Bob Hope Airport looks to highlight ‘Burbank advantage’ to attract airlines

As Bob Hope Airport officials continue trying to woo increased airline service to the airfield, they’re beginning an effort to highlight what they call the “Burbank advantage” in discussions with commercial passenger carriers.

That advantage includes “incredibly short taxi time” to and from the terminal gates and the ability to board passengers through both the front and back doors of a plane, said Denis Carvill, the airport’s deputy executive director for engineering, maintenance, operations and airline relations.

“All of those things ... there’s a dollar amount associated to them,” he said. “There’s probably a whole bunch more that we can tack onto that number that [the airlines] don’t sort of think about on a regular basis.”

Carvill discussed the new concept for promoting the airport during a meeting of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority board on Monday. He said staff is developing a comprehensive report on the advantages and will present it during meetings with four airlines next month to “see how it flies.” It could also tie in with the airport’s rebranding efforts.

In tough economic times, airlines have tended to focus their operations at airports that are “sure things,” Carvill said. In other words, locations where they can be sure they will have enough passenger traffic to keep flights “reasonably full and making money,” which, in the Los Angeles Basin, means Los Angeles International Airport.

Unlike in Chicago and other markets where low-cost carriers such as Southwest Airlines continue to operate out of secondary airfields that allow a high volume of flights, Bob Hope Airport cannot accommodate that amount of volume, nor is it seeking to do so.

Instead, officials have focused on other factors to make the Burbank airfield attractive, he said, which allows carriers to continue to realize profits on operations there.

“We have an uncongested airport, so the selling points are pretty straightforward,” Carvill said. “We’re very customer-friendly at the airport, the airport’s well-operated for ease of customer access to the gates and we’re very low-cost to the airlines.”

But the new approach will focus on additional factors that the airlines may be overlooking, to “enhance their thought process” in hopes of encouraging increased operations there.

For example, Carvill said officials estimated that boarding passengers through both front and rear aircraft doors in Burbank allows the airlines to make up 105 flying days over the course of a typical year. He noted that Southwest is experimenting with a similar boarding arrangement at Sacramento International Airport to reduce turnaround times there.

Steve Madison, the airport authority president, said he has found it “baffling” that the airlines haven’t put more emphasis on Bob Hope Airport, given some of its advantages over LAX.

“The key is making the case to the airlines,” Madison said.

The effort comes after LAX began a three-year, one-runway-at-a-time schedule of maintenance and federally-mandated Runway Safety Area improvements earlier this month, shutting down the first of four runways.

That has led the airport, the airlines and the federal government to develop a flight management plan to minimize customer disruptions at the United States’ second busiest airport, which is a situation Carvill said could further highlight Burbank’s advantages.

The discussion also came on the heels of a presentation on Monday in which a marketing firm working to develop the airport’s rebranding campaign reported that 70% of surveyed travelers east of the Rockies didn’t know where Bob Hope Airport was located. Though most knew it was in California, some guessed Texas, Florida or Vietnam.

The rebranding effort, which is expected to give the airport a stronger geographic identity — for example, for travelers in Houston looking to fly to Los Angeles — may also help develop passenger service, Carvill said, and the airlines are “extremely excited” about it.

Madison said that, like dual boarding, the airport’s proximity to downtown Los Angeles is “the best secret around.”

“From where we sit here, we don’t want this to be a secret,” Madison said. “We want everybody to know about it.”