Montgomery Regional Airport Seeing Double Digit Increase in Foot Traffic
An update to a story we brought you back in March. Montgomery Regional Airport is seeing a rise in its number of passengers just months after airport reps told Alabama News Network low foot traffic was a problem.
Airport leaders partnered with the Chamber of Commerce last year to bring more awareness to Montgomery’s airport. They rolled out a new marketing campaign and it appears to be working.
In 2013, Montgomery Regional Airport had a twenty thousand passenger drop in numbers, something that concerned city leaders. Since that time, Chip Gentry has been working to bring in more travelers. Gentry is the Vice president of Air Service Development and says recently, foot traffic has gone way up.
“Looking back at the past five months, four of those months were significant increases,” he says. “Three of them in double digit. We just finished September with a 23 percent increase, which is a very good sign because September is not the best month for travel.”
Gentry attributes the increase in passengers to a marketing campaign, fly MGM. And travelers are noticing the changes. Brenda Homer tells us she flies into Montgomery Regional about four times a year from Salt Lake City, Utah to visit relatives. She says she prefers MGM to Atlanta’s airport.
“Atlanta is a very difficult airport,” she explains. “They have a lot of changes…and they usually have a lot of changes in and out of this airport. So when you come here, it’s usually really relaxing by the time you get here. And there are no rocking chairs in Atlanta.”
The layover lounge and bar was moved inside security to accommodate guests experiencing delays and layovers. Airport officials are still working on several other initiatives, including installing digital flight trackers and weather radars.  Montgomery Regional was just awarded a 200 thousand dollar grant to help fund the initiatives. But some passengers say there is still room for improvement.
“Ticket prices…well it’s kind of expensive, but it’s okay,” says Ken Bryant.
Gentry tells us ticket prices will go down if there are more travelers in and out of the airport.
He also says that people should always check Montgomery Regional’s fares first, you’d be surprised to see they are often lower than flying out of Atlanta or Birmingham.
Airport officials are working on getting corporate sponsors to also help with funding some of those initiatives. To visit Montgomery Regional Airport’s website, just go to www.flyMGM.com
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