LOUISVILLE, Ky.—Dan Mann beamed with pride from a podium in Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport on Feb. 23 as he prepared to make a major announcement: A new partnership with Spirit Airlines for four new direct flights.
The executive director of the Louisville RegionalAirport Authority listed several reasons why he was optimistic about the airport's rebound from a steep decline in travel amid the coronavirus pandemic, including bourbon-based tourism and cargo shipping.
"And then the secret weapon," Mann said. "I talk about my secret weapon all the time."
Whom*or what is the weapon Mann referred to? That would be Anthony Gilmer, thedirector of marketing and air service development for the airport authority.
"He is simply the best air service director in the business," Mann said. "And all these things are made possible by his relentless pursuit of new opportunities, the data and his network of friends."
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How Gilmer helped bring Spirit to SDF
Gilmer first arrived in Louisville in August 2018, and he said the airport authority had been talking to Spirit and pitching Muhammad Ali International to them since then.
Attracting Spirit, an ultra-low cost carrier, as well as airlines in general is a "constant education process" about the city, the airline market and data about rates and destinations of where people commonly fly, he said.
"Historically, we've been a very underserved air market especially with the airlineslike Spirit, the ultra-low cost carriers," Gilmer said."So, mathematically speaking, there's a ton of opportunity here for an airlinelike Spirit."
And with the stress the industry has faced from the pandemic, airlines are "hyper-focused" on which airports are recovering quickest and have the most opportunity, he said.
During a meeting of the airport authority on Jan. 20, Gilmer noted that Muhammad Ali International's "traffic recoveryhas been outpacing the national average." Though the airport hadabout 5%of its passenger traffic in April 2020 compared with January 2020, it got back to a little more than 46% of that traffic level by December.
John Kirby, Spirit's vice president of network planning, told The Courier Journal that his team met with Gilmer at an air service conference pre-pandemic and that he "really piqued the interest of the team."
Like Gilmer, Kirby said the airport is underserved "and maybe overfared," and that the airline saw an opportunity to "really grow the marketplace" in Louisville, which doesn't have the same volume of ultra-low cost carriers as other cities in the region.
Specifically, he discussed the airline's direct flight between Muhammad Ali International andLos Angeles International Airport— a flight that Louisville had through American Airlines starting in April 2019 but lost in the summer of 2020 due to the pandemic.
Beginning May 27, in addition to Los Angeles, Muhamad Ali International will offer direct flights to LasVegas, Orlando and FortLauderdale through Spirit. Spirit has a strong presence at all three of those airports;Kirby said Spirit is the largest airline in FortLauderdale, with almost 90 flights going through it a day.
Orlando and Las Vegas are the second- and third-largest stations, respectively,for the airline, Kirby said, and Los Angeles became the fourth-largest over the pandemic.
"If you look at how we've started most cities — certainly even before the pandemic—we generally lead with some combination of Floridaand Las Vegas," Kirby said.
Spirit's big focus is on leisure travel, an area Kirby said shoulddo "very well" in the summer months coming out of the pandemic. If that projection is right, and Louisville travelers use Spirit's routes, the airline may add more destinations out of the Derby City.
"We have a track record of growing in the marketplace," Kirby said. "So if the Louisville folks and people coming into Louisville support us, we'll add more destinations."
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Where SDF hopes to head in the future
Like airports nationwide, Muhammad Ali International suffered from the precipitous decline in travel caused by the pandemic. The airport finished the year with a $29 million hit to its budget.
However, earlier in the year, Mann expressed pride in capital investments the airport made during the pandemic and optimism for the future.
Gilmer shared that same pride and optimism in an interview with The Courier Journal this week, noting that the Spirit deal is the fourth major air service announcement by the airport during the pandemic. It follows announcements of direct flights by Southwest Airlines to FortMyers and Atlanta and Allegiant Airlines to Charleston, South Carolina.
"I think if a year ago, ifyou would have told me that we would have one new route between then and now, I would say, well, that's really good, that really worked out well for us," Gilmer said."But if you would have told me that we would have four new air service announcements, and a new airline — I don't think I would have bet on that."
Dale Boden, chairman of the LouisvilleRegionalAirportAuthority board, said during the Spirit announcementin February that the airportoffers 34 nonstop flights and destinations.
Gilmer is looking to continue to expand the airport's air service, both in regions that it already goes to, like Florida, but also areas it hasn't yet touched, such as Boston andother West Coast cities, like Seattle or those in Northern California.
"Really getting the airport connected to all of those major travel destinations and also major gateways isgoing to be the priority going forward," Gilmer said.
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Contact Ben Tobin at bjtobin@gannett.comand502-377-5675 or follow on Twitter @Ben__Tobin.
