Santa Maria Airport facing tough competition as it tries to add new service

The skies haven’t been so friendly to the Santa Maria Public Airport lately.

As the airport seeks to add new service, its seen local competitors in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo both enjoy a recent run of success.

Over the past three weeks alone, the Santa Barbara Airport has announced three new carriers, along with three new destinations.

Earlier this month, Sun Country Airlines launched new twice-weekly non-stop service to Minneapolis.

Two weeks ago, Frontier Airlines returned to Santa Barbara, beginning non-stop flights to Denver three times a week.

On Monday, Contour Airlines announced it will offer daily non-stop flights to Oakland and Las Vegas later this year.

In San Luis Obispo, the SLO County Regional Airport opened a new $39.5 million terminal late last year.

Non-stop flights to Seattle and Denver are also now flying out of San Luis Obispo.

At the same time, Santa Maria Airport continues to offer just one commercial destination.

Allegiant Air’s low-cost service to Las Vegas is the only commercial flight from Santa Maria. However, the popular flight only flies three times a week, on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

It’s a situation Santa Maria Public Airport general manager Chris Hastert is working hard to change.

“Air service is a huge priority at Santa Maria Airport and trying to reestablish hub service for our business travelers,” said Hastert. “It’s a constant battle. A lot of different factors go into it. Every time we get close, it seems like we take a couple of steps backwards.”

Hastert has remained patient over the past several months trying to bring daily service back to Santa Maria.

Once Mokulele Airlines left last November, Santa Maria has been without a daily flight to any destination.

As he tries to bring in new service, Hastert says several challenges are complicating the effort.

“The biggest factor that affects us when airlines are looking to add, generally they go into Santa Barbara,” said Hastert. “When they look to expand service, it’s just geography. They want to get as far away from that service that they can and still serve that area, so San Luis Obispo just being a little bit further away from Santa Barbara, gives them an advantage over us.”

As for competing directly with Santa Barbara, Hastert said Santa Maria has a distinct disadvantage.

“A lot of that has to do with being Santa Barbara,” said Hastert. “Everybody knows Santa Barbara is. They’re familiar with the name, so when you talk about Sun Country coming from Minneapolis, that’s less about the Santa Barbara travelers trying to get to Minneapolis. It’s more about people in Minneapolis that want to come out to California and enjoy the wine and the weather and all of that and Santa Barbara is the name that everyone knows.”

While the airports to the north and south add new carriers and service, Hastert believes their success may actually benefit Santa Maria.

“The good news is that they’re doing very well in both of those airports right now,” Hastert said. “When we talk to the airlines, to have good service at both of the other airports that are doing well, as opposed to just service that’s just mediocre or not quite meeting their requirements, they’re definitely not going to add new service in Santa Maria if they’re not doing well at those other two airports.”

Discussions with carriers during airline conferences have been ongoing over the past several months. Hastert is hoping to have face-to-face meetings over the next few weeks.

“We met most of the major carriers in March, again in June and hopefully this fall,” said Hastert. “One of the issues is that through mergers and bankruptcies and other things, there’s really not a lot of airlines to meet anymore and those airlines are already serving other local airports in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara.”

When pitching to an airline, Hastert said his approach differs. For carriers that already serve Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, such as United and American, he has to really focus on how the airline can be successful at all three airports.

“It’s a matter of convincing them that Santa Maria still has enough demand that’s not going to poach the travelers in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo,” said Hastert. “It’s really pushing that we have enough of a market here and enough demand here that if price things reasonably and fair with the other two airports, then we’ll be successful.”

When he’s trying to attract a new carrier to the area, one that doesn’t already serve any area airport, such as Southwest Airlines, he can change his approach.

“We pitch the whole region,” said Hastert. “We show why Santa Maria can serve them for all of their Central Coast needs, so it really varies from airline to airline.”

As for what potential destinations could eventually open for the Santa Maria Airport, there are several possibilities.

“We meet with all of the airlines for any market,” said Hastert. “It could be San Diego, Oakland, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Denver, Phoenix. We meet to talk about all of those, but as far as the grant is concerned, we’re focused on east bound service.”

Helping in the effort to bring in new east bound service is a substantial federal grant.

“We also have an incentive program that we have in place that includes fee waivers and revenue guarantees,” said Hastert. “We’re very fortunate. We have a grant in place with the Department of Transportation. We have a $1.4 million package for an airline for east-bound service. It’s limited to Denver, Salt Lake City or Phoenix.”

As the airport tries to create new east-bound service, Hastert is also looking into restoring in-state service to Los Angeles or San Francisco.

He also said the Allegiant flight remains successful, frequently filling the 160-plus aircraft.

Allegiant is also expanding its Santa Maria service. It will add a fourth day to its calendar, beginning Monday flights on Oct. 8.

Hastert doesn’t believe Contour’s upcoming flight to Las Vegas poses too much of a threat to Allegiant.

“There might be a little bit of leakage down to Contour Airlines, and we wish them all the luck in the world with their new flights,” said Hastert. “Being a small airplane with only 30 seats, compared to Allegiant’s 160-plus seats, I don’t think it will have much of an impact and it’s also difficult to get the pricing down as low as Allegiant does because you’re spreading that cost of operating that flight across 30 seats, rather than 100-plus seats.”

As he works hard to increase service, Hastert also points out that despite the lack of commercial flights, these are actually very good times for the Santa Maria Public Airport.

“Overall, the airport is doing very well and we’re making a lot of investments for the future,” said Hastert. “We have a very diverse revenue stream from different uses, such as the Radisson Hotel, a business park, a lot of agriculture. We have a U.S. Forest Service tanker base, air ambulance, maintenance services, a jet center. The traveling public looks at an airport and they see airlines, but really there’s a lot more to an airport than just airlines.”

Still, he knows Santa Maria Valley travelers that utilize the airport are hoping more airlines will fly into the city.

It’s a possibility that might come sometime soon.

“I will say the economy is doing really well right now,” said Hastert. “The airlines are doing really well right now. The airline service at our two neighboring airports are doing well enough that we think now is the right time to add service to Santa Maria and that’s what we’re actively working on right now. I’m optimistic that in the not too distant future, we will have an announcement to make.”