Shreveport Regional Airport hires private advertising firm to win back business

(SHREVEPORT, La.) A third-party advertising company will work with the marketing team at Shreveport Regional Airport to launch a campaign, in hopes of encouraging passengers to fly from the local airport.

Shreveport Regional tends to offer more expensive airfare than other airports in the region. As a result, many travelers book flights out of other airports, like Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, or drive to their destination.

The savings can be significant.

“I’ve got to drive to Augusta, Ga., because the flight out of Shreveport is $550,” said Morgan Shows, a professional archer who travels to tournaments several times a year with her husband.

She said driving to Augusta will cost her and her husband about $300 total.

“It saves me so much money,” Shows said. “I wish I could fly out of Shreveport.”

Shows was one of more than 20 women who responded to a question 3-Investigates posted in a Facebook group geared toward mothers in the Shreveport-Bossier City area. Most of those who commented said they save money by driving to their destination or flying from another airport.

“To purchase tickets right now for our honeymoon out of Shreveport, the cost is $471 a ticket. To fly out of Dallas, the cost is $190 a ticket,” Haley Alford commented.

“(My family and I) live in Florida and flew from Orlando to Dallas, then rented a car to drive to Shreveport,” wrote Michelle Cooper Wagley. “It saved us over $1,200.”

Only one woman who responded said she’d rather pay extra for the convenience of flying from a local airport.

“We always fly out of (Shreveport Regional Airport) to Houston, then on to our destinations from there,” wrote Kelsey Matlock Schwab. “We travel with our 18-month-old, so upping our tickets to first class is worth it for the extra room for her. Typically the planes from here to Houston are very small, so there isn’t much extra room for her.”

Shows, who travels to eight archery tournaments per year, said the convenience is simply unaffordable.

“It’s just not feasible,” she said. “It’s always me and my husband. We travel together, we shoot together, so I’m not just looking at one $550 ticket. I’m looking at two. And then if I wanted to bring my kids to a tournament with me, then I’m looking at four.”

Despite saving hundreds of dollars in airfare, Shows said she pays for her travel in other ways.

“It adds extra time on childcare. It adds extra time away from my kids. It’s more planning, more logistics. As far as figuring out the drive, making sure I got a fresh oil change in my car,” Shows said.

Encouraging passengers like Shows to look at the total cost of travel – from gas, to parking, to food and lodging – is part of the upcoming “Fly Shreveport First” campaign, which Shreveport Regional will soon launch with the help of the Romph Pou Agency.

Mark Crawford, the airport’s director of marketing and public relations, said Shreveport Regional will pay up to $50,000 for the campaign.

“We hope with special branding and special messages that will be part of that campaign, people will say, ‘Let me see what the cost is to fly from Shreveport,’ before choosing to look from Dallas and book from there,” Crawford said.

Still, it will be a tough sell for the airport. For families booking multiple tickets, the cost of car travel usually does not come close to the amount of money saved by not booking from Shreveport.

3-Investigates compared the costs of round-trips to popular destinations across the United States, from different airports in the region. We used Google Flights to look up fares on the same travel dates (June 16-21). We conducted all of the searches in one sitting, to minimize fluctuation in pricing. The only variable in our searches was the departure airport.

Here’s what we found:

• Travel to and from New York’s LaGuardia Airport cost $501 from Shreveport. The same trip cost $202 to Dallas.
• Travel to and from Los Angeles cost $483 from Shreveport. It cost $202 from Dallas.
• Travel to and from Miami cost $431 from Shreveport, compared to $339 from Dallas.

The savings are only exaggerated when booking multiple tickets. For example, a family of four traveling to New York could save $1,196 in airfare if they book from Dallas, instead of Shreveport.

In many cases, smaller airports in the ArkLaTex region, like Texarkana Regional Airport, also offer cheaper fares than Shreveport:

• The New York trip cost $382 from Texarkana
• The L.A. trip cost $396
• The Miami trip cost $328; which is $11 cheaper than the fare from Dallas.

The Texarkana Regional Airport also does not charge for parking.

The cost of air travel is a tricky balance of supply and demand. It’s not up to the airport to determine the price of a ticket.

Unfortunately, Shreveport Regional Airport sits on the losing end of the equation.

“Shreveport Regional Airport has about 1,000 seats or 1,100 seats per day going out. Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has about 15,000 seats going out,” Crawford said. “So you can see there’s a lot more competition for pricing in Dallas than there is for Shreveport.”

Shreveport offers direct flights to seven destinations, via one airline each. This means less competition for the airlines, clearing the way to set airfares higher.

Crawford said the airport is trying to increase competition in an effort to decrease prices. When the airport introduced an American Airlines flight to Charlotte in 2017, Crawford said the Delta flight to Atlanta became cheaper.

“That’s because there’s competition going east,” Crawford said. “Before we launched Charlotte, the only thing going east was Delta.”

Crawford said the airport is in talks to add a direct flight to Chicago. Though it’s not certain which airline will offer that route, Crawford hopes it will further increase competition, adding that Shreveport Regional Airport has the infrastructure in place to handle more flights than it currently does.

Competition still does not explain why fares are cheaper out of smaller airports, like Texarkana Regional.

In this case, there’s less demand for seats.

Crawford said Shreveport Regional sells about 85 percent of its seats. While Texarkana only 135 seats available each day, Mark Mellinger, the airport’s director says only 70 percent of those seats are booked.

While pricing is a delicate balance, Crawford said local consumers can tip the scale in their favor by flying locally.

“We try to remind people to think of Shreveport Regional airport as a local business. You would support that local boutique, so that boutique can continue to flourish and grow,” Crawford said. “When more people choose to support the airport, that will give the incentive for the airlines to increase competition, and add destinations and larger planes.”

It might sound like a catch 22: pay more now to get a chance at lower fares down the road.

Shows said she wouldn’t gamble on it, and will only book travel from Shreveport once prices go down.

“Shreveport’s so – it’s just unaffordable,” she said.