AirTran says its alliance with Beau Rivage on solid footing, profitable

Matt Moore

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2000 | 2:55 a.m.

JACKSON, Miss. - In the nearly 12 months since AirTran established a partnership with the Beau Rivage, the number of people flying into the Biloxi-Gulfport area has nearly doubled.

In October of 1999, 77,000 passengers used the airport, a 104 percent increase compared to the same time in 1998.

For all of 1999, the Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport is expected to have had more than 800,000 passengers flying in and out of the facility, up 80 percent from the approximately 449,000 passengers in 1998.

Much of that increase, said Virginia Cabell, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau, was because of AirTran Holding Co. Inc.'s decision to initiate direct flight service to and from Biloxi-Gulfport to Atlanta, Houston and other cities.

Orlando-based AirTran called the marketing partnership a success, and noted its load factors have increased almost weekly since the service began in March.

"It's actually going quite well," said a company spokeswoman Thursday.

AirTran operates daily round-trip flights to Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Dallas-Fort Worth, and connections to New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Hartford, Conn.

Andy Bourland, director of public affairs for the Beau Rivage said the only change in the resort's relationship with AirTran is the elimination of a direct flight to and from Orlando that will end at the end of February.

"We have been very pleased with the load factors. They were actually ahead of where we predicted them to be early on," he said.

Bourland said the partnership has benefitted his casino and others.

"And that was the reason we entered into that relationship," he said. "A key component of the strategy was to expand the market and that's what we needed to do."

With the increase in air traffic, Bourland said Biloxi and Gulfport, as well as Pascagoula, have been able to expand their market as more than just a drive destination.

"(We) can reach those large metropolitan areas that are within an hour-and-half air time to Gulfport," he said.