In November 1958, Roger Milliken made perhaps one of his greatest pitches.
The late textile magnate introduced the idea for a regional airport to a group of Upstate legislators who were gathered at the Greenville County courthouse.
“If we do this thing right, we will have an advantage that few such communities have ever realized,” Milliken told the group. “This decision is the same type faced by towns 100 years ago that wanted to build beside a railroad. Here, we have a facility in keeping with the growth of our time.”
Four years later, Milliken and Upstate leaders were joined by thousands of residents at a dedication ceremony for the $10 million Greenville-Spartanburg Airport on 3,500 acres of former farmland near Greer.
The facility was considered to be on par with, and in some cases superior to, other airports of the time that were the boast of major cities across the country.
In the midst of the excitement, there were some in the community who cautioned that the airport’s existence could only be justified by its use.
That warning would really hit home almost five decades later during the Great Recession.
WINGSPAN and the Southwest Effect
In 2009, the airport, which was renamed Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport (GSP) in 1995, faced a big problem.
About two-thirds of its potential customers were being “leaked” to nearby airports in Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. The trend was precipitated by a lack of direct flights, airlines cutting back routes, and businesses and consumers bargain-hunting for cheaper fares.
Airport officials aided by the Upstate Air Service Task Force, a group comprised of some of the region’s top business leaders, began working on a strategy to regain GSP’s market share.
One of their top priorities was to find a replacement for Independence Air, a low-cost airline that left the airport in 2005 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Another focus was on renovating GSP’s outmoded terminal, which had last undergone a $35 million expansion that was completed in 1989.
During one week in October 2010, both projects moved forward.
The airport’s commission decided to advance what later became a five-year, multiphase $125 million renovation project nicknamed Project WINGSPAN.
A few days later, Dallas-based Southwest Airlines announced its decision to add service at GSP.
Southwest’s arrival in 2011 sparked a phenomenon referred to as the “Southwest Effect.” The term represents the lowering of fares, and increase in flights and destinations that typically follow that airline’s entrance into new markets.
The first phase of WINGSPAN began in 2012. It ushered in many changes, including a new Rental Car Customer Center, an expansion of Concourses A and B, new food and retail concessions, baggage claim carousels, a curbside canopy, covered walkways, and a new glass façade on the front of the terminal.
Both developments had an immediate positive impact on the airport’s business.
Even as Southwest’s effect has continued to taper off, GSP reported earlier this year its passenger traffic reached an all-time high of 2,018,319 flyers in 2016.
The airport announced in September it had signed a three-year lease with Ohio-based PSA Airlines, which plans to occupy a 30,000-square-foot hangar and 15,000 square feet of office and storage space.
In November 2016, Germany-based global freight forwarder Senator International launched its “Atlantic Bridge,” a new cargo service between GSP and Munich, Germany.
Earlier this year, the airport rolled out its own fixed-base operator (FBO), Cerulean Aviation. An FBO provides aeronautical services such as fueling and hangaring to general aviation operators at an airport.
In March, one of GSP’s other carriers, American Airlines, announced it would add three daily nonstop flights to Chicago’s O’Hare International beginning July 5.
From vision to reality
On Tuesday, the airport celebrated the completion of WINGSPAN. Airport funds covered 80 percent of the project, with the remaining 20 percent coming from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program Fund and the Transportation Security Administration.
GSP officials said the project will increase the airport’s total capacity to 4 million passengers per year.
Airport spokeswoman Rosylin Weston said the construction had an estimated $164 million impact on the local economy and created about 1,400 jobs.
The final phases of the renovation have included the development of a new grand hall, with new food, beverage and retail concessions.
Food options now include Thomas Creek Grill, RJ Rockers Flight Room, Chick-fil-A, Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins, Flatwood Grill, and DC-3, a hot dog joint.
The Kitchen, a signature restaurant by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, is expected to open in about one month, Edwards said.
On the retail side, GSP as two Hudson newsstands and Tech On The Go, an electronics store.
Palmetto Distillery will soon open a store near The Kitchen.
WINGSPAN has also yielded new parking options, art installations, a centralized TSA security screening area, administrative offices, conference center space, and a new airside garden, which Weston said is the first airside garden ever sanctioned by the FAA.
“I think all in all I’m extremely pleased with the results of what we’ve been able to deliver to the community,” Edwards said. “What has been fun to see is we started with this project with a study back in October 2009. We saw that study turn into a concept, which then turned into a design project, which then turned into the start of construction. And what we see today is very much the vision when we completed that study. Every construction project has its bumps and hurdles that you have to get through. We’ve had our share of those. But I think what we have been able to accomplish is something that is going serve the community extremely well for a long time.”
Edwards said GSP’s airfares are now 7 percent lower than the airport’s nearest competitor, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, based on data from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
GSP has also gained back most of its leakage to Atlanta, a fact Edwards attributed to airlines — Delta in particular — growing the size of its aircraft in the market to almost entirely mainline planes and getting “very competitive” on fares.
“I think what happened with the traditional Southwest Effect is they brought new passengers,” he said. “At the same time, the existing airlines here got more competitive. … Everyone grew.
“Since that time, even though Southwest has reduced their number of frequencies, what the other carriers saw was that if they continued to add the right aircraft in the right markets at the right fare, that we could continue to fill airplanes,” he added.
Edwards said the airport’s five airlines currently fly to 15 different destinations.
The airport’s market share divided among those carriers include 36 percent for Delta, 28 percent for American, 17 percent for United, 12 percent for Southwest, and 7 percent for Allegiant, Edwards said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu3lbFX2XSo&feature=youtu.be
On the horizon
Edwards remained bullish on the airport’s continued success.
With the completion of WINGSPAN, he said the airport has already begun looking to the future.
GSP recently began holding focus groups with community stakeholders to see if there are any areas of WINGSPAN that need improvement. Edwards said so far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Honestly, the comments we got back were just little things that we need to tweak,” he said. “No one really came up with anything of any significance over three meetings in two days with 40 to 45 people involved from our community. … I think that gave us a lot of satisfaction. It was a well-thought-out project by everyone involved. … There is a lot of satisfaction in being able to deliver something where everyone’s telling you, ‘Hey, you got it right.’”
Edwards said the airport is working on a master plan that he expects will be completed in late August or early September 2018.
He said GSP has a pipeline of about $100 million in projects that will be completed during the next three to five years.
Those projects include expanded economy and employee parking that should be finished this fall.
Construction of a new parking garage and rental car facility could begin next summer. That project is expected to last about 18 to 20 months.
The airport is investing about $15 million in new general aviation facilities that recently went under construction, Edwards said. It also just completed the renovation of the existing hangar for PSA.
“Our impediment at this point really to having even more success in the cargo area, and in some respects growing the airport going forward, is that we need more facility,” Edwards said. “On the passenger side, we’re good for a while, but when we talk about general aviation, corporate aviation, and cargo in particular, we need more aircraft parking areas, we need more cargo warehouse space, we need more general aviation hangar facilities. Those are the things we’re working on now to get in place, because on the cargo side we have no more room to grow. We are out of acreage space and we’re out of cargo warehouse space. We have to be able to put that in place to grow the business.”
GSP has also begun rolling out new services.
During the past two weeks, the airport added valet parking, which he said has been well received by customers.
GSP commissioners recently approved a contract with Manchester Airport Group to build a 2,500-square-foot VIP lounge in the main terminal beyond the security checkpoint.
“It will give us another amenity for passengers who may be used to only getting those at a larger airport,” Edwards said.
A new Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting station will go into design this summer. Construction could begin in the summer or fall of 2018.
Edwards said the introduction of Cerulean Aviation, the new FBO, has gone “extremely well” since January. The airport’s fuel sales in March showed almost a 100 percent increase, compared with the same month of 2016.
“We’ve upped the level of service, we’ve become more competitive on fuel pricing, and we just really see a great response from the general aviation community,” Edwards said.
He said GSP still has about 1,500 acres of property that is still available for development around the airport.
Edwards said the airport could soon “get a little more aggressive” in its efforts to attract new commercial and industrial users to the property.
“We’re still in our infancy when it comes to land development,” he said. “But it’s another exciting piece of what’s in front of us.”
Tied to regional success
Upstate leaders said the region’s economic success in the future will be impacted by the strength of the airport.
Based on a 2012 study, GSP has an annual impact of more than $817 million on the local economy and supports about 9,500 jobs, with an annual payroll of almost $170.5 million.
“I think we have a great airport,” said John Lummus, president and CEO of the Upstate SC Alliance. “We had some folks in recently from the Midwest and they were just glowing about it. It’s something we can really be proud of.”
Lummus said the airport’s proximity to the S.C. Ports Authority’s inland port and its partnership with Senator International help complete the picture of an intermodal hub that will continue to attract new investment and jobs.
“GSP represents a significant gateway to the community,” said Carter Smith, executive vice president of the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce’s Economic Futures Group, who took part in the recent focus group at GSP. “The airport did a great job of seeing an opportunity to increase cargo traffic by partnering with Senator International. … There are a number of things GSP’s leadership have done to improve the airport. I think it is well positioned for the future. Dave and his team have done an outstanding job.”
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