AirTran’s Our Horse
Posted on 08/29/2006
Last week the Canton Repository and the Massillon Independent carried a story about the slump in passenger travel that’s happening at a lot of “regional” airports in the country.The two articles were generated from an AP story to which the two newspapers added a great deal of local content. Fortunately that local content was about how CAK was bucking the national trend.
The headline of the Repository quoted me as saying that AirTran Airways was our main horse and later as the story goes that Frontier Airlines was our second horse. In this particular story, we didn’t talk much about out other great carriers, US Airways, Delta, United, and Northwest. Sometimes we are criticized for overlooking these four carriers. Internally we certainly don’t take them for granted.They are a great piece of our air service program and will remain so for many years to come.They all offer great services to important destinations.
The difference with AirTran and now Frontier is the expansion into new markets and with lower fares which has taken us outside the “regional” airport role and has rocketed us into the role of being one of the two entry points into and out of all of Northeast Ohio. We laughingly say that before AirTran we were the UCLA airport which stands for “Upper Canton and Lower Akron.” Not so any more. Now we are the CACY Airport, serving Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Youngstown. Basically we have outgrown the “regional” airport status by acquiring the leading cutting edge airlines in AirTran and Frontier and providing a great Airport experience when you travel!
This combination is why we’re not slumping and will ensure our success in the future. We will continue to see new opportunities to give you a better choice in air service and a “better way to go” in your airport experience.
