news-record.com

Flying out of Piedmont Triad International Airport can be a leisurely affair, as passengers go from ticket counter to security without much of a crowd to move through.

Rarely seen, however, are the big hangars packed with cargo planes that move hundreds of tons of microchips, auto parts, mail and other goods down runways and through sorting conveyors every day.

Although passenger service — and the parking, retailers and restaurants that go with it — still pays most of the bills at PTI, experts say air cargo is the growth engine that could bring more jobs to the region and help the local economy.

The stiff headwinds of economic uncertainty still threaten the course that airport and local economic development officials have charted. The movement of cargo, passenger service, job recruitment — all have been thrown off by the recession.

But should the recovery kick in and these areas grow, it would all merge with a long-term strategy to remake the airport into an aerotropolis, a regional hub of commerce, employment, transportation and economic growth.

“You cannot underestimate the importance of the aerotropolis initiative to the future long-term health of the Triad economy,” says Keith Debbage, an urban geography professor at UNCG who has written reports studying the local economy.

“For my money,” Debbage says, “as goes logistics, so will go the Triad’s future economy. There’s been a lot of political investment in targeting aviation-related development. The success or failure of that initiative will dictate our future trajectory.”

 * * *

Piedmont Triad International Airport is beginning to rival the state’s busiest airports, Raleigh-Durham International and Charlotte Douglas International, as a heavyweight in the air cargo business.

Cargo airlines at PTI are set to carry about 12 percent more than they did five years ago, buoyed by increased traffic at the new FedEx hub.

FedEx Express, which opened its air cargo sorting hub at PTI in 2009, is a long way from using its massive building to capacity. But already its impact is showing.

The shipper’s volume has increased by 20 percent — more than 8,800 tons — for the first 11 months of 2010 compared to the first 11 months of 2009.

Since 1998, when FedEx announced it would build the hub here, the airline has increased its monthly flights from 264 to more than 400 now at the new building. FedEx also has increased its staff from 160 to 220 workers at the hub, a Fed­Ex spokesman said.

That’s a far cry from the more than 600 workers and scores of daily flights the airline had predicted it would need upon opening. But FedEx remains a core asset when airport officials go out to sell the airport’s advantages to prospective businesses.

Kevin Baker, the airport’s executive director, said Fed­Ex’s slow start “is all pretty much related to the economy as far as we know. Once the economy comes back, this thing will be roaring along.”

 * * *

When it comes to overall cargo operations, PTI is staging a small comeback of its own.

Cargo shipments, which were about 84,000 tons at the end of 2006, dipped in 2007 and 2008 and then came back to about 89,000 tons at the end of 2009.

If monthly figures stay on track, the airport could reach total cargo shipments of about 94,000 tons for 2010.

Although the airports in Charlotte and Raleigh remain bigger shippers, PTI will come close to Raleigh-Durham International’s estimated 97,000 tons for 2010.

Even cargo airlines that don’t ship out of PTI like the atmosphere and the chance to associate with other aviation companies.

SkyLease Cargo bases its planes in Miami for flights to Central and South America, but its headquarters and operations are at PTI.

Henry Isaacson, chairman of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority, is betting that the FedEx hub can become an international gateway to Europe or South America.

“Because of our geographical location, unlike (the FedEx hubs in) Indianapolis or Memphis, we’re right here poised on the East Coast in the Southeastern part of the country,” Isaacson said. “It’s a natural, I believe, for us to be a jumping-­off place for Europe and/or Central and South America.”

* * *

Although cargo remains PTI’s strong suit, it is not what pays most of the bills. Passenger service and its accompanying infrastructure remain the airport’s lifeblood.

PTI serves about 900,000 passengers a year and offers a few small discount airlines, such as Allegiant Air , which flies travelers to six Florida cities.

Although passenger numbers for the year remain down 3 percent compared to 2009, PTI’s November passenger statistics show a 10 percent increase over November a year ago.

Baker and Isaacson routinely visit discount airlines to try to boost service and passenger travel, but airlines have little taste for expansion these days.

It’s a problem for all small airports, Isaacson said.

“I don’t see this as a local problem; I see it as part of a larger problem throughout the country,” he said. “We get reports on capacity and passenger boardings from other airports, so I know this to be the case.”

Passenger service at PTI over the past 30 years has seen a series of modest successes and spectacular failures through no fault of the airport.

In the 1980s, People Express brought a taste of discount travel to PTI, but Piedmont Airlines, which would eventually become US Airways, rose to the challenge and provided discounts of its own.

In the 1990s, Continental Airlines created a hub that helped the airport boost its passenger traffic to nearly 2 million in 1995. But the airline did not make enough money and cut back dramatically.

But the most spectacular airline bust happened when start-up discounter SkyBus moved in with fares of $10 and up for service to smaller airports and offbeat destinations.

Just as it prepared to throttle up a major hub operation at PTI in 2008, it shut down without warning.

Airport critics say PTI’s flights now are too expensive, destinations too limited and competition nonexistent without a major discount airline. Yet more people are flying each month as the economy recovers, airport statistics show.

The real potential to increase passenger service, officials say, lies on the cargo side of the ledger. That brings the conversation back to the aerotropolis.

 * * *

It never stops for Isaacson. He is always recruiting cargo airlines and businesses that need their services.

“We have been talking to a number of interested companies, urging them to consider locating in or near the airport,” he said. “We continue to seek out companies that would provide jobs for us and round out the aerotropolis idea.”

PTI already has a good start on building an aerotropolis. The state, the airport and Fed­Ex have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a sweeping construction plan that includes a new airport road system, a new runway that runs parallel to the airport’s main runway, and the FedEx Express hub itself.

The region’s civic planners — led by the Piedmont Triad Partnership, an economic development group — are well into writing a master document that would guide counties and cities on the best ways to plan land use.

John Kasarda , a UNC-Chapel Hill professor and airport commerce expert, wrote a detailed report about the concept for the partnership. This region must do several things, he said, including making sure good industrial land is preserved within a 20-minute driving distance of the hub.

Business recruiters from Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem are actively seeking companies that would complement the airport, whether directly aviation-related and based on airport property or involved in ancillary industries, such as warehousing and distribution, that align well with air cargo.

Improvement locally with cargo shipments has heartened economic developers recently. For them, it’s a sign that advanced manufacturing throughout the Triad — and the well-paying jobs that come with it — are growing stronger, said Dan Lynch , the president of Greensboro’s top economic development group, the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance.

Advanced manufacturers — for example, RF Micro Devices, which makes microchips; Machine Specialties, which makes aerospace parts; and the soon-to-open HondaJet manufacturing plant — need well-trained workers and tend to make products that business experts call “high-value, low-weight” goods such as microchips, pharmaceuticals and small-machine parts. They’re perfect for shipping by air.

“That’s who is shipping that product,” Lynch said. “If they’re not producing, then we’re not shipping. That (growth) tells me … that our companies are profitable.”

That could lead to more hiring, he said, if the companies find that their growth is outstripping their current factories and staff levels.

 * * *

If that growth looks to expand or locate around the airport, PTI is ready. The airport has two building sites of about 100 acres each next to runways with utilities available.

Isaacson and the airport are careful to find companies that fit well alongside the likes of Honda Aircraft Co., Timco Aviation Services and the Cessna Citation Service Center, three companies at PTI that build or maintain aircraft.

“Let’s say there’s a parts manufacturer that makes components either for commercial or military aircraft,” Isaacson said. “I would be amenable to having that. That’s an aviation-related industry, and we would welcome that at or near the airport.”

Meanwhile, Lynch believes manufacturers all around Greensboro are taking steps to increase production, which could lead to even more shipping and employment.

And when that growth reaches a critical mass, officials say, airlines are bound to take notice and boost their service here.

“There are good things going on here that we know about,” Lynch said. “There are some good things going on as it relates to growth and expansion.

“But sooner or later it will show up,” he said. “We feel very heartened by some of the things that are going on kind of off the radar screen.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com