Speed dating may not be explicitly included in Julie Wilsey’s and Gary Broughton’s job descriptions, but building air service at Wilmington International Airport is.

In early June, the two ILM officials attended JumpStart, a forum held in Atlanta that enables representatives of small and non-hub airports to promote their properties to airline companies. The fast-paced format resembles speed dating.

“We asked for 10 slots – visits with airline representatives – and got six, which is really good,” Broughton said.

Broughton, the airport’s operations director, and Wilsey, ILM’s deputy airport director, went to each meeting with a proposal. With representatives of existing ILM carriers US Airways and Delta, they asked for more flights. With potential new carriers, the two made their strongest case for service.

“Airlines are actually excited about our numbers,” Wilsey said. “At JumpStart, they were asking us questions, which is a good sign.”

It’s indicative of an increasingly competitive commercial aviation environment that small decreases in passenger numbers are something to be excited about. ILM’s passenger numbers are down, but by lower percentages than airports in, say, Memphis, Tenn., Kansas City, Mo., El Paso, Texas, and Burbank, Calif., where recent news stories show that airlines are pulling flights or pulling out altogether.

ILM is not immune. In April 2012, ILM waved goodbye to American Airlines’ daily direct Chicago flights and, more recently, to twice-weekly service to Orlando via Allegiant Air.

According to airport director Jon Rosborough, Wilmington International served about 800,000 travelers each year in 2011 and 2012, with a 1.2 percent drop in traffic from one year to the next. During the first four months of 2013, passenger numbers were down 4.5 percent from the same period in 2012.

To address the decline, Rosborough said his executive team regularly reviews ILM’s statistics, assesses the airport’s strengths and strategies and pitches the property to airlines they believe are a good match for Wilmington’s air service needs.

“The first objective of our air service development program is to maintain what we have. The second is to improve air service with either a new carrier, a new destination among the nation’s top 10 destinations, improved frequency of flights per day, improved schedules – departure and arrival times, larger aircraft with two-class service [first and coach] or any combination of those,” he said. 

“If we get a new airline, customers would have another choice. We want to add a direct Chicago flight; Chicago was a big hit for us,” Rosborough said. “Now that American is coming out of restructuring, it’s looking at us again. It’s all about revenues versus expenditures.”

Wilmington, as a “small hub” airport, may not have big numbers to post, but it does have one number that catches the eye of airline bean counters: 71 percent of travelers who fly in and out of ILM are business passengers.

“That is great from an airline revenue point of view,” Rosborough said. “It makes Wilmington attractive.”

In turn, having a commercial airport close by has been a factor in luring major companies to town, Rosborough said. 

“GE, PPD, Verizon – the airport has been key,” he said. “I know this because they have told me personally. They can get to anywhere in the world from here.”

In a presentation to the New Hanover County commissioners April 22, ILM officials included data on the average fares of the southeast U.S.’ 72 airports. 

Wilmington ranked 32nd on the list with an average fare of $214. 

Among North Carolina’s airports, Wilmington ranked third, behind Raleigh-Durham ($205) and Greenville ($211) but cheaper on average than Charlotte ($219) and Piedmont Triad ($221).

Jacksonville, which like Wilmington is served just by Delta and U.S. Airways, showed an average fare of $238.

Ask Rosborough why area travelers should choose ILM rather than Raleigh-Durham or even Myrtle Beach, and he ticks off a list. 

“Our fares are fairly competitive; we have all-jet service; we offer top-ten destinations and good frequency of flights,” he said.

And then there’s the “experience” factor. While Wilmington International cannot control all travel variables, officials are determined to optimize those it can.

“Travel on an air carrier can be quite a hassle,” Rosborough said. “Our mission, vision and corporate culture all relate to creating an enjoyable passenger experience, from the time passengers drive onto the property until they are in their seat. That should result in passenger loyalty.”

But happy passengers and good service alone won’t enable ILM to achieve the revenues it needs to operate. 

While it receives capital improvements grants from the Federal Aviation Administration and the – N.C. Department of Transportation, it must generate its own operating revenues. The current annual budget is roughly $7 million. 

Wilsey said that ILM’s largest source of money for operations is parking revenue, which totals more than $2.8 million annually. Another $1.6 million comes from the $3.88-per-departing-passenger fee that airlines pay. The balance, she said, is from rental car commissions, land leases and general aviation. While the airport is owned by New Hanover County, it gets no operations money from county tax revenues.

Airfield and airport terminal improvements are paid for with grant monies from the FAA and NCDOT, Wilsey said. 

“Our new rental car service facility will be paid for with a user fee program called the Customer Facility Charge (CFC),” she wrote in an email. “The rental car companies will collect a fee per car rented per day to pay for the facility. New Hanover County approved a $4.5 million loan to cover the upfront cost of construction, and we will pay them back over time as the CFC is collected.”  

Rosborough and his team believe that wooing a strong group of tenants to its business park will lead to a consistent second revenue source. The nascent park between 23rd Street and the airport property already has what Rosborough terms his “anchor store” – the $28 million outpatient Veterans Affairs clinic that opened in March and will eventually employ 260 people.

In early June, financial director Jim Morton said the airport approved a contract with Thomson, Corder & Co. for about $1 million to build roads and sidewalks, install utilities and landscape the business park property. 

“Once this [work] starts to occur, hopefully it will attract developers and interest,” Morton said.

The airport’s master plan shows 13 parcels, one of which is reserved for a hotel and one of which will have a10,000-square-foot flexible building shell that would be finished out for various businesses. 

“We’ve retained Coldwell Banker Sun Coast Partners to recruit a hotel, and we’ve gotten a positive report back that we have enough activity here [to interest a hotel],” Morton said. “We’ve retained Commonwealth as the broker to pre-lease the flex space.”

A bit of serendipity has allowed the airport to secure a secondary water source for development on the western side of its property. 

Using a $600,000 grant from NCDOT and $100,000 of its own money, ILM is running a water line to connect with the new “great loop” water line the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority is installing north of Wilmington and connecting to the Kerr Avenue water line. 

Water supply redundancy should help ILM market its business park properties and prevent any water issues throughout the airport itself, officials said.

“Having a second water source for the front of the property has been on our wish list for several years,” Wilsey said.

“This is an example of a public-public partnership,” Rosborough said. “It will extend the line through the airport property and north to the end of the runway, bringing water service to that parcel. This project helps the public utility authority, it helps us and it helps the customer.”

Another initiative that’s taking off, ILM officials said, is the proposed creation of a free trade zone (FTZ) near the existing customs facility on airport property. 

“There’s a unique opportunity here,” Rosborough said. “The port is already a free trade zone, and we would use the same customs agents.”

Free trade zones are attractive to companies that import or export parts or products, because those goods can be stored in an FTZ warehouse until sold or until needed for manufacture, Rosborough said. 

State Rep. Rick Catlin, R-New Hanover, is an enthusiastic supporter of establishing an FTZ at the airport. He pointed out the advantages to companies that use such zones: no federal duty is imposed upon the products until they are either sold or moved to a company’s manufacturing site, and no duty is charged at all on damaged parts or wasted materials.

“Goods could go from the free trade zone at the port to the free trade zone at the airport and then be flown out,” he said.  

Catlin has advocated such an airport FTZ for several years and put together a free trade promotional council to research the possibilities and ways to promote the idea. 

The potential economic development impact of having an FTZ at the airport – and perhaps at other locations in the Cape Fear region – will be discussed at a free trade conference later this year at Cape Fear Community College’s new Union Station building, Catlin said.

“There are a lot of economic, cultural and quality-of-life advantages to international business,” he said, citing the changes that have transformed Greenville, S.C., since it became involved in international manufacture and trade. 

The likelihood that ILM could develop a free trade zone is strong once the state makes the necessary application to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Catlin said.

“We’re working to move forward on that,” he said. “Once that’s done – hopefully, before the end of the year – we can get the site up very quickly. The expense of getting it designated is low.”

A growing local economy helps improve air service and attract more business, Rosborough said. 

“In the future,” he said, “we want to maintain what we have in terms of air service, add more destinations, more carriers and promote growth and opportunities in the business park.”