Five years ago, 59 percent of passengers flying into Savannah were headed either to the downtown Historic District or Hilton Head Island, with the bulk of them — nearly 40 percent — bypassing Savannah for the South Carolina resort.
Today, that 59 percent has grown to 70 percent, and Savannah has captured the lion’s share of those visitors, with 39 percent to Hilton Head’s 31 percent.
Lori Lynah, the airport’s director of marketing and air service development, presented the results of Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport’s latest passenger survey, conducted last May, to the Savannah Airport Commission board Monday.
“This is the first passenger survey we’ve done since 2009, so we were very interested to see how — and what — things had changed since then,” she said.
While the top destination shift from Hilton Head to Savannah was significant, Lynah also pointed out that visitors to Hilton Head Island tend to stay longer — 5 to 7 days on average — while Savannah visitors tend to fall into the 3- to 4-day category.
The top 10 markets serviced to and from Savannah are similar to what they have been in past surveys, Lynah said. New York remains solidly on top, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all travelers.
Dallas, the No. 6 market in 2009, jumped to No. 2 this year, pushing Washington, D.C., to the third spot. Atlanta remained in eighth place as a destination or origination point.
“Leisure remains the primary reason for travel, accounting for 55.6 percent of respondents, although business travel has actually come up a bit,” Lynah said.
While Delta still carries the majority of passengers — and offers the most daily flights — its market share has dropped slightly, from 40 percent in 2009 to 39 percent in 2014.
Airport Commission Chairman Sylvester Formey recalled a time when Delta had more than half of the market share at 52 percent, while Lynah pointed out the next survey would include a combined U.S. Airways and American, which recently merged.
“So the market share will look a little different again,” she said.
Jet Blue, which had been operating in Savannah about three months when the survey was conducted, came in at 15 percent.
A new question for 2014 looked at what airports refer to as “leakage” — the number of people who use an airport other than their local terminal.
The question posed was this:
“Over the past 12 months, which of the following airports have you used for departure?”
Nearly 68 percent said they only used only Savannah, 8.6 percent said they had used Jacksonville, 8.7 percent drove to Charleston and 3.2 percent used the airport in Hilton Head.
“This was a good, strong number for us, and it was interesting that Jacksonville and Charleston were nearly identical,” Lynah said. “We knew we were losing some Hilton Head traffic to Charleston. We have been since Southwest, and then JetBlue, began service in Charleston. But we expected the Jacksonville numbers to be higher.”
In other airport business, Lynah told the commission her top priorities for the remainder of the year are to court service from a Canadian airline, to attract a Miami/Fort Lauderdale flight and to increase the number of available seats to Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas-Fort Worth and the Midwest.
TOP 10 MARKETS FOR SAV
1. New York — 39.4 percent
2. Dallas — 11.2 percent
3. Washington, D.C. — 9.7 percent
4. Detroit — 7.5 percent
5. Chicago — 7.1 percent
6. Boston — 6.1 percent
7. Philadelphia — 6 percent
8. Atlanta — 5.5 percent
9. Los Angeles — 4.5 percent
10. Pittsburgh — 2.8 percent