The odds of finding the seat next to you empty on a flight leaving Tucson were better in January than they were six months ago. Maybe too good.

JetBlue’s flights to New York took off from Tucson with just 53 percent of seats filled last month. Its flights coming in from the East were more full, averaging 66 percent of seats occupied. ExpressJet, which flies to nine cities, filled exactly half of all of its available seats in both directions.

Every airline has its own formula for making a profit based on costs and fares but on average an airline breaks even when 66 percent of seats are filled, according to the Air Transport Association, an industry trade organization. Some airlines, such as Southwest, are known to be profitable filling fewer seats.

The low numbers posted by both JetBlue and ExpressJet could put Tucson on the chopping block, unless passengers start rallying to the service.

This will be the "critical proving year" of whether the market will support JetBlue’s non-stop flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, said Bryan Baldwin, director of corporate communications.

The decline in the numbers of passengers in January compared to July 2007 are part of normal seasonal variations on its transcontinental flights, he said.

"That said, we’ve only been in Tucson a little over a year now and we realize it takes at least that long after our initial arrival in a market for it to reach a maturation stage from what we expected when we went in," Baldwin said. "Especially in a place like Tucson where we have only one flight a day. It takes awhile for people to realize we’re there."

A good example of the way JetBlue likes to grow has happened in Austin. Baldwin said the airline introduced flights from there to New York in January 2006, seven months before it initiated Tucson service. Within a year it added flights from Austin to Boston. Earlier this year it announced it would link Austin with its West Coast operations at Long Beach, Calif. Then, and just last week, JetBlue announced that in May it will add three more cities - San Francisco, Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale.

"The Austin market matured a lot faster than we had anticipated," Baldwin admitted.

But the message is clear, in these days of $100-a-barrel oil, airlines are flying where passengers will pay for them to go. For Tucson, Baldwin said "let’s see how it does when we evaluate it later this year."

At ExpressJet, Kristy Nicholas, director of communication, echoed similar sentiments about January being a slow month compared to July.

"We’d always like to fill 100 percent of our seats," she said. "I’d say our goal is to get up into the range of filling 75 percent to 85 percent of seats."

ExpressJet’s overall averages were negatively impacted by its Tucson-to-El Paso flights. Although Nicholas said the company doesn’t give out market-specific statistics, data reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation indicate those flights were averaging less than 20 percent full while its flights to Kansas City and Sacramento are already exceeding 75 percent full.

ExpressJet has announced that, starting April 1, it is dropping its flights between Tucson and El Paso.

Overall, Tucson has been receptive to ExpressJet’s flights since they started nearly 11 months ago and so long as the airline continues to receive support from local travelers, Nicholas holds out the possibility that more flights will be added.

"It’s a lot more practical for us to open up an incremental route from a city we already serve than it is to open a new city," Nicholas said.

2007 no worse for delays

Besides crowded planes, another popular travel complaint for 2007 concerned delayed flights. But that wasn’t as big an issue at Tucson International. While December’s numbers didn’t improve the year’s average, Department of Transportation data show more than 84 percent of departing flights were on time last year and more than 77 percent of arrivals made it here within 15 minutes of scheduled times (the Department of Transportation’s definition of on time).

Over the last five years 84 percent or more of departures from Tucson have gone out on time and arrivals have been 77 percent on time.

Numbers from December weren’t that good, however. While more than 76 percent of departures were on time, only about two-thirds of arrivals were.

Passenger traffic up; but not by very much

The jury is still out on how passenger traffic at Tucson International Airport will shape up for 2008 – a key ingredient for both the economic development and tourism industries.

In December, airport officials got a worrisome surprise when the growth of passenger traffic suddenly slowed. It was still up, but by just about 1 percent, compared to an average growth rate of 8.5 percent for each of the previous five months.

In January, 354,066 passengers went through the terminal, according to the Tucson Airport Authority. That set a January record, but the year-over-year increase was just 0.7 percent. The last time the annual increase any less was a year ago, in February 2007, when the number of passengers decreased by 0.8 percent over the previous February.

Still it wasn’t necessarily all bad news last month.

• January is not typically one of the airport’s busiest months, despite an assumption that might be made because of winter tourism. Over the past decade, January has been no better than the airport’s seventh busiest month of the year. Three times – in 2005, 2004 and 2002 – it was the second slowest month of the year, behind September.

• January passenger traffic was up over January 2007. Twice in the past 10 years – in 2002 and 2004 – it was down from the previous January.

• Although passenger numbers typically drop from December to January, the decline this time was the second smallest in the last 10 years. Only January 2001 saw a smaller decline of 0.6 percent. In previous years, the drop has been as much as 11 percent in January 2003. The average is 4.1 percent over the last 10 years.

Now the focus will be on February statistics, but even they won’t be conclusive. Last year, the airport set a record for passenger traffic but February was the third worst month of the year.

There is also evidence the December downturn may have been part of a national situation, as was suggested last month by Dick Gruentzel, vice president of finance and administration for the Tucson Airport Authority. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has now released 2007 statistics showing its December passenger numbers were down 4.7 percent - 161,372 fewer passengers - from December 2006. For the entire year, Sky Harbor’s total passengers were up 1.8 percent to almost 42.2 million.

Delta-Northwest combo

If the pilots unions for each airline can reach an agreement, a merger of Delta and Northwest might help Tucson’s efforts to get new airline service to Detroit and Memphis, says Alex Kovach, the airport’s director of air service development.

The merger would also likely to make the No. 4 busiest airline at Tucson International. Last year the two carried a combined 478,131 passengers, which is more than United’s 439,438 local passengers. Additionally both Delta and Northwest grew last year at Tucson while others, including American, United and US Airways, saw fewer passengers.

Kovach said it’s way too early to predict exactly how a merger might play out but whenever two airlines combine rearranged flight schedules can free up some aircraft and he says there are strong arguments that can be made to try to persuade the bigger airline to connect Tucson with both Detroit and Memphis, which are currently hubs for Northwest.

The combined airline, which would keep the name Delta, plans to maintain the hubs each carrier currently operates. From Tucson, Delta flies to Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles International. Northwest flies only to Minneapolis but its flights are some of the most crowded going out of Tucson.

There could be some attrition of employees at Tucson’s airport where Delta has 22 employees plus another 30 working for its subsidiary, Delta Global, which does ground handling for both Delta and Alaska flights. Northwest outsources its Tucson ground handling to Worldwide Flight Services, which has 13 employees and has only one airport employee on its own payroll.

The merger will require approval from the U.S. Department of Justice but the airlines say that shouldn’t be as much of an issue since they currently don’t compete head-to-head on many routes.

Seven years ago, the Justice Department rejected a merger of United and US Airways, largely on the grounds it would create near-monopolies at some East Coast airports. Three years ago the agency approved the merger of America West and US Airways.

This might not be the end of merger talk. Airlines figure this is the year to try for them just in case a Democratic administration moves into Washington. One other merger apparently in the early stages of discussions is Continental combining with either United or American.

Passenger bill of rights

California is the latest state where lawmakers are considering legislation to create an airline passengers’ bill of rights. Like one being considered in Arizona (HB 2149), introduced by Rep. Jonathon Paton, R-Tucson, California’s measure would require airlines to provide basic amenities to passengers stuck on a plane at an airport for more than three hours.

New York has already passed a similar law, which has been declared legal by a U.S. District Court judge. Federal lawmakers talked of a similar law but have not pursued it. The state of Washington is also considering a law but the likelihood of passage there is doubtful. In the Arizona Legislature, the bill has not been heard in committee yet.

Airline rule changes

Members of US Airways frequent-flier program were told this month the airline is ending its practice of awarding at least 500 miles per flight, even on the leg from Tucson to Phoenix. Other airlines aren’t quickly following suit. In fact, United Airlines said it will continue awarding 500 miles on short flights, even on US Airways flights booked as part of their reciprocal frequent-flier program in the Star Alliance... On another front, United led the way in a cutback this month when it announced it would no longer allow two free bags to be checked, except by its premium frequent-flier or first-class passengers. Starting May 5, United will charge $25 to check a second bag.

 Contact David Hatfield at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237. Inside Business Travel appears the fourth week of each month.