In retailing, it's well understood that businesses sometimes have to start off small, with a limited inventory of goods, until sales become brisk enough to expand the number and variety of goods offered. Growth is the goal, and expansion is the means.
It's pretty much the same in the travel industry. Start off small, earn customer confidence and build clientele, and then move up to more comprehensive service.
Plattsburgh International Airport is at a crossroads now, where it has to decide whether it wants to level off at a locally impressive record of success or open up new horizons to fly even higher. With future prosperity seemingly within its reach, it's time for Plattsburgh International to ascend to the next plateau and assess the view from there.
The airport is no longer an infant. At 3 years old, it now has its legs firmly underneath itself. The reasons for this success are threefold: bold vision by local leaders who fought for a new airport with full-service potential; two airlines — Allegiant and Direct Air to Dixie destinations — that saw lucrative prospects in catering to the sprawling Montreal market; and a small airline — Cape Air — with small planes that was able to build an impeccable reputation for reliability and convenience.
The number of passengers on Cape Air has risen from more than 3,000 a year to more than 10,000. And that's just on nine-passenger Cessnas going only to Boston.
Clinton County is grateful for what Cape Air has done to get the fledgling airport out of the nest. Now, however, the airport is considered ready to really take wing and must have bigger planes. The Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce has surveyed Montrealers and found thousands of them ready to use the local airport for commercial flights — if service is upgraded.
Colgan Air promises two daily flights to Boston on 34-seat aircraft with pressurized cabins and a flight attendant, with connections to other destinations on its parent airline, USAirways. That seems far more likely to attract traffic from Montreal than the tiny aircraft employed by Cape Air.
It's not as if the county is suddenly abandoning the franchise that got it where it is. Cape Air has known all along that this choice would eventually emerge, and it could have been prepared to offer the more commodious service. It did not. It argues that its planes are not always full now and bigger ones aren't needed. But there is scant lure in marketing to a metropolitan market using tiny planes. Some passengers have questioned whether the small aircraft could even accommodate the gear — skis, golf clubs and the like — that customers would want to bring to the vacation destinations in the North Country.
The simple fact is that this region is poised for dynamic growth. It's taking place now with new industries and an unassailable record of ever-increasing air traffic and will intensify as the economy picks up steam. Broader, more professional service needs to be ready, as well.
We'll never test our potential with nine-passenger planes going in and out, as effective as they've been in getting us off the ground.
If we hope to play in the big leagues, we have to have big-league equipment.
