Not very much work if we get it if we get it right.

So I'm gonna call the airport commission meeting to order.

It is March 3rd, and it is exactly two o'clock.

And uh the first order of business is always open comments, but we do not have anyone from the public here, despite the door being open.

Um so we will just move along and um I don't I I didn't ask for roll call last time, but there's some missing people, so I do have yeah, that's what I'm thinking of.

Maybe we should um just Mr.

Dombrowski is absent.

Mr.

Horst?

Here, Mayor Norton here, Mr.

Reed here.

President Schuberg here, and Ms.

Zelms is absent.

So we do have enough for we have a quorum for uh to be able to uh take care of business.

And so uh you have before us the order of agenda.

Does anyone have any changes or can we proceed?

Okay, okay.

So we will just um proceed with the order of the agenda without objection and the consent agenda is the minutes of February 3rd.

Anyone had a chance to peek over those?

I've read them out making that motion.

Good.

Is that a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded to accept the minutes of the February 3rd meeting.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Wonderful.

That passes.

Um we do have a few reports, which are always interesting.

Airport, uh, the airport operations and marketing data is uh on there for 5A.

Yeah, so um, we'll have Kyle walk you through this, but um still working on the closing of financials on the municipal side.

So when that's done, we'll we'll present um uh uh a full ending picture for you.

McPowell walk through December um and January, and then Mary can uh walk through um marketing reports for you.

Yep, I'll I'll start with the December.

Thank you, John.

I'll start with the December statistics.

Um as you can see, our umplaymans for the year were up six percent.

Our goal was eight percent.

Um, you know, we still did pretty well, five thousand eight hundred and seventy more than the previous year.

Um sorry, seats available.

We might regold there, a little bit bigger uh capacity on some of the flights, even though we had the exact number um of departing flights per day, as you can see a little farther down from the stats there.

We are um I'll note this again in the dynamic stats.

We are expecting that to increase um this year with united coming back.

On the next page is our uh total passengers by carrier for months of the year on the far right.

You can see Delta's up eight percent for the year and Americans up three percent.

Again, that's the direction we want to see things going.

Plus six total percent for the year.

I think that's um a good sustainable growth number.

Good to see.

I'm happy to see that.

Okay, yeah.

And and part of it is the size of the planes that we have, and you can only yeah, I mean, you keep saying uh all the seats that you can fill and all the frequency you can handle.

And I think six percent because a good six percent growth in for our region that's a possibility.

There were other airports in our immediate region that were down.

Oh, they were yep.

Wow.

Okay, well, congratulations.

Yep, and our load factor for delta is starting, or sorry, hope I skip the page.

Yeah, uh Delta not quite where we want it.

We wanted above that 70% line, but uh we're not far off, and Americans started to head the right direction uh again there.

Uh but our capacity is still quite a bit higher than it was in previous years.

Um our parking lot and rental income continue to increase, you know, as our employments increase, all these under other numbers incrementally increase as well.

Uh the parking lot transactions um another example.

The international passengers were very similar to previous years.

Um 34 people more this year than the previous year.

So out of a thousand, that's pretty uh stable.

Now these are you know, this is up and it's down, you know.

I I think when you look at the flights and the uh the international passenger numbers, those have been roughly steady since I've been here over the last 10 years.

I um these are good numbers.

Look at see them grow, but I think they're good numbers.

And we do see a dip in January, and I have heard there's maybe a dip in February given all that's happening in the country.

So travel.

I think that's not unusual at airports right now.

So don't disagree.

Yeah, okay.

And our our cargo number for the year is down just slightly.

Um percent technically, I think it's less than one percent.

We'll get to one percent.

All right.

And then oh, sorry, I'll go back to the January stats.

A little early in the year, uh, but some of those are looking pretty good because our growth from employments for January over January uh quite a bit higher.

Our capacity is quite a bit higher.

Um we do have, I believe, technically one less flight per day than the schedule was at this time last year.

But again, we're gonna have United coming um at the end of April.

So May numbers uh will be quite different in regards to number of flights per day.

Um pending changes, either Delta or American on number of flights per day that we're aware of.

No, I think there's I think there's changes coming um uh for flights over Chicago.

It is oversaturated.

So over the weekend, um the FA announced that they're gonna hold meetings this week with all the airlines in Chicago and ask for some reductions.

So we'll see what happens there.

American and United were kind of trading blows.

Um, I think we were up over 3,000 operations per day out of Chicago.

So peak times are going to be difficult.

So the FA will begin to order some reduction.

So we'll see what that looks like if we're affected or not.

So we'll see.

Yeah, oh yeah.

And we should know before this week is done.

I think before if if we see anything, and unique to O'Hare or all some other airports.

No, just unique to O'Hara.

That's the battle between American Airlines and United, you know, for uh dominance.

Yeah, in OR.

Um recently we also saw that there were four and five flights a day on United.

Do you give it to us?

And I we've shared that in the commission.

Right.

Um, but you know, that inflates our flights per day.

So if they do have to retract, hopefully we still maintain that rate.

I think um we'll just see what the region begins to outfold.

And obviously, airports like RST are probably one of the first ones to at least absorb a little bit of a reduction.

I don't think we're gonna see much out of American.

It would not surprise me to see you know, one um um loss, at least maybe day of week from United.

We'll see.

Can I just this is a naivety question because I don't live in this world, but why would United come to Rochester when American already serves it rather than have a different place to go than Chicago?

Yeah, I I think it's just back to the airline strategy and where they want to dominate a market, and it goes back to proximity of a hub um and the ease of flights.

And Chicago's a great market.

I mean, it's one of the biggest airports in the world.

And yes, of course it is.

And and yet we had a successful flight to Denver, which they have not re-apped, and that was kind of a disappointment.

It would have been nice for folks to have Chicago, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Denver as an option, but they're just not.

Definitely wouldn't have been that would have been my goal.

Yeah, just for sure.

They don't ask.

Is that what I'm hearing?

I think you can ask all you want.

And I think you've got to prove yourself in a local market, and then they'll offer you more.

Well, we and we did prove ourselves with Denver, I thought.

So I'm just surprised about that.

So thank you for that.

Questions I ask a lot of stuff.

Yeah, well, you know.

So what else do we have with financials that you can do?

Well, Delta's up quite a bit for January as well, year over year, almost 2,000 more than the uh uh previous year.

Um and like I said, it's pretty early in the year.

Delta is the load factor.

We got over 70%.

And um American was right at 70%.

So those are pretty good numbers for January.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

All right, and that's it, unless you have questions about the channel.

I don't know.

Anybody else?

No.

I think we already got a mans registered.

Our January marketing audience was holding steady with a small five percent growth.

That's the upper left-hand um chart that we try to track every month showing the owned audience, the people that we know we can be it to them anytime.

On the right-hand side, we talk a little bit about uh how or why we believe we've increased two things that I want to know is the DFW and the Ford Myers um destinations driving the spikes.

Those were concerted efforts that we put in place in some of our paid media um to drive a try to drive searches for those destinations.

DFW's intentional to try to increase demand over that hub so that eventually we build up enough demand that we can have a business case conversation about that connection.

Um, and then uh knowing that Fort Myers uh is one of our targets for a low-cost leisure carrier, also driving some of that searches to come back to RST.

Um, a lot of seconds homeowners fly to uh Fort Miners out of our area.

We have lost some of those to MSP, so just trying to retain some of those during a time when we know that they're super.

And then below that, our top performing organic social posts.

You'll notice two of them build off of the Strangers Things series, popular Netflix series.

It was timed and hosted at the same time as the finale.

So we had a lot of outreach built off of that, a lot of high engagement.

And then on the second page, our feed media chart.

Just to kind of set back the intention of showing this to you is to show you sort of how much it takes to get the reach that we're looking for or sustain the impressions that we'd like to get to drive searches.

So following it from left to right, seeing and watching how we drive local sales, which we're basically using it as web searches for tickets, and then moving people through, visiting our landing page, looking at our site, and then going into the searching action.

Below that, we have the chart of the most popular destinations that have been searched on our site.

RST is number one, those are the inbound passengers coming to Rochester.

We do have marketing out on that.

And then the subsequent destinations, Fort Miners being one of the top ones, which of course, you know, falls in line with us putting our our paid media spend behind them.

And then on the bottom, our top performing paid ads, moving from left to right.

Still the more butts campaign is performing really well.

Again, the Fort Miners ad shows up there with high engagement.

And then on the far right, that's one of our retargeting ads.

So if you've engaged with any content, we start that again.

So to see it uh pop up in our top three is a really good measurement of intent.

We're reaching our impressions to the audience that's high intended to actually move into the booking cycle.

So when we see that pop up, that's good news.

Um we've had a pretty good rebound from December into January.

Great, thank you.

Any questions or anything else in this area?

Great.

Okay, well, we will move on to our no old business, um, but to our new business.

And we do have a couple items.

So 7A is the master services agreement with Meade and Hunt for Professional On-Call Airport Consulting Services for the Rochester International Airport.

I think we are keeping Mead and Hunt and business this last thing.

Well yeah.

Um if you uh walk with me back into December, we had a discussion related to going out for on-call professional services, a requirement of the Federal Aviation Administration.

We do this about every five years.

Um we did do that, uh, made publication of that.

We did receive um one response that was from Meadenh, myself, Kurt and Dylan all did review the um materials that were provided.

Um traditionally we'd come back to you.

We had multiple organizations and um give you our recommendation and then eventually bring you a master's services agreement.

In this particular case, since we had one, um, we kind of short circuited that and brought you um the master services agreement.

Um and so really today we're asking for your approval of that.

There's no uh dollars committed to this because we bring task folders back to you each time we decide to do an element of work.

The staff would recommend pool.

Thank you.

And we do have obviously for me and hunt, we're pretty regular when our meetings.

So uh meet and hunt is uh is our consultant of record that has been for how long?

Um prior to my arrival, so about 12 years.

Okay.

So um in this um re-upping, was there any areas where you were looking for more support, different support, or um, I think this was a standard look for us.

And you know, we we we're constantly looking at our CIP.

So we make those um minor adjustments at the federal level every year, just depending on what we think as we get closer to those projects, what we think those will be.

Um, so I think for us, you know, we were looking for um planning, engineering, uh, architectural, and we were looking for some partnerships on the environmental side.

We do use a partner that um um meet and hunt does use uh Terracon company.

So really our ask from there was really um I would say standard at this point.

So then I do have a question just because this is before us now.

Um so in the meet and hunt portfolio, how does RST fit with your other airport clients?

Do you have a mix of small regional larger hub or what what's what's the mix and yep, primarily the mix for those of you who service sure RST.

So Meet and Hunt is a national firm.

We have offices throughout the country, um, about 1,500 people in our organization.

Of that, about 400, 450 are aviation specific.

Um, and with the projects you know, going on at Rochester, we've employed probably 50 of those aviation professionals at some point or another on your projects here.

So I think right now we have about a dozen ongoing task orders or projects at the airport.

Um, so yeah, a mixture of uh general aviation clients, smaller airports, um, so mid-size like Rochester, and then a few large hubs as well that we work at.

So um, and primarily planning, engineering.

Um, John mentioned we do environmental work.

Um, we also team with other consultants like CARICON at the case here at Rochester for that environmental component, and then um other subconsultants as needed for the work.

Great.

Does Mead and Hunt are is that the team that supports the the JASB as well?

That's correct.

Okay.

Yeah, very good.

Yeah, kind of that planning side.

But I would recommend approval.

Second.

That's been moved and seconded.

Any other questions?

And I do this is a very weird thing.

So I apologize for having such a weird question.

But it has a A19 has seismic activity.

Um I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and it had an earthquake last week.

Yeah, which it's never in the history of my lifetime had one.

Is that something that we need to ever think about?

Or do you have expertise in that area, even though it says not applicable?

We have offices in California, so I'm sure that's not eventually.

Believe it or not, I mean it's in there.

That's a kind of a standard FAA.

Um not really applicable, doesn't mean it won't be one day.

Um you know, I think when we work backwards through FA stuff, we just remove that traditionally.

But it's there if necessary.

That's fine.

We need their help near there, whether the Lincoln airport had removed it.

Yeah, that was just a very strange occurrence.

So I love that you're all like, yes, we know.

And hopefully it doesn't come here.

Um so it's been moved and seconded.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay, it's approved.

And the last item on new business is airline operating agreement.

We've uh been talking a little bit about United, but about United Airline.

It is.

Um, in your package, um uh traditional airline operating agreement.

Um, we did have Captain Kirch and Rockwell take a look at this.

Um, we did add a preamble to this, given the age of the existing airline operating agreement.

And we are under contract with um um Kaplan and Kirsch to redevelop a brand new airline operating agreement this year, hopefully across the line with a lot of recognition that that takes a long time to get across with Delta American and United.

We decided to utilize the existing agreement again with a preamble on there.

Um United has agreed to that.

It's the exact same agreement they signed several years ago when they were here, and so we'd asked for your approval.

Any questions or a motion?

So moved second.

Thank you, guys.

Moved and seconded.

Any further questions?

Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye, aye.

Any opposed?

And that passes.

So we have other business before we adjourn.

Does anyone have anything they want to add to this?

Very concise and short meeting.

How are you feeling overall about?

I'm excited about um United coming back in the market.

I mean, they're here in April.

Um, I think that's you know, um, three or four flights a day.

It's 150, 200 extra seats a day.

Um, I mean, through the end of the year, that's another 20, 25,000 uh in plane passengers.

That's that's good.

I'm excited about it.

I think it'll bring a little more competition to the airline fare market, which uh in the United States is on a massive increase at the moment.

So having three in our local market is good.

And are you feeling like the whole as you look holistically pre-pandemic pandemic and everything getting tamped down post-pandemic?

Are you feeling like you're on a path that's going in the right direction?

Is there something more you hope to see?

I'd love to see a little more um um uh opportunity opportunity availability, I think is the best way I can put that from some of the airlines.

I'd love to see us back in the Atlanta market.

I think that the community needs to mature a little bit more um before we'll see that opportunity and maybe a potential shift in the when the airlines are operating, but things ebb and flow.

I'd love to see that market back um for us.

It's you know, um on a very large market, love to be in that space.

something more you hope to see I'd love to see a little more um um uh opportunity opportunity availability I think is the best way I can put that from some of the airlines I'd love to see us back in the Atlanta market I think that the community needs to mature a little bit more um before we'll see that opportunity and maybe a potential shift in the when the airlines are operating but things ebb and flow I'd love to see that market back um for us it's you know um on a very large market love to be in that space we'll see makes sense yeah I think there's other opportunities but let these mature and continue to grow pre-pandemic we were 12 1213 flights a day at the very least we'll be anywhere from nine to eleven a day depending on um what the airlines themselves do I think that's a good return and given um uh how the airlines have adjusted upward pretty much from 50 seat regional jets to 70 and 90 class aircraft I think we're we're stepping in the right direction and just let it grow and mature what I think that yeah thank you for that we did just recently oh I'm sorry learned about the inaugural flight time for never launch day um so save the date it's the 1105 flights on that very morning April we'll have a short program starting around um I'll send out uh formal details once they start shaping up that we did just hear that last Thursday yeah so now we can build out you know the party activities yeah yeah why not working on that I've got family there you go so and Matt yeah I'd just like to thank you again for your continued trust and confidence in us being your airport consultant I realize there was one applicant and I hopefully that's a testament to our good service for giving you so John will let me know right if there's any issues so on behalf of the team thank you appreciate getting involved with with everything here at Rochester.

Thank you we've had good safety good and I'm looking forward to having all that work that's been going on for a number of years now what's the end date for the 2027 2027 is the end date theoretically for the runway project but a lot this year and obviously we've got phase five um ongoing you know of the runway project um um or excuse me phase six and then um big projects going on on our general aviation ramp and the build out for united therapeutics so a lot of projects going on this year a lot they restarted work today yeah so well I'll just say as someone who just announced her retirement yes um graduation I don't know if that's a right luck yeah thank you one of the um the issues I grappled with was that most of our major projects that I have been part of starting all end in 2027 after I've went office and it's it's a little heartbreaking to not be able to be there.

So when you have your party send me an invitation even though I'm a has been I would love to be there to the for the runway opening because I was with that through the legislative years or the mayor years through all that.

And I said um on strategy on how to talk with the legislative I'll make sure you have an Uber ride home how's that so I look forward to all that and I really am sorry I won't be there and I you know I probably had two years in me but I I don't think I had four so it's the right time to leave but I I will I really really look forward to saving that project on it.

Party on the runway on the runway.

Well thank you all and if there's no further business meeting is adjourned.

Thank you for you one drop for uh congratulatory it's the best time the best