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Found this article WRT Greensboro & the Southwest/AirTran merger - I think you can pretty much replace Greensboro with Columbia and it would be fairly accurate. Bottom line - we don't have enough business traffic.
An article cobbled together by The State on the merger's effect on GSP, CHS, and CLT:
What Carolinians can expect from Southwest-AirTran merger - Business - TheState.com (http://www.thestate.com/2010/09/29/1487309/what-carolinians-can-expect-from.html - broken link).
I guess for us budget-oriented leisure travelers in the Midlands, the only real good news is that we have 3 good airport options under 2 hours away.
The silver lining with CAE, though, is that it still has a fighting chance. GSP and CHS aren't too far ahead of it in passenger traffic (200K and 1M respectively). It's a much wider gap between PTI and CLT/RDU (30M+ and 7.2M respectively).
The silver lining with CAE, though, is that it still has a fighting chance. GSP and CHS aren't too far ahead of it in passenger traffic (200K and 1M respectively). It's a much wider gap between PTI and CLT/RDU (30M+ and 7.2M respectively).
While I would agree that on pure population/passenger numbers CAE is much more on par with CHS/GSP, than GSO is with CLT/RDU, I think the basic thrust of an underdeveloped business base is the common storyline between GSO and CAE. And the reality is that in today's tough economy and airline environment, it is robust business travel that is going to drive (new) traffic.
And perhaps some day we will have that business base - but unless significant organic business growth occurs (something I don't personally see happening), we will have to hope the Midlands lands a BMW or Boeing type of blue-chip company. That means we need more than second-tier branch plants (Michelin, Haier, Invista, etc.) or distribution centers (Target, Home Depot). Our otherwise stellar insurance IT cluster doesn't seem (large enough) to generate enough business travel. Nor does SCANA, which has its own flight department at CAE for high-level travel anyways.
Whats interesting is that Winston Salem used to have its own commercial airport- Smith Reynolds. I googled it and it appeared that Air Service ended in 2000 with the departure of US Airways
While I would agree that on pure population/passenger numbers CAE is much more on par with CHS/GSP, than GSO is with CLT/RDU, I think the basic thrust of an underdeveloped business base is the common storyline between GSO and CAE. And the reality is that in today's tough economy and airline environment, it is robust business travel that is going to drive (new) traffic.
I don't think that the Triad has an underdeveloped business base; it's more economically developed than any metro area in SC, but it's smack between two metros with significantly higher developed business bases.
The only exception to the rule about robust business travel driving airline traffic is tourism, which is why MYR and CHS are the busiest airports in the state.
[/quote]And perhaps some day we will have that business base - but unless significant organic business growth occurs (something I don't personally see happening), we will have to hope the Midlands lands a BMW or Boeing type of blue-chip company. That means we need more than second-tier branch plants (Michelin, Haier, Invista, etc.) or distribution centers (Target, Home Depot). Our otherwise stellar insurance IT cluster doesn't seem (large enough) to generate enough business travel. Nor does SCANA, which has its own flight department at CAE for high-level travel anyways.[/quote]
The best hope for a large company of the type you're talking about would have to be something tech related (i.e., IBM at RTP). Just about any other type of company that could locate a large facility to SC would probably be one that is part of a cluster that already has a significant presence in the Upstate or Lowcountry.
what we've noticed since moving here is how similar CAE is to our local one back home ( Madison WI ), in size, features, and ease of use. And like CAE it was a couple hours from a "big city" airport ( in that case Ohare or Milwaukee ). The city itself is home to the state U and the state capital, just like here, but less population overall. But we could almost always fly out of MSN at reasonable rates, yet here it is rare to do the same. Which is a shame to then have to drive 4 hours round trip to save $$....
How did Greenville/Spartanburg become the "high tech business" center of the State?? Was it when they landed BMW or was there much activity before then? It seems odd that Columbia from what I can see has never gotten much in the area of tech industry (innovista notwithstanding) or even some of the manufacturing stuff like other areas of the State.. The City sits on two interstates, has rail access, airport etc... so I dont know if some of these other areas just did a better job of planning and out manuvered Columbia or if they were logistically just better situated
How did Greenville/Spartanburg become the "high tech business" center of the State?? Was it when they landed BMW or was there much activity before then? It seems odd that Columbia from what I can see has never gotten much in the area of tech industry (innovista notwithstanding) or even some of the manufacturing stuff like other areas of the State.. The City sits on two interstates, has rail access, airport etc... so I dont know if some of these other areas just did a better job of planning and out manuvered Columbia or if they were logistically just better situated
I was talking about this with a co-worker this morning. I think, referring to your last sentence, it's more the former than the latter. While you can argue that Greenville/Spartanburg is marginally better situated logistically being on the I-85 corridor between Charlotte & Atlanta, I think it largely boils down to Greenville being a business town, and Columbia, in comparison, just is not. I think part of it is the history of the Upstates textile industry's decline, and that motivated the Upstate to do something about it, and has transformed that economic anxiety into economic boosterism & development. Columbia, in contrast, has historically been a stable government town, and so it has never truly been challenged to do something to grow up to be something better. This despite Columbia having excellent highway and rail connections, and an relatively well-educated workforce.
To that extent, I think Columbia will need progressive (in the business sense) state, not just local, leadership to get us to the next level. Being the capital and not necessarily having as deep of a local booster base, I think the state may need to take a bigger role compared to the Upstate or Charleston. To take the nearest comparable success story, the Raleigh/Durham area with RTP was fostered with progressive governors like Luther Hodges and Terry Sanford along with local politicians, university heads, land owners, and business people. Of course, they did this 50 years ago, so we have to start soon the get the ball rolling over the next several decades. It may also take a charismatic, ambitious entrepreneur from the Midlands (beyond just the local real estate developers and law partners) to help as well - a Michael Dell or a Jim Goodknight, etc.
State support for RTP is why Charlotte hates Raleigh.
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