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March 30, 2010 Portlandbiz

Jetport readies for terminal upgrade

By Robert M. Cook

Paul Bradbury, manager of Portland International Jetport, recognizes neither he nor the city can ever be complacent when it comes to attracting business travelers in and out of Maine.

"It is critical we compete every day with Manchester and Logan and if our facilities are not user friendly, we're out of the game," says Bradbury.

This is why he believes the $75 million terminal expansion project approved by the Portland City Council earlier this year is a critical component to ensure the jetport's competitive edge.

The city council approved a 30-year bond for the new terminal building in February. The jetport will repay the bond by using airport fees and funds from a federal Department of Transportation Security Administration Grant.

When completed, the 137,000-square-foot expansion will double the size of the airport's terminal and include three new gates, eight passenger screening lanes, a new baggage-handling system and a pedestrian bridge over the roadway.

The project also calls for the construction of a new road system and a new explosion-detection system for outgoing baggage, which will speed up baggage checks for passengers and will free up security officials' time to screen passengers, he says.

Airport officials hope the expansion will attract at least one new airline carrier. The terminal expansion project construction is scheduled to begin in April and will take 22 months to complete, he says, wrapping up in January 2012.

Bradbury says executives with Unum, Fairchild Semiconductor, Idexx Laboratories and other firms regularly fly in and out of the jetport and utilize it for their clients and air freight.

For instance, Bradbury says that Unum flies 200 flights a year on its corporate jet to and from the jetport. General Dynamics, which owns Bath Iron Works and Saco Defense, has a plane at the jetport and TD Bank executives regularly fly out of Portland to Toronto.

"They need aviation," says Bradbury. "Without that, they'll just relocate to Boston."

The three new gates will allow one of the jetport's six airline carriers to add more flights or one of the new gates will allow a new airline carrier to come to the airport, Bradbury says. The jetport has six air carriers now: U.S. Air, Delta, AirTran, Jet Blue, United and Continental, Bradbury says. Air Canada will start its new service in May. Auburn's Twin Cities Air Service is also offering flights between Portland and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Bradbury says.

The jetport sees about 1.9 million passengers fly in and out of Portland annually, but could handle as many as 2.1 million passengers. The new terminal will allow the jetport to grow as Maine grows. The airport's passenger volume grew by 57% since the last major terminal expansion project happened in 1995.

Bradbury says 2009 was a very challenging year for the jetport and passenger volume was down 1.7% from 2008. But the jetport did set a new record of more than 200,000 passengers during July and August.

The jetport's economic impact on the greater Portland region and the state can't be overlooked, he says. The jetport's total economic impact in 2007 was $868 million, and it supported 11,591 jobs, according to Bradbury. About $196 million of that figure represents the jetport's direct economic impact on the city; $221 million is generated by all other businesses at the jetport; and $450 million is what airport visitors produce in economic impact.

The city of Portland employs as many as 50 people at the facility and there are 1,000 people who work at the jetport either for other companies or the federal government.

Bradbury says a stronger jetport will also help the greater Portland region and the state attract more companies when the economy rebounds.

"If you build it, it doesn't position you so they will immediately come," he says. But it does put the jetport in a position to accommodate additional growth in the future, he adds.

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