Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport (ANC) is already known as a global airport. That reputation comes from the carrier’s known position as a cargo hub for flights running between Asia and North America. With a firm cargo position under its belt, the airport is now looking at the potential for expanded international tourism. In an exclusive interview with Jim Szczesniak, the Airport Manager at ANC, he describes how he believes Anchorage can grow its international portfolio.
Anchorage’s current position
Most of the passenger traffic passing through, arriving in, or departing from ANC is going to a domestic US destination. This is also readily apparent in terms of the airport’s nonstop routes. The airport advertises the following nonstop routes to other US states:
, ex
Note that not all of the routes run year-round, and some operate on reduced frequencies. Nevertheless, Anchorage seems to get its fair share of operations down to the lower 48 US states plus Hawaii. Some of the routes even operate with widebody aircraft.
In the last few months, the airport has also seen an expansion of services. Frontier, Alaska, United, and Delta have all added new flying to the airport. Meanwhile, other airlines, such as American, have beefed up Alaska services by flying larger aircraft to the airport.
Internationally, the airline does not have a lot going for it. The most notable long-haul international flight runs to Frankfurt on a seasonal basis. Condor used to serve the route reliably, and now Lufthansa’s Eurowings plans to hop into that market.
Other international services include Air Canada’s nonstop to Vancouver. Another very interesting flight is on Yakutia Airlines, which has historically run flights to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky from Anchorage.
The focus: Asia
Mr. Szczesniak discussed what he thinks are the airport’s opportunities in Asia. One of the things he cited was market research showing desirability for traffic from Asia to visit Alaska. Given that, Mr. Szczesniak discussed opportunities, particularly for Japanese and Korean travelers:
“From an Asia perspective, if you look at Japanese and Korean travelers, some of the comments that they make is the United States is too far away, and they don’t have a lot of vacation time. If if you look at Anchorage, we’re only about a six and a half hour flight from Tokyo. You can get that Alaskan experience, and the US experience with a pretty pretty reasonable flight just over here.”
These flights would mainly target leisure travelers and would be geared around that schedule. One potential example Mr. Szczesniak discussed was a flight from Seoul to Anchorage:
“You can actually run a flight from Korea where it departs Seoul on Friday evening, and it’ll arrive in Anchorage on Friday afternoon. So that you can get off, and particularly in the summertime, with almost unlimited daylight here, you can play four rounds of golf in a day and still have time to go whitewater rafting or whatever else you’d want to do, and then get back before your boss even knew you were missing.”
For example, a flight could leave Seoul at 21:00 local time on a Friday night, and it could land in Anchorage a little after noon on Friday. If scheduled during the summer months, when the sun may not set until close to midnight, that gives passengers so many extra hours of daylight in Anchorage.
The return flight could leave Anchorage at 13:00 and arrive the next day in the afternoon at Seoul. If timed for a Friday to Sunday visit, this could be a perfect little getaway for tourists.
However, that is not all that these travelers can benefit from in Alaska. He went further to discuss the availability for ravel onwards across the US:
“Travelers, in general, don’t want to go to one place. They want to do multiple destinations. We also know that those Asian travelers – a lot of them are looking for ways to experience nature as part of their trip to the United States. Well you can fly into Anchorage, experience nature for a couple days, and then you can catch the flight to New York and you can go to New York and have fun in New York or LA or Chicago or wherever else you want to go.”
Anchorage is also technically “on the way” to those destinations, so it would be too far out of an itinerary to plan something like that for passengers. This would give people the opportunity to take part in Alaska-related adventures, including being able to experience things like the Northern Lights.
While there is a lot to say about Alaska’s demand for tourism from Asians, there is also a sizable originating market for travel to Asia from Anchorage:
“We actually have a lot of Filipinos that live in and around Anchorage. A properly timed connection would be good for that traffic. Certain markets in Asia makes sense for us too from a connecting standpoint for Australians and New Zealanders.
So we have a large visitor group from New Zealand and Australia that come up for cruises every summer. Being able to bounce those guys through an Incheon or Tokyo or something like that makes logistical sense to send them that route. So, getting the right Asian hub connectivity will be pretty important for us”
Getting to Alaska from Asia will generally require passengers to head first to the West Coast of the US and then backtrack to Anchorage. This can take a lot of extra time and add another level of inconvenience to the travel experience.
Will Anchorage get a nonstop to Asia?
Two carriers could enter the Asia-Anchorage market. One could be Japan Airlines. The dominant carrier in Anchorage, Alaska Airlines, is now a member of the oneworld alliance, and Japan Airlines is a member of that alliance.
Japan Airlines could market to its customers the opportunity to take a visit solely to Alaska, or even market a Tokyo-Anchorage-Chicago or Tokyo-Anchorage-Los Angeles routing with a stopover in Anchorage for a few days to take in the sights.
Another option could be Korean Air. As the dominant airline in South Korea and gearing up to strengthen its position through a merger with Asiana Airlines, there is the potential for Korean Air to devote an aircraft to serve a Seoul-Anchorage route. This could be especially true given that Delta has grown its Anchorage position significantly, and Korean could also market a stopover and then an onward flight on its joint venture partner.
These carriers have the planes to make the routes work and could time connections to tap into demand for flying from Australia, New Zealand, or the Philippines to Anchorage. However, there are two barriers to service.
First, Anchorage is a mostly leisure-focused market, so yields on this route are not going to be as high as, say, an Asia-Seattle or Asia-Los Angeles leg, and from a hub like Seoul to Anchorage with a distance of around 3,800 miles (~6,100 kilometers), a widebody would need to serve the route.
The other issue for Anchorage currently is travel restrictions. While nature destinations are in high demand, returning to Asia from a trip to the United States is no easy task and may come with quarantine mandates, even for fully vaccinated returning citizens of that country.
Ultimately, it would not be inconceivable for Anchorage to get a flight to Asia eventually. This is especially true given that the airport will likely offer strong incentives and lower operating costs than other major airports, which could add to the economic case for airlines coming to Anchorage. For now, it is a wait-and-see approach, and without the end of travel restrictions, it is difficult to envision a new route to Alaska launching anytime soon.
Do you think there should be nonstop service between Anchorage and Asia? Where would you like to see airlines fly to? Let us know in the comments!
from Simple Flying https://ift.tt/2TuG521
via IFTTT
Comments
Post a Comment