 to restructure. But they have now invested in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans markets than ever before because of Hurricane Katrina, which caused an estimated $55 million in damage to the New Orleans airport.
Walls blew off hangars, panels blew off jetways and corrugated sheathing peeled from underneath the curved, metal roof.
“We had water pouring through the roof as passengers were getting on a Delta evacuation flight,” said New Orleans airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourse.
The airport is now up to about 53 daily flights.
Before Katrina, an estimated 13,500 passengers flew from the airport daily. But October estimates revealed about 3,000 passengers.
The airport’s largest setback is the once-booming tourist hotspot no longer attracts as many visitors.
Of the estimated 5.5 million passengers flying out of the airport in 2004, only 14.6 percent were locals.
With an estimated $70 million revenue loss over the next 16 months, New Orleans city officials cut half the airport’s work force in October from 223 to 108 – everyone from accountants and administrators to welders and maintenance workers.
“It’s tough without that tourism base,” Duffourse said.
 
Federal dollars put to work
The estimated $216 million Baton Rouge airport renovations completed before Katrina – including an expanded terminal, public parking garage, a new terminal access road and noise mitigation – were funded through federal grants and other federal agencies. This will likely be the case for post-Katrina renovations.
Although the airport is an agency of the city-parish government, none of the $216 million came from the city. It was all federal dollars.
Congressional appropriations, the Federal Aviation Administration and state aviation trust funds will still cover the new projects beginning in 2006, Pickard said.
Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., announced in September that the airport would receive $550,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation to upgrade the 2022 plan.
Baker had pushed for years to get more airport funding at the federal level.
“Some of [the grants] were in the works,” said Mike Diresto, press secretary for Rep. Baker. “But there was a quicker response because of Katrina.”
The updated presentation was not a tough sell, with an estimated 81,600 passengers flying out of the airport in September compared to 33,290 in August.
The half-million dollars, however, only covers the cost of the consulting firm.