Mitchell International one of America's fastest growing airports

[MilwaukeeMax]

Mitchell sets a single-month record for passenger traffic
By Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: May 4, 2010 11:52 a.m. |(6) COMMENTS

Airline passengers using Mitchell International Airport in March set a single-month record, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker said Tuesday.

The month's total of 896,598 passengers was an increase of 41.5% over 633,763 passengers in March 2009. The total eclipses the previous high month, July 2008, which saw 821,610 passengers during the peak summer travel season.

The number of passengers for the first quarter of 2010 is a quarterly record at 2,262,597, a 39.6% increase over the year-earlier period.

By comparison, nationwide passenger count increased just 1.4% in March, said Barry Bateman, Mitchell International director.

AirTran Airways has been adding more flights from Mitchell International, which is now AirTran's second hub, along with Atlanta. Both Southwest Airlines, which began service from Milwaukee last fall, and AirTran have low fares that are attracting more passengers to Mitchell International from northern Illinois and other areas beyond Milwaukee.

Also, the combined Midwest Airlines/Frontier Airlines has been restoring service since both operations were bought last year by Republic Airways Holdings Inc. Milwaukee will serve as a hub for Frontier as the Midwest name is retired.

[Steely Dan]

^ it's true that lake county, IL residents are discovering and using mitchell more and more. my sister and her family live up in lake county, a couple miles west of Great America, and ever since they first used mitchell to go to florida a couple years ago, they now always prefer to use it over ohare or midway if they can find competitive fares (which seems to be getting easier now that southwest is in play up there). she said it's just an incredibly user-friendly, no-hassle airport and long term parking is apparently a steal compared to ohare's rates.

[GBObserver]

Among all of my co-workers, friends, and family living here in Green Bay, all of us have driven to Milwaukee repeatedly this year to catch a flight from MKE. Traffic will continue to expand there with the additions of AirTran and Southwest.

[MilwaukeeMax]

Mitchell airport sets record with over 900,000 passengers in June
By Meg Jones of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Aug. 4, 2010 |(15) COMMENTS

Mitchell International Airport hit a one-month all-time passenger record in June when almost 923,000 people passed through the Milwaukee facility.

It was the first month that Mitchell served more than 900,000 passengers, an increase of almost 30% from the 710,767 people who used the airport in June 2009.

The increased passenger numbers are a reflection of the addition of Southwest Airlines to the Milwaukee market, more daily flights and cheaper average airfares compared with the national average and airfares at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. According to U.S. Department of Transportation figures for the first quarter of 2010, the average airfare out of Mitchell was $98 less than O'Hare and $78 less than the national average.

In the first half of this year, Mitchell served 4.78 million passengers, an increase of almost 35% from the same period in 2009. Nationwide growth in passengers was 1.4% in June compared with almost 30% at Mitchell, which ranked Milwaukee as the only U.S. airport among the top 30 fastest growing airports in the world.

(Mitchell's 1st Quarter Growth was 3rd Highest in the World)

[Crankbaiter]

It gets better than that.

Check this out.

http://transtats.bts.gov/airports.as...&carrier=FACTS


Based on 12 months of data ending April 2010, MIA is the 37th busiest airport in the U.S., up from 50 a mere 18 months ago!

Sweet!!!

It is about time we recaptured all the passengers from WI using O'Hare. Based on population, we should be around 30 and we are getting there!

[embora]

This WISN.com article is already a week or two old, but I haven't seen it posted here. A piece of the master plan puzzle fell into place:


440th Airlift Wing Transfers 120 Acres To Mitchell International

POSTED: 9:32 pm CDT July 26, 2010
UPDATED: 9:43 pm CDT July 26, 2010

MILWAUKEE -- A historic handover occurred Monday at Mitchell International Airport.

The Air Force officially transferred the 102 acres that used to make up the 440th Airlift Wing to the airport.

http://www.wisn.com/news/24402426/detail.html

[MilwaukeeMax]

Originally Posted by Crankbaiter

It gets better than that.

Check this out.

http://transtats.bts.gov/airports.as...&carrier=FACTS


Based on 12 months of data ending April 2010, MIA is the 37th busiest airport in the U.S., up from 50 a mere 18 months ago!

Sweet!!!

It is about time we recaptured all the passengers from WI using O'Hare. Based on population, we should be around 30 and we are getting there!

interesting.... and those are stats from April of this year-- by now, Mitchell could possibly be in the top 30 busiest airports in the US...

the most impressive stat to me, though, is that we're the third fastest growing airport in the WORLD... that's pretty insane, when you think of the rapidly growing asian markets and the growing european airports...

[honest86]

While I think the airline numbers are great for Milwaukee, I would recommend that the county be cautious before investing a lot of money in the airport. Airlines tend to be pretty finicky, there are dozens of airports who just like Milwaukee saw their ridership grow at amazing rates for a few years, they made a big investment in their terminals and runways to meet their growing demand, and suddenly a few years later the airlines decided to move their hubs to another airport and their ridership figures dropped leaving the municipalities on the hook for a large part of the improvements when the ticket revenues declined.

[MilwaukeeMax]

so, I dug a little deeper and found that in just a few short months, Milwaukee has now risen to the 28th largest airports in the nation...

from the business journal of milwaukee:

"The elevated passenger counts have allowed Mitchell, which is owned by Milwaukee County, to grow into the 28th-largest airport in the United States..."

this is significant. this makes Mitchell bigger than Cleveland's, Pittsburgh's, St. Louis', Indy's, Cincinnati's, DC's Reagan National and even Chicago's Midway airports!

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by MilwaukeeMax

this makes Mitchell bigger than Cleveland's, Pittsburgh's, St. Louis', Indy's, Cincinnati's, DC's Reagan National and even Chicago's Midway airports!

WOW, it has surpassed midway! that is impressive.

midway was previously the 4th busiest in the midwest after o'hare, detroit, and minneapolis-st. paul, so now mitchell slides into the 4th spot. mitchell will likely never catch up to the big 3 in the midwest, but still, that's some crazy fast growth. it's was only a couple of years ago when mitchell was the 10th busiest in the midwest.

[jpIllInoIs]

Originally Posted by MilwaukeeMax

so, I dug a little deeper and found that in just a few short months, Milwaukee has now risen to the 28th largest airports in the nation...

from the business journal of milwaukee:

"The elevated passenger counts have allowed Mitchell, which is owned by Milwaukee County, to grow into the 28th-largest airport in the United States..."

this is significant. this makes Mitchell bigger than Cleveland's, Pittsburgh's, St. Louis', Indy's, Cincinnati's, DC's Reagan National and even Chicago's Midway airports!

Slow your roll there Milwaukee Max.. the original RITA source that you quoted shows that from April 2010 - April 2009, Midway as the ranks 23rd busiest airport. Your new "deeper source"..is a Milwaukee Business Journal article that does not have any statistics. So I am not sure how you come to the conclusion that Mitchell is busier than Midway.

I do share the in the cheers for Mitchell though. I have commented in the Chicago section of the SSC here that Mitchell has "Won" the race with Gary to be Chicago's 3rd airport. That means that Mitchell is providing the "relief valve" for an over crowded O'Hare. But it is of course a Milwaukee airport primarily and Wisconsin's major Intra-national port. But as quoted from the Milwaukee Business Journal article...

"Airfares have been driven down by the aggressive expansion by AirTran combined with the entrance into the market by Southwest, he said.

The cheap airfares at Mitchell have allowed the airport to attract more travelers from northern Illinois, long a goal of airport operators and the focus of a concerted marketing program, Walker said.

“We’ve been selling Mitchell on its convenience, but it was cheaper to fly elsewhere,” he said. “Now, it’s not only more convenient, it’s a lot cheaper.”

[The Urban Politician]

I-94 north of the Wisconsin border has (from my non-scientific observation) has gradually gotten busier, even in the last year that I've been here.

While construction obviously plays a role in that, one has to think that at least some of that is growing traffic to the airport.

[The Urban Politician]

Originally Posted by jpIllInoIs

Mitchell has "Won" the race with Gary to be Chicago's 3rd airport.

^ That's fine and dandy, but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem that an airport is still needed for the south portion of Chicagoland and NW Indiana.

Yes, it's not as economically successful as the north/west portions of the region, but by all means there are still a lot of industrial, distribution, etc jobs in southland. Look at Joliet, for example, which is building the largest inland port in the country. Thousands of jobs projected..

[jpIllInoIs]

Just a follow up on to clarify that Mitchell HAS NOT surpassed Midway in passenger or flight volume. Here are the stats from June, 2010. This is not meant to take away the glow of Milwaukee's pride in the stunning success and growth of Mitchell. Mitchell growth rate is a gobsmacking 29.86% compared to June 09. Midway has enjoyed a 2.1% growth over the same period last year. And O'Hare's operations are up 3.1% from June 09 and passenger volume is up 3.6%.

Midway Passenger Volume for June 2010: 1,564,088; Total Operations (takeoff/landings) 21,783.

Mitchell Passenger Volume for June 2010: 922,984; Total Operations (takeoff/landings) 16,875.

[Eriol]

I also saw the article that claimed Mitchell is #28. So someone must know what the current top 50 is. I'd love to see that now. If Midway is still in front, someone else must have fallen behind.

[Crankbaiter]

The same BTS website shows Midway at 23 and Mitchell at 37. 12 months ending April 2010 has 16.8MM pass for Midway and 9.0 for Mitchell. Even with Mitchell's growth, Midway will be ahead for quite a while.

[Crankbaiter]

BTS shows Indy at peak in 2005 at 8.3 and now it is 7.3 and falling.

[MilwaukeeMax]

Originally Posted by Crankbaiter

The same BTS website shows Midway at 23 and Mitchell at 37. 12 months ending April 2010 has 16.8MM pass for Midway and 9.0 for Mitchell. Even with Mitchell's growth, Midway will be ahead for quite a while.

i see that... it seems midway has had its own impressive growth-- they've already well surpassed last year's total passengers--- but still, i don't think you can argue with the percentage difference. if the trends stay the same, it's only a matter of time before Mitchell overtakes Midway in terms of size.

[MilwaukeeMax]

to clarify, my original list of rankings where i found midway ranked at 29 was here

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by MilwaukeeMax

if the trends stay the same, it's only a matter of time before Mitchell overtakes Midway in terms of size.

well, that little "if" is the whole crux of the matter. rarely do growth rates for things like this stay static. mitchell may overtake midway, or it may not, the gap is currently pretty large and mitchell is gonna have to sustain its white-hot growth momentum for a fair bit of time to catch up to midway, which is no small task. it's certainly possible though, it'll be interesting to watch.

what i would like to find though are up to date stats for other midwest airports to see if MKE really has leapfrogged other midwest airports like STL, CVG, CLE, MCI, and IND to fall into the 5th slot for the midwest's busiest airports after ORD, DTW, MSP, and MDW.