If you have flown recently, you may have noticed fewer flight options, air travel delays, and high ticket prices. And according to some recent news reports, passengers at regional airports have experienced the worst of these effects. How has Duluth International Airport fared and when might travelers see some relief?
According to the FAA, regional airports—as opposed to national airports—are "airports that support regional economies by connecting communities to regional and national markets." Most regional airports only fly within the U.S., but some, like Duluth’s, are also international airports with customs and an international terminal.
A recent New York Times article discussed how regional airports have been hurt by the pandemic. According to the article, smaller airports have been more drastically hit than larger airports. They have seen a larger decline in the number of flights, increases in pricing, and some have even closed. Since 2020, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines have collectively dropped a total of 59 airports, 54 of which being regional airports. (Airlines, also called carriers, choose airports where they want to provide service.)
We at the UMD’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research in the Labovitz School wanted to look at how the pandemic has impacted the Duluth International Airport’s number of flights and passengers, and we compared those statistics to other similar international airports. Using the Bureau of Transportation Statistics Annual Airport Rankings from 2019, we identified the seven international airports that were most similar to Duluth’s in both passenger counts and area population. See Table 1 below. Using historic data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, we then compared the number of passengers, number of scheduled flights, and the number of carriers at each of the eight airports in 2019 and 2022.
Figure 1 shows the number of passengers at each regional airport in 2019 compared to 2022. All the airports, besides Rockford/Chicago, have seen a decrease in the number of passengers from 2019 to 2022, with an average decrease of 40%. By comparison, Duluth had only a 15% decrease in passengers. To help provide additional context for the trends, we spoke with Tom Werner, executive director of Duluth International Airport, to get insight into why regional airports have felt the worst of the air industry troubles since the pandemic and to help explain why Duluth may not be hit as hard as some other regional airports.
Werner explained that the reason smaller-sized airports have been hurt more than large, national airports is that national airports have been able to lure pilots with higher wages. During the pandemic, no one was flying. Airports had to cut costs and gave older pilots early retirement. When people began traveling again, there became workforce demand for pilots. However, takes time to train pilots to replace those that retired. In the meantime, major airports continue to draw pilots from regional airports to feed the demand. Because of this, the regional airports have had to make cuts again.
According to Werner, there are a few theories why Duluth’s airport might not be experiencing the same declines as the other airports in our study. Werner mentioned that Duluth acts as a hub for other northern Minnesota regional airports such as Range Regional Airport in Hibbing and Falls International Airport in International Falls. Werner suggested that carriers may be reducing the number of flights to those small, outlying airports, and that Duluth’s airport might be drawing passengers from those northern Minnesota regions. However, when we, the BBER, looked into Werner’s theory about International Falls and Hibbing, we did not see as drastic of a decrease as we expected if Duluth was drawing from the nearby airports, implying something else might be affecting Duluth as well. International Falls saw a 12% decrease and Hibbing saw a 1.5% decrease in flights. Both decreases were smaller than all of the regional airports we looked at, besides Rockford/Chicago International which saw an increase.
Alternatively, it’s possible that Duluth’s airport could be faring better than other similar airports because of its distance from the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP). Except for the airports in Duluth and Grand Forks, most of the international airports included in our analysis were less than 100 miles from the closest hub airport. Duluth, on the other hand, is 160 miles from MSP. Grand Forks is even further at 390 miles. That distance could be helping give the Duluth airport independence from MSP, rather than being treated as its competitor—which would keep passenger counts up.
According to the New York Times article, the situation at regional airports is likely to worsen over the next couple of years. And while Duluth has been spared the worst of the effects so far, it is possible that continued cuts on the part of air carriers could impact our regional airport.
When carriers make decisions about which airports to drop during downturns, they rely on the demand for that airport to inform their decision. As Werner put it in his interview, Duluth International is advocating that its passengers “continue to fly local, because [the] industry is changing, and we want to show we’re worth investing in.”