May 14, 2007
Flight plan | A conversation with Risteen Masters, the new marketing director for the Bangor International Airport, on the ups and downs of promoting a regional airport
By Sara Donnelly
In mid March, Risteen Masters, the former marketing director for Bay Ferries Ltd. who helped expand the company's Cat cruise services down the Maine coast, started a new job closer to home. Masters ended her seven-year tenure at Bay Ferries, based in Prince Edward Island, Canada, to become the marketing director for the Bangor International Airport, the sprawling airfield that was still an Air Force base when Master's attended nearby University of Maine in Orono in the late 1960s. Masters now lives in Orrington, in a house about an eight-minute drive from the airport.
Despite the commuting convenience, Masters will likely grapple with some potentially turbulent travel ahead.
After enjoying a record high year in passenger boarding rates in 2006, BIA hit the skids in 2007, when one of its seven carriers, Delta, decided to serve the airport with turboprop planes rather than jets. Those smaller turboprops carry around 19 passengers compared to roughly 50 for jets. That reduced capacity has combined with an 11% decrease in total flight frequency this year to result in a five- to six-percent drop in passenger boarding thus far in 2007.
BIA officials say those dips mirror national aviation struggles. But aviation woes appear to affect some of the region's airports more than others. After experiencing a downturn in passenger boardings of about three percent in 2006, the Portland International Jetport started this year with record boarding numbers in January. This June, the Atlanta-based low-fare airline AirTran is on tap to begin services at the airport alongside New York City's JetBlue Airways, which has said Portland is a very successful market for the company. In 2006, Manchester airport in New Hampshire changed its name to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. The rebranding is part of an effort to boost falling boarding rates after Delta and U.S. Airways downsized their Manchester planes and Independence Air folded.
And life at Boston's Logan International Airport, the top competition for the three smaller airports, has been relatively sweet. Passenger boarding rates are reportedly at record levels, thanks in part to new low-cost airlines.
But Masters, a tourism and transportation veteran, has plenty of peanut packets hidden in her bag of tricks, including her 30-plus years of experience in sales and marketing in Maine and beyond. Still, she'll have to contend with a modest marketing budget of around $300,000, which she admits is "significantly less" than her budget for marketing the Cat.
Whatever the flight plan, it's a fair bet Masters won't catch a nap anytime soon.
Mainebiz recently spoke to Masters about the role of an airport marketer, how to lure a discount airline and the truth about "catchment areas." The following is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: You've never marketed an airport before. What's unique about the job?
Risteen Masters: Well for one thing, we don't have price control. The airlines set the prices. We are a multi-product segmentation sort of entity because we not only have the domestic airline portion of the business, we have general aviation, we have air cargo, air freight and then we deal with our technical stopover corporate business ˆ that kind of thing. So that's a little different. We speak to many audiences. So looking at all of those and having to sort of come up with a different plan and a different set of materials and information and approaches for each of those is what I'm working on now.
What about your previous experience in marketing, sales, tourism and transportation informs this work?
Well, certainly all of the marketing things and public relations directly apply to a different subject and a different selling proposition, if you will. The strategic approach works in any marketing proposition, in that you have a product and you look at the strengths and the weaknesses and the opportunities for business, and then you just go down through the tactical approaches to all of those strategic objectives. I have always tried to take a strategic approach. So we're going to be undertaking a little bit of research ˆ there's some missing holes [at BIA] in that regard ˆ on sort of what our messaging should be, what the perceptions of people are for the airport. [We'll be] looking at how we position ourselves in the marketplace.
You say that the marketing study BIA is undertaking now, which you expect your consultant to complete this June, has never to your knowledge been done at the airport before. When you develop a strategic approach to marketing BIA, what do you think will be your biggest challenges?
The first thing is assessing everything. Where are we, what are the numbers, analyzing the business from the standpoint of where do we get our business from, who uses this airport. This is one of the portions of research we'll be undertaking ˆ how do people use this airport? And if they don't use it, why not? So just doing the basic marketing analysis is the first step that's obviously in process now.
Then looking at what our branding had been. I think we have strong branding, the airport logo is very recognizable, and the positioning in the marketplace is sort of the next thing once you have your brand down. It's part of this research component. Are we positioning ourselves correctly, are we asking for the sale? Are we front of mind with people who are thinking of flying in ˆ here's [a] piece of jargon ˆ our "catchment area."
Meaning?
If you look at where we're located, what people are likely to be using us. In most airports, you'd look within an hour's radius. Because we're located in a rural state, we look further afield. And because we're also in a state that has more than one airport and more than one airport located regionally, our catchment area probably goes from St. John, New Brunswick, down to the midcoast and Augusta region, and up to Greenville [and] Millinocket. You put a pin on Bangor and you put a circle around it, that's our catchment area.
So beyond targeting the local catchment area, how can BIA pump up its passenger rate?
The other thing is that we want people who are thinking of coming to Maine to come to this area and to use Bangor airport. And sort of the flipside of the business analysis and the flipside of the marketing challenge is to get that message out.
But recent passenger rates suggest BIA is straying from the public's radar. In 2006, BIA broke its one-year record of passenger rates, boarding 276,000 people. But this year, after Delta switched to smaller planes, the airport's capacity dipped 18%-20% and your passenger rates dipped between five and six percent. How do you get back on track and build those numbers again?
I'm not sure what the airline jargon is for it, but basically we make a pitch to different airlines. We look at things like, okay, the people that are here, where do they want to go? What airlines serve there? What airlines would most likely be interested in coming here? Then we work with our consultant to do route development and then we approach that airline and say these are our numbers, this is the research that we've done, and then try to work with them to convince them that Bangor would be a great airport for their airline to serve.
BIA is located in a relatively remote area. When you're pitching new passengers, trying to get them to consider flying into or out of BIA, what's your message?
I'm a very large proponent, especially when it comes to transportation, of pitching the destination, because if we're not somewhere where people want to come than the likelihood of them using your mode of transportation to get there is fairly low.
So we believe that what we need to sell is a destination and in this case we have a lot of good stuff to sell because the Bangor airport is within reach of many wonderful Maine tourism assets, not the least of which is Acadia National Park. So I think that you make the pitch based on where we're located. We are located, if you will, convenient to the best of all things. The rockbound coast and Acadia National Park, moose and mountains north of us,
great fishing down in Grand Lake Stream.
So I would make that pitch and then pitch the convenience of that location.
You're planning to attend a national aviation conference in the next few months to try to attract more airlines to BIA. The Portland International Jetport has lately added two popular, low-cost airlines in Jet Blue and AirTran. Will BIA target these or other low-cost airlines too?
While we may not be focusing on the same ones we will certainly look at that. We have ongoing endeavors to get lower cost airlines, especially those with groups that are of interest to people in our area.
You promoted an industry that moved people by water, the speed cruise ship the Cat, for seven years. Is there anything fundamentally different about promoting an industry that moves people by air?
Transportation across modes all has some similar kinds of issues, in both the case of the Cat and here it's getting people to go where you're going at a cost they're willing to pay.
Despite the commuting convenience, Masters will likely grapple with some potentially turbulent travel ahead.
After enjoying a record high year in passenger boarding rates in 2006, BIA hit the skids in 2007, when one of its seven carriers, Delta, decided to serve the airport with turboprop planes rather than jets. Those smaller turboprops carry around 19 passengers compared to roughly 50 for jets. That reduced capacity has combined with an 11% decrease in total flight frequency this year to result in a five- to six-percent drop in passenger boarding thus far in 2007.
BIA officials say those dips mirror national aviation struggles. But aviation woes appear to affect some of the region's airports more than others. After experiencing a downturn in passenger boardings of about three percent in 2006, the Portland International Jetport started this year with record boarding numbers in January. This June, the Atlanta-based low-fare airline AirTran is on tap to begin services at the airport alongside New York City's JetBlue Airways, which has said Portland is a very successful market for the company. In 2006, Manchester airport in New Hampshire changed its name to Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. The rebranding is part of an effort to boost falling boarding rates after Delta and U.S. Airways downsized their Manchester planes and Independence Air folded.
And life at Boston's Logan International Airport, the top competition for the three smaller airports, has been relatively sweet. Passenger boarding rates are reportedly at record levels, thanks in part to new low-cost airlines.
But Masters, a tourism and transportation veteran, has plenty of peanut packets hidden in her bag of tricks, including her 30-plus years of experience in sales and marketing in Maine and beyond. Still, she'll have to contend with a modest marketing budget of around $300,000, which she admits is "significantly less" than her budget for marketing the Cat.
Whatever the flight plan, it's a fair bet Masters won't catch a nap anytime soon.
Mainebiz recently spoke to Masters about the role of an airport marketer, how to lure a discount airline and the truth about "catchment areas." The following is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: You've never marketed an airport before. What's unique about the job?
Risteen Masters: Well for one thing, we don't have price control. The airlines set the prices. We are a multi-product segmentation sort of entity because we not only have the domestic airline portion of the business, we have general aviation, we have air cargo, air freight and then we deal with our technical stopover corporate business ˆ that kind of thing. So that's a little different. We speak to many audiences. So looking at all of those and having to sort of come up with a different plan and a different set of materials and information and approaches for each of those is what I'm working on now.
What about your previous experience in marketing, sales, tourism and transportation informs this work?
Well, certainly all of the marketing things and public relations directly apply to a different subject and a different selling proposition, if you will. The strategic approach works in any marketing proposition, in that you have a product and you look at the strengths and the weaknesses and the opportunities for business, and then you just go down through the tactical approaches to all of those strategic objectives. I have always tried to take a strategic approach. So we're going to be undertaking a little bit of research ˆ there's some missing holes [at BIA] in that regard ˆ on sort of what our messaging should be, what the perceptions of people are for the airport. [We'll be] looking at how we position ourselves in the marketplace.
You say that the marketing study BIA is undertaking now, which you expect your consultant to complete this June, has never to your knowledge been done at the airport before. When you develop a strategic approach to marketing BIA, what do you think will be your biggest challenges?
The first thing is assessing everything. Where are we, what are the numbers, analyzing the business from the standpoint of where do we get our business from, who uses this airport. This is one of the portions of research we'll be undertaking ˆ how do people use this airport? And if they don't use it, why not? So just doing the basic marketing analysis is the first step that's obviously in process now.
Then looking at what our branding had been. I think we have strong branding, the airport logo is very recognizable, and the positioning in the marketplace is sort of the next thing once you have your brand down. It's part of this research component. Are we positioning ourselves correctly, are we asking for the sale? Are we front of mind with people who are thinking of flying in ˆ here's [a] piece of jargon ˆ our "catchment area."
Meaning?
If you look at where we're located, what people are likely to be using us. In most airports, you'd look within an hour's radius. Because we're located in a rural state, we look further afield. And because we're also in a state that has more than one airport and more than one airport located regionally, our catchment area probably goes from St. John, New Brunswick, down to the midcoast and Augusta region, and up to Greenville [and] Millinocket. You put a pin on Bangor and you put a circle around it, that's our catchment area.
So beyond targeting the local catchment area, how can BIA pump up its passenger rate?
The other thing is that we want people who are thinking of coming to Maine to come to this area and to use Bangor airport. And sort of the flipside of the business analysis and the flipside of the marketing challenge is to get that message out.
But recent passenger rates suggest BIA is straying from the public's radar. In 2006, BIA broke its one-year record of passenger rates, boarding 276,000 people. But this year, after Delta switched to smaller planes, the airport's capacity dipped 18%-20% and your passenger rates dipped between five and six percent. How do you get back on track and build those numbers again?
I'm not sure what the airline jargon is for it, but basically we make a pitch to different airlines. We look at things like, okay, the people that are here, where do they want to go? What airlines serve there? What airlines would most likely be interested in coming here? Then we work with our consultant to do route development and then we approach that airline and say these are our numbers, this is the research that we've done, and then try to work with them to convince them that Bangor would be a great airport for their airline to serve.
BIA is located in a relatively remote area. When you're pitching new passengers, trying to get them to consider flying into or out of BIA, what's your message?
I'm a very large proponent, especially when it comes to transportation, of pitching the destination, because if we're not somewhere where people want to come than the likelihood of them using your mode of transportation to get there is fairly low.
So we believe that what we need to sell is a destination and in this case we have a lot of good stuff to sell because the Bangor airport is within reach of many wonderful Maine tourism assets, not the least of which is Acadia National Park. So I think that you make the pitch based on where we're located. We are located, if you will, convenient to the best of all things. The rockbound coast and Acadia National Park, moose and mountains north of us,
great fishing down in Grand Lake Stream.
So I would make that pitch and then pitch the convenience of that location.
You're planning to attend a national aviation conference in the next few months to try to attract more airlines to BIA. The Portland International Jetport has lately added two popular, low-cost airlines in Jet Blue and AirTran. Will BIA target these or other low-cost airlines too?
While we may not be focusing on the same ones we will certainly look at that. We have ongoing endeavors to get lower cost airlines, especially those with groups that are of interest to people in our area.
You promoted an industry that moved people by water, the speed cruise ship the Cat, for seven years. Is there anything fundamentally different about promoting an industry that moves people by air?
Transportation across modes all has some similar kinds of issues, in both the case of the Cat and here it's getting people to go where you're going at a cost they're willing to pay.
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