HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-03-02 Airport Committee Minutes
City of Bangor Airport Committee
rd
City Council Chambers 3 Floor
March 2, 2020
Meeting Minutes
The following City Councilors attended: Councilors Rick Fournier, Susan Hawes, Sarah Nichols,
Angela Okafor, Gretchen Schaefer, Ben Sprague and Laura Supica. Also in attendance were City
Manager Cathy Conlow, Airport Director Tony Caruso and Airport Marketing Manager Aimee
Thibodeau.
Agenda and Discussion:
1. Airport Advertising and Marketing
a. Airport Statistics – Dec 2019 & Jan 2020
Airport Director Tony Caruso reported we ended 2019 with another record passenger count
month in December and a calendar year total up .6% over 2018. Market mix and load
factors continue strong. Our December Operations traffic was down from 2018, although
we are currently 4% ahead of FYTD 2019 traffic. Our Fuel Sales are ahead of last year and
budget, primarily due to a 23% increase in DOD sales.
January passengers up 14% over last year; about 600 passengers less than our 2018 record
year. Our market mix is still strong. Load factors were down due to winter cancellations
and delays. Our January Operations traffic was up 4% over last year with Fuel Sales up
16% over last year. Fuel Sales are still up 4% for FYTD
b. Routes Americas 2020
Tony & Aimee attended Routes America, an opportunity for 1 x 1 meetings with airlines.
The conference also provides networking opportunities and discussions with future potential
airlines, cargo operators and other industry officials. They met with all our current airlines
except Allegiant. Informal discussions with Allegiant confirmed they are happy with the
operation here.
c. Marketing Update
We launched a first-time digital advertising campaign from mid-January to mid-February
targeted to local vacation travelers. The campaign cost about $8,000 and ran on Google
Ads, Facebook and Pinterest. The campaign generated 1.4 million impressions with 80% of
the people being new website visitors. We will run a similar campaign during March/April
for the next vacation period. We now have additional website analytics to see which pages
visitors are clicking on, how long they stay, etc.
Our total February Facebook Page Views were down 57% . This was expected since
January numbers were driven up by the US Today contest. User engagement is up over 10%
so the people we captured during the US Today contest are staying engaged. Our total Page
Likes are up over 8% from 2019.
d. USA Today contest
An expert panel selected BGR as one of 20 “Best Small Airports”. The contest asked the
th
public to vote and we ended in 5 place. This is a very impressive showing given the size of
some of the Airports with which we were competing.
e. Wings-for All event Feb. 1, 2020 – review
We had a fantastic turnout for this event. Only three individuals were unable to make it on
the plane. All three families appreciated that we held the event and that the participant made
it as far as they did. We are in discussion to hold a similar event next year.
Meeting Adjourned.