Business or leisure? Lincoln Airport will likely need to shift focus to attract airlines, passengers | Local Business News

Haring took over at the airport in August 2014, just days before Delta added service to Atlanta, giving it four destinations. He said Lincoln’s main focus has always been on getting traditional airline service to destinations that appeal to business travelers.

In addition to flights to Chicago and Denver on United, and the Delta service to Minneapolis and Atlanta, the airport also in recent years has had service to Detroit, Memphis and Salt Lake City.

People who travel for business often like the convenience of being able to fly out of Lincoln.

Zachary Lee said that in the fall of 2019, before COVID-19 shut down a lot of business travel, he flew frequently from Lincoln for his job at Hudl.

“For me, it’s definitely a convenience thing,” said Lee, who is a support manager at the sports video analysis company.

Traveling for business, Lee has the flexibility to fly out of Lincoln, even when it’s more expensive. He said Hudl encourages employees to book their flights from Lincoln if the ticket price is within $150 of a similar flight from Omaha.

Lee, who has one small child and another on the way, said the two hours he saves by not having to commute to and from Omaha is important because it’s extra time he can spend at home.

When it comes to leisure travel, Lee said he also chooses the Lincoln Airport most of the time. He’s a frequent flier with United Airlines, so price is usually not a concern because he can use accumulated miles.

But Lee is in the minority when it comes to Lincoln residents. Most people, even those who routinely fly out of Lincoln for business, drive to Omaha for leisure travel. Research over the years has consistently shown that two of every three fliers from the Lincoln area start their trip at Eppley Airfield.

That’s often for two reasons: price and flight selection.

People are more price conscious when spending their own money, and they also are less accepting of travel delays that might eat into vacation time.

Michael Callari said price is the primary reason he flies out of Omaha rather than Lincoln.

“Tickets are at least $100 more to fly out of LNK, and it simply isn’t worth spending the money to avoid a 45-minute drive when I can instead spend it on a nice dinner with the Mrs. at our destination,” Callari said in an email.

The business focus has served the airport well for decades, but industry changes and changes in why people fly mean a new focus is needed, Haring said.

He said that in the wake of COVID-19 and the loss of Delta service, airport officials have done some “fairly significant evaluation” of how they can grow the airport going forward, and it brought them to an epiphany.

“We sort of came to the realization that we’re kind of running out of wells with respect to what we’ll call Lincoln’s traditional markets,” he said.

Haring was referring to destinations served by the major airlines. Consolidation over the years has left only four of what are considered mainline carriers: United, Delta, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

He said Lincoln has a strong relationship with United, one that has potentially gotten even stronger in the past year with the location in Lincoln of a maintenance operation of CommutAir, one of the regional airlines that flies for United in Lincoln and other smaller cities.

But getting service with the other airlines seems unlikely, at least in the near term. Though Haring said he believes Delta will eventually come back to Lincoln, it’s not likely to be in the next few years.

Despite lobbying by Lincoln officials and a $750,000 federal grant, American Airlines has shown no interest in starting service to Dallas. And Haring said Lincoln does not fit the business model for Southwest.

So that leaves two options, leisure carriers and ultra-low-cost carriers.