The Times of SWLA
Randy Robb, Chennault Director
It might be surprising to discover that the two local airports in Lake Charles are not only noncompetitive, but indeed have a friendly working relationship. Chennault International Airport Authority’s Randy Robb and Lake Charles Regional Airport’s Heath Allen say they are not only helping each other in business, but in turn, that helps the economy of Lake Charles.
“Heath and I coordinate a lot of our activities with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] and when our fire trucks burned up we were able to borrow a fire truck from the Regional Airport so it’s a real good relationship between our two airports. I’ve been to his board meeting and he’s been to my board meeting and there is a working relationship between the two airports,” said Randy Robb, Executive Director of Chennault International Airport Authority.
Heath Allen, LC Regional Director
Recently, one of Chennault’s tenants, Northrop Grumman, received a substantial contract. The U.S. Air Force awarded Northrop Grumman Corporation a nine-year contract to provide Contractor Logistics Support for its fleet of KC-10 Extender refueling tanker aircraft.
“If something good happens at Chennault, for example, the Northrop Grumman contract, with additional jobs, I’m ecstatic. I’m not worried it didn’t happen at Regional, if it happens at Chennault, it helps us out. It helps the economy and it’s helping our core business which is moving people.
Lake Charles Regional Airport Terminal
Air service hinges on the economy. If the economy is strong, then you’ve got business happening and people are on the move and going places and that is the key for us. So, we are Chennault’s biggest fans,” says Heath Allen, Executive Director of Lake Charles Regional Airport.
Because of the damage from Hurricane Rita, LC Regional just recently finished construction on their $28 million new facility.
“We are in a brand new ground-up passenger terminal—$28 million and all the bells and whistles you would find at a terminal in Houston say just on a smaller scale, of course,” said Allen.
There was Hurricane Rita damage to Chennault Airport as well. In recent news, U.S. Representative Charles W. Boustany, Jr. announced on October 20, 2009 that a grant for $1.05 million from the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA will be used to reimburse the airport authority for costs it incurred from repairs to Hanger D, which houses Aeroframe Services, LLC.
At one time, the civil and military airports were together at Chennault Airport. The Air Force wanted to get rid of the civil side. After they made the requirements for the civil side to move away from the Air Force side, they closed it. It lay fallow for a number of years until 1986.
Chennault International Airpark Main Bldg.
“The properties were given up to the Parish, the city, and the school board. They got some parties together and decided it was more than a drag strip and then they got Boeing to come in here and the state gave about $50 million dollars to build the infrastructure that we now call Chennault.
We sit on a 99 year lease with the Parish, school board, and the city,” said Robb.
Since then, Chennault has bought property around the property. The golf course is still the cities and the school board is still there for the bus facility.
“Chennault is a commercial airport. We are a commercial airport because we bring in maintenance, repair and overhaul airplanes for both the military for Northrop Grumman, and the civilian side with Aeroframe,” said Robb.
They also have Million Air and it is an FBO, Fixed Base Operator. It is high-end and it caters to military and corporate airplanes. They provide all of the fueling services for Northrop Grumman, Aeroframe, and other Chennault transients.
“We are about the fourth busiest airport in Louisiana. We get that kind of volume through there. We do have charters, for instance; we fly the McNeese Football team when they go places just because we have bigger aircrafts,” said Robb.
On June 11, American Eagle started flying back into Lake Charles after a 10 year hiatus.
Continental has been in Lake Charles for quite a long time. In that time, Northwest Airlines was scheduled to come into Lake Charles, but after 9/11 they decided to pull the plug on the project before it ever got started.
“Our primary purpose is to move people. Probably one of the biggest things that affects air travel in Lake Charles is our proximity to Houston. That’s like the 800 pound gorilla in the room. It siphons off probably 25% of our market, easily. With a second air carrier coming in it just opens up more flexibility in terms of destinations,” said Allen.
Competition is good for the consumer. Since Continental was the only carrier in Lake Charles, they charged what they wanted to charge and now they have to pay attention to American.
“It was very big to get that second carrier. You don’t see a whole lot of air service expansion right now domestically. International is what most of the big carriers are focused on right now, but we were fortunate enough to be one of the few cities that got additional service,” Allen said.
Part of the reason Allen said that Lake Charles got the service was the economy here. If you look across the country, there are a lot of places doing a lot worse than Southwest Louisiana.
“The South in general seems to being doing a little bit better than the rest of the country. In fact, where they added most of the service is strictly in the South,” said Allen.
There are a lot of projects that Aeroframe is bidding on, but Robb said he was not at liberty to say which ones, however, it looks like they are going to get a major airline in here. They do airbus series airplanes and nearly every airline has airbus equipment. Fed-Ex is Aeroframe’s major customer.
“Usually, over the holiday period Fed-Ex drops off a little of the MRO, which is maintenance, repair and overhaul activities so they can fly those airplanes to deliver goods over the holiday season. They have other airplanes [they do maintenance on]. They do painting—stripping of aircraft and painting—they’re just a complete airbus MRO,” said Robb.
Million Air is a fixed base operator. They handle the transient airplanes when they come in and out of Chennault.
“What we’ve done is we’ve built them a 15,000 sq. ft corporate hangar so they can park the bigger airplanes there and they have a smaller hangar and the t-hangars. They are expanding pretty rapidly,” said Robb.
Louisiana Mill Works builds doors and door frames and they sell them predominately to builders and lumber yards as opposed to Home Depot.
“As far as the future of Chennault, it’s pretty strong we think. We are getting a lot of interest from outside because of I-10, the railroad, and the port interfaces that are right there. Our whole mission is to create jobs and to set conditions for job creation and that is what we try to do. And, of course, number one we want to help our current tenants and help attract new.
We have over $40 million dollars of direct impact to Lake Charles and about $110 million indirect impact,” said Robb.
LC Regional Airport’s number one outbound market is to Dallas. A lot of people here in Lake Charles have business in Dallas and vice versa.
“Convenience is what Lake Charles Regional is all about. We don’t have the destinations that Houston has and certainly don’t have the number of airlines—I mean you are talking 30 plus airlines in that market. A lot of times they may beat us on fairs because they have Southwest, Frontier, JetBlue, and all the low cost carriers. But, the one place we will always beat them is in convenience—and that is what we hang our hat on,” said Allen.
As the economy improves, LC Regional may see another airline coming in, but right now they’re focusing on getting American Eagle going.
“They’re doing well and they’re making money. We don’t want everything to shift over to American and leave out Continental; we have to support them both,” said Allen.
The next focus will be on Delta. They will try and get something to East Memphis or an Atlanta connection. For a community this size, they have to fly to a large hub airport. The type of aircraft that can serve a regional airport would be Houston, Dallas, Memphis, and Atlanta.
“Northwest was bought by Delta so Delta is the only option going East for us,” said Allen.
Both Airlines are looking to Lake Charles’s future and they think it looks extremely bright. With the port, I-10, and two airports, Robb and Allen think Lake Charles is sitting in a prime location for commerce and growth.
“The port has a real nice piece of property just to the Northeast of us and we want to work with them to develop that property and whoever comes into that property if they want, they have access to the runway. There is a railway running right through that property so it is an optimum piece of property,” said Robb.
“Lake Charles is extremely fortunate to have the access that it has with the port. Most communities would die to have what we have. Look at Mobile, AL, it’s a very similar situation. They have a port, a big industrial airport, Northrop Grumman, airbuses, and then they have got their regional airport.
They play it up and Mobile does quite well because of it. I like what I see with the Chamber and what George Swift is doing. All of the elected officials seem to be on board. The sky is the limit, literally,” said Allen.
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