LEFT TO RIGHT: EMILY JACOBS, 4TH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR VIRGINIA BASS AND 5TH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR RYAN SUNDBERG GATHERED AT THE BEGINNING OF MARCH TO WELCOME A NEW FLEET OF UNITED AIRLINES JETS THAT WILL FLY BETWEEN ACV AND SAN FRANCISCO.
AVIATION DIVISION PROGRAM MANAGER EMILY JACOBS ACTS AS THE DIVISION’S REPRESENTATIVE IN THE ONGOING SEARCH FOR ADDITIONAL AIR SERVICE IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY.
Wing and a Prayer
Passenger Enplanement At Arcata / Eureka Airport, 2002-present
continued from previous page
120,000
80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000
AIRLINES
NUMBER OF PASSENGERS
100,000
Horizon Air to SEA
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Horizon Air to LAX
Delta Airlines to SLC 2009 2008 2010
2007
United Airlines to SFO 2011
2013
2012
2014
A Decade of Trends at ACV NUMBER OF PASSENGERS
$20,000,000 $300
150,000 REVENUE
$250
120,000
PASSENGERS
$15,000,000 $200
90,000
FARES
$150
60,000
$10,000,000 $100
30,000 2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
16 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015 • northcoastjournal.com
2011
2012
2013
© NORTH COAST JOURNAL | SOURCE: HUMBOLDT COUNTY AVIATION DIVISION
AIRLINE PASSENGER REVENUES FARES
Jacobs has been trying to rebuild that goodwill, but she also brings her networking and data to those conferences: facts and figures from previous routes out of ACV, the knowledge of airport improvements, and the feasibility of a host of incentives that can be bargained with, depending on the desirability of a route the airline might offer. “It’s a shark tank,” Jacobs said. “You go very polished, you know your stuff.” As Jacobs describes it, airline companies have been losing money since the U.S. deregulated them in the late 1970s. The now-defunct regulatory agency had essentially been taken over by the industry, leading to very high fares. In 1978, “Federal controls over the entry and exit of airlines, flight schedules, airfares and quality of service were abolished,” according to an article by The Public Good Initiative director David Morris. “Financial oversight was abandoned. Only airline safety remained under federal regulation.” Combined with dropping oil prices and newfound competition, fares plummeted, the standard thinking goes, democratizing air travel throughout the country. Deregulation was lauded across the political spectrum. According to Morris, the act’s success goes virtually uncontested. But, Morris writes (and he cites several studies), the drop in fare prices more or less coincided with falling prices before deregulation. Essentially, Morris says, deregulation led to concentration of ownership of airline companies, and one analyst concluded that the “grant of pricing freedom to the airline industry has generally resulted in average prices being higher than they would have been had regulation continued.” That thinking is becoming slightly broader, but economic debate aside, one thing is indisputable: Humboldt County has few options for air service. Four airline companies control 85 percent of U.S. air travel: Delta, United, American and Alaskan (which owns Horizon). And it’s those same big four that Fly