New deals aim to stop the Houston-San Antonio exodus.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Air travel out of Corpus Christi International Airport could soon get a boost if airlines decide to take the deal.<\/p>\n
Airport officials say they\u2019ve made another push to Southwest Airlines, offering incentives to add more nonstop flights from the Coastal Bend. The goal is simple: stop the steady stream of travelers driving to Houston or San Antonio just to catch a flight.<\/p>\n
Airport Director Richard McCurley says the region is losing a major chunk of potential passengers, something the industry calls \u201cleakage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, he estimates about 68% of travelers in the area are flying out of other cities.<\/p>\n
McCurley believes that\u2019s an opportunity airlines shouldn\u2019t ignore.<\/p>\n
He says routes to destinations like Las Vegas or Orlando could be profitable if carriers tap into that existing demand.<\/p>\n
A similar pitch has also been made to American Airlines. This time for a nonstop route to Phoenix. That route, he says, could cut down on long drives and layovers while capturing even more local passengers.<\/p>\n
Still, airport leaders acknowledge they can only do so much.<\/p>\n
Board member Jesse Noyola put it plainly: the airport can make offers, but it\u2019s ultimately up to the airlines to decide if the routes make business sense.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, there\u2019s some momentum already on the runway.<\/p>\n
A station manager with Southwest Airlines told the board the Corpus Christi operation was recently ranked the top station in the country, outperforming 59 others.<\/p>\n
And there may be more growth ahead.<\/p>\n
McCurley says Frontier Airlines could look to expand service in Corpus Christi, pointing to increasing demand on its Denver route.<\/p>\n
For now, travelers in the Coastal Bend are left waiting to see whether those deals actually turn into departure times on the board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New deals aim to stop the Houston-San Antonio exodus. CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Air travel out of Corpus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272039,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-272055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}