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Local officials at the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport are feeling, well, a little overlooked these days.
To prevent what they call “leakage” of area passengers to nearby airports, officials unveiled a new marketing campaign asking: “Do you SRQ?”
Statistics from the airport (which goes by call letters SRQ) show that each year, more than 1 million local passengers leak to Tampa, 250,000 passengers leak to Fort Myers and more than 125,000 people leak to Orlando to fly every year.
The new campaign aims to stop that leakage, by calling on local businesses and non-profits to sign a pledge stating they will search for flights at SRQ first before looking elsewhere for airfare.
“What's hurt our community and our airport is the level of competition and the willingness of people to go to other airports,” Airport President Fredrick "Rick" Piccolo told reporters at a recent press conference kicking off the campaign. “We've become very competitive and want people to realize that.”
The campaign comes a little more than a month before Southwest Airlines pulls its local AirTran flights from the airport Aug. 12. Piccolo says the airport has so far recovered 95% of the business lost by Southwest's move. AirTran carried about 25% of SRQ's passengers in 2011.
The airport has attracted JetBlue and Delta Airlines for service to LaGuardia International Airport as well as United Airlines, which begins flights to Chicago in November.
Piccolo says he understands there are gaps in service SRQ can't compete with, but he wants customers to at least check SRQ first. The goal is to reduce leakage by 3.5% annually during the next five years.
As an added bonus, companies who sign the pledge, available at the airport's website or by emailing [email protected], will receive signage on the airport's terminal walls thanking them for supporting the airport.
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