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Friday, April 9, 2004 Daytona airport traffic ascends 11 percentBy JIM HAUG DAYTONA BEACH — The commercial airlines were filled nearly to capacity during Bike Week and Spring Break. Seat occupancy, or the Daytona Beach International Airport's load factor, was 89 percent on airline flights in March. Total passenger traffic increased by nearly 11 percent as DBIA served 64,800 passengers compared to 58,831 passengers for the same month a year ago, despite the loss of flights to Dallas-Fort Worth. Last month was the 15th month of consecutive traffic increases for DBIA. Business is so strong that Steve Cooke, the airport's director of air service marketing, said the airlines would lose money if they followed tradition and cut back on flights after the Easter weekend. The holiday normally marks the end of the peak tourism season. Peggy Estes, a spokeswoman for the airport's main carrier, Delta Air Lines, was not aware of any announcements to cancel flights to Daytona Beach. But Delta has already dropped a Delta Connection flight to Dallas-Fort Worth. The weekend schedule was not a good match for the Daytona Beach market, Cooke said. But the airport is lobbying to get the Texas flight back, he said. It is also doing some advertising in Cleveland in support of a Continental flight there. DBIA's daily flight to Cleveland is filling about 60 percent of its seats, Cooke said. The service is expected to end in May, but Cooke is hopeful Continental will extend the service through the summer. Delta, which is struggling to stay competitive with the discount carriers, recently announced cutbacks on flights to Dallas-Fort Worth, Cox News Service reported this week. The airline is ending nonstop service between Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago, Detroit and Portland, Ore. |
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