Wednesday, Sep. 10, 2008

Direct Air increases routes

Local carrier charters planes, changes name

A Myrtle Beach air service company has added new cities to its flight schedule - and dropped Myrtle Beach from its name.

At a time when big carriers are scaling back and cutting flights, Direct Air is able to add routes and bring in more customers thanks to financial help from airports and low overhead costs, the company's president said.

Using a plane chartered from Virgin America, Direct Air will be flying out of Orlando, Fla.; Charlotte Country Airport, serving Port Charlotte and Fort Myers, Fla.; Worcester, Mass.; and Kalamazoo, Mich., company President Ed Warneck said. He said he would announce which new cities will connect to Myrtle Beach next week.

"We're trying to work with cities and asking them, 'Where would you like to fly to?'" he said.

"They understand the economic impact that we bring to the community and are willing to form a relationship, a partnership, to increase economic growth."

That includes hundreds of thousands of dollars in help with marketing and eliminating fees, he said.

The company has been growing since its first flights took off in 2007 under the name Myrtle Beach Direct Air & Tours.

This year, it flew between Myrtle Beach and Niagara Falls, N.Y.; Newark, N.J.; Plattsburgh, N.Y.; Columbus; and Pittsburgh.

Direct Air might offer flights between Myrtle Beach and a Florida city this winter, though plans are not finalized, Warneck said.

Through July, Direct Air has been Myrtle Beach International Airport's fourth-largest carrier, bringing more than 67,000 people in and out of the airport. Spirit Airlines, the largest carrier, has carried more than 396,000 people in and out, according to numbers from Horry County, which owns and operates the airport.

Even with all the incentives, this is a challenging time for all air service companies, said Philip Baggaley, a credit analyst on airlines and aircraft leasing companies with Standard & Poor's.

"It's hard to fill up the planes with enough passengers at good fares when you're only flying fairly infrequently, you're not connected to a large, overall route network, and using planes of that size for small- to medium-sized markets," he said.

Other carriers' cutbacks in service give Direct Air an advantage when shopping for an airplane to charter, said Ken Cushine, vice president of Frasca and Associates, a N.Y.-based transportation financial consulting firm that works for Horry County.

Cutting fees for airlines, as Horry County did last month, is important, but the company's success will depend on the advertising in the individual markets, Cushine said.

Last month, Horry County announced a package designed to cut costs for airlines providing new, direct service, and again waived fees for airlines during the winter.

Warneck said Horry County should do more for airlines operating out of Myrtle Beach International Airport.

County Council Chairwoman Liz Gilland said she hopes Direct Air will do well, but she thought Myrtle Beach should not be compared with some of the other airports - such as Charlotte County and Worcester airports - because those airports had no regular passenger flights before Direct Air came along.

"When you're desperate, you give every incentive you can," she said. "We are not desperate enough to cause taxpayers to have to subsidize our airport."

Direct Air will charter two planes, an Airbus A-320 and an A-319, from Virgin America, a San Francisco-based airline, Virgin spokeswoman Abby Lunardini said. They seat 125 to 150 passengers.

Over the summer, Direct Air had been using a JetBlue plane, but it canceled its contract with the company because the plane would have been too big to handle its soft September business, Warneck said. The companies are negotiating a new contract for next year, he said.

This year, the company is once again offering its Family Ties promotion - where it puts vouchers for about 8,000 round trips on sale - only this time customers can get vouchers online instead of showing up at the airport, as they did last year in Myrtle Beach.