CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The city has rolled out a new campaign at some of the airports across the country to try to attract airline passengers to book a flight to Corpus Christi.
It's hoped that the strategy will help to bring some of those non-stop flights to town that we've all been hoping to see.
Corpus Christi International Airport Director Kevin Smith is happy with a new advertising strategy that is putting the Corpus Christi name up on electronic billboards at several airports across the country, all in the hope of getting new flight service started up between the cities.
"We are actually Denver's number one destination without nonstop service," he said. "So, they're pushing just as hard as we're pulling. So, we're hoping together with both of those synergies, we can get that air service that we've been trying for, for so long."
Visit Corpus Christi CEO Brett Oetting said the campaign is the first of its kind.
"We have for the first time ever ads that are on digital boards within the Denver airport and the Minneapolis Minnesota airport. We also have banners hanging in the corridors of the terminals as well," he said.
Smith said that the airport has tried to get nonstop service, but that effort has not yielded positive results. However, there is an incentive program that the city is working on that could bear fruit, nearing close to the $1.6 million mark, which would allow them to guarantee an airline would make a profit from the new flight service.
"It doesn't really buy us anything it guarantees that the airline won't lose money," he said. "So, if we can convince Southwest to do a nonstop from here to Denver if they don't get an 80% load factor, let's say they get 75 percent then will make up that 5 percent difference out of that pool of money."
That effort may be the city's best bet to get new non-stop service. Because, as Smith said, airlines are still hesitant to open new routes as there are still 650 flights that haven't been brought back since the COVID-19 pandemic.
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