Westbound flights are still on the table for the Golden Triangle Regional Airport, though adding a new route to Dallas is a work in progress.
Tupelo Regional Airport announced this week it will offer a new daily round-trip route with Contour Airlines to Dallas with the goal of connecting its business passengers to a central airport out west. Those flights start in October.
GTRA Executive Director Matt Dowell said he doesn’t expect Tupelo’s new route to affect the Golden Triangle’s efforts to get a westbound flight.
“We don’t see that really affecting our ability to still work with (American Airlines) to try and get that service,” Dowell told The Dispatch on Friday. “We think there’s more demand out there, and so we would still be a viable option and a money making opportunity for American Airlines to offer that product multiple days, multiple times a day.”
Both GTRA and TRA have spent several years working to add westbound service, though both were stalled by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the aviation industry. TRA Executive Director Joe Wheeler said he’s been pushing for it since he started there in 2021.
A big reason it worked out now was due to good timing, Wheeler said. The airport’s contract with Contour Airlines to provide two daily flights to Nashville was nearly complete, and the company knew the airport was looking to add the westbound flight. Plus there’s a big demand from local businesses for a westbound option, he said. The flight to Dallas replaces one of the two daily flights to Nashville.
“I’ve spoken to the majority of businesses in Tupelo, and they were looking for a hub,” Wheeler said. “The only reason we decided on Dallas is because if you’re trying to go west, you do that through Dallas. … We have a lot of business here that would like to go west, and that’s the best option.”
Local demand is the exact reason Dowell expects Tupelo’s new addition won’t affect the GTRA’s chances for adding a new route to Dallas. Business passengers traveling west out of GTRA now have to fly Delta to Atlanta, then back over Mississippi and then to Dallas. The airport wants a route that is less counterintuitive, Dowell said.
“It’s really driven by businesses saying they want to fly in that direction,” Dowell said. “Having multiple options at the airport going east and west is where we’d like to be and where we hear from passengers they’d like to have the option to fly.”
Dowell said there were close discussions about potentially starting the westbound service prior to the pandemic. But then, airlines began grappling with issues like shortages of staff, pilots and planes.
While those problems are starting to improve, Dowell said adding a westbound flight will still hinge on whether or not the airline has the capacity to add additional routes to places where it doesn’t currently serve.
“As they get it back into a growth phase, and out of a recovery phase, that’s when we see the most likelihood of adding that service,” he said. “The good news is it does seem like some of those fronts are starting to ease as far as pilot shortages and mechanic shortages, things like that.”
For now, Dowell said the airport is maintaining its relationship with American Airlines in hopes of eventually securing the new route. The growth happening in the Golden Triangle will be a big help with that, he said.
“That’s ultimately why we think we’ll be successful in getting additional service and growing the service we have,” he said. “Economic development is a big reason why we’ve continued to have good air service. We think ultimately that airlines want to grow with us, and so we continue to tout the growth of the industry.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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