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Efforts to woo more airlines to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport are about to take off.

Lambert officials on Wednesday voted to hire consultant Sabre Airline Solutions to help market the St. Louis airport during these gloomy days in commercial aviation. Final approval of the three-year, $1.3 million contract now goes to the city Estimate Board.

"If we don’t get out there and tell the carriers and sell our product, we’re just going to be like any other business," said Airport Director Richard Hrabko. "We have to get out and sell the product — the product being St. Louis."

Passenger boardings at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport are down about 15 percent compared to the same time last year, and the airport anticipates overall passenger traffic will likely be down 10 percent to 15 percent for the remainder of 2009 compared to the previous year.
Sabre Airlines Solutions, whose parent company, Sabre Holdings Corp. of Southlake, Texas, also owns the online travel service Travelocity, will help produce data that the airport can use to show potential air carriers where there are gaps in service that could be filled with additional flights.

In addition to collecting data, Hrabko said the consultant will help develop marketing materials, improve the airport’s presence on the Internet, and brand airport marketing products. Sabre officials also will travel with airport marketing staff to meet with airline planners.

Michael Boyd, an airline analyst in Evergreen, Colo., said Lambert has no choice but to market itself, but St. Louis leaders shouldn’t hold out any unrealistic hopes. Demand for air travel isn’t just declining, it’s plunging, he said. And St. Louis’ problem isn’t that airline executives don’t know where it is.

"If they don’t hire somebody, they are going to be accused of being remiss," Boyd said of the marketing effort. "The results might not be what the public wants to hear."

Despite its struggles to restore some of the air service it lost earlier this decade, Lambert did not have a formal marketing plan before Hrabko took over nearly two years ago free online credit report. Civic Progress and the Regional Business Council have provided seed money toward Lambert’s latest marketing efforts.

"We worked for the last year and a half putting this program together," Hrabko said. "It’s not some sudden thing."

Troubles in the airline industry — which hit home last summer when American Airlines announced it was cutting 30 daily departures here — and the stagnant economy have already forced Lambert officials to scale back the ambitious makeover of the Main Terminal and major airport roads.

In December, the airport walled off a dozen gates along an empty stretch of the D Concourse and froze positions in an effort to save more than $2.7 million a year.

Hrabko said 90 percent of Lambert’s marketing expenses should be eligible for reimbursement through air-service development grants administered by the Missouri Department of Transportation.

Sabre has worked with Lambert in the past, Hrabko said, and the consultant has contracts with airports ranging in size from Peoria to Los Angeles. Its partners on the Lambert contract include Hicks-Carter-Hicks and the Vandiver Group, both local firms.

Michael Bown of Sabre Airline Solutions said the company has expertise and industry contacts that airports like St. Louis don’t have in-house. Sabre can help the Lambert marketing staff take a closer look at opportunities for new service, even at a time when demand is dropping.

"At the end of the day, we’re not magicians," Bown said. "Airlines are going to fly to places that make money."

Brian Kinsey, assistant airport director for marketing and business development, said most of the marketing work covered by the contract will occur in the next several months "to get us where we need to be."

As a result, most of the program’s budget, or roughly $950,000, will be spent between now and mid-2010.

kleiser@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8215

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