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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes Airport Board - 07/21/2021 REGULAR MEETING MINUTES CORPUS CHRISTI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT BOARD JULY 21ST, 2021 3:30 P.M. THIS MEETING WILL BE BOTH IN-PERSON & CONDUCTED ONLINE TO JOIN THE MEETING ONLINE & PARTICIPATE, GO TO THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE: https://zoom.us ~ Zoom Meeting ID: 853 2352 9930 ~ Password: JULY2021 BOARD MEMBERS Jon Reily, Chairman Don Feferman, 1st Vice-chairman Ted Mandel, 2nd Vice-chairman Luis Buentello, Member Paul Cameron, Member Karl Tomlinson, Member Kusumakar Sooda, Member John LaRue, Member Randall Hicks, Member Hans Schumann, Member Bretting Oetting, Ex-officio Member Iain Vasey, Ex-officio Member CITY STAFF Kevin Smith, Director of Aviation Tyler Miller, Deputy Director Kimberly Miller, Finance Manager Kim Hunt, Marketing Manager John Hyland, Chief of Public Safety Victor Gonzalez, Major Projects Manager Lawrence Thormaehlen, Interim Facilities Manager Albert Bejarano, Operations Manager Elizabeth Hundley, Asst. City Attorney Adelle Ives, Management Assistant I. Call to Order The meeting was called to order by Chairman Reily at 3:32 p.m. II. Roll Call Roll was called and a quorum was present. III. Public Comment* None. IV. Approval of the absences for the June 16th, 2021 Regular Airport Board Meeting Chairman Reily called for a motion excuse absences from the June Regular Airport Board meeting. Second Vice-chairman Mandel moved to excuse the absences of Chairman Reily, First Chairman Feferman and Board member Cameron. Board member Tomlinson seconded and the motion carried. V. Approval of minutes for the June 16th, 2021 Regular Airport Board Meeting Chairman Reily called for a motion to approve the minutes of the June Regular Airport Board meeting. Second Vice-chairman Mandel moved to approve the minutes as written. Board member Tomlinson seconded and the motion carried. VI. Presentation, Discussion and Possible Action to recommend City Council approve the contract for the purchase of passenger boarding bridges and ordinance appropriation for FAA Grant No. 65 in the amount of $4,384,397 Deputy Director Miller briefed the members on the terms of the FAA’s Grant 65. The contractor awarded the project is JBT who is one of the contractor’s who manufacture jet bridges. They will start the construction later this year. Electrical upgrades and apron markings will also be part of the project. This is the contract award for this project. Discussion was heard on this item. Chairman Reily called for a motion. First Vice-chairman Feferman moved to approve this item. Board member Cameron seconded and the motion carried. VII. Presentation, Discussion and Possible Action to recommend City Council approve the motion authorizing the re-building of terminal escalator Deputy Director Miller briefed the members on the method of procurement used to rebuild one of the Airport’s escalators. Staff plans on rebuilding all four of the Airport’s escalators every year for the next four years. In order to save money, the entire escalator will be stripped all the way down to the frame and rebuilt with new parts which lowers the cost of major construction that would have been needed to install an entire new complete, one- piece escalator. The budget for this project is $133,000 for frame and rebuild. Discussion was heard on this item. Chairman Reily called for a motion. First Vice-chairman Feferman moved to approve this item. It was seconded by Board member Schumann and the motion carried. VIII. Presentation and Discussion on ROUTES AMERICA 2021 Conference Presentation Director Smith briefed the members on the ROUTES Conference he and Deputy Director Miller attended in Orlando, Florida from June 22nd to June 26th. He began by stating that they received invitations from two different airlines to meet with them aside from those scheduled through the conference. They had conference scheduled meetings with the following airlines:  Allegiant Air – Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix  JSX – Dallas (Love Field), Midland, Austin  Frontier - Denver  United Airlines - Denver  Silver – New Orleans to Orlando  Boutique Air – DFW, Midland, Austin, Other  Bahamas Air – Seasonal/Charter to Nassau  AeroMar – Mexico City/Monterey  Volaris – Mexico City/Monterey  Swoop – Not a fit for CRP (Canada)  American Airlines – The airline was a no-show They had several follow-up meetings with several of the airlines. They were also invited to attend an Allegiant conference. Director Smith reached out to American Airlines with respect to their no-show meeting at the conference. They have not responded. Director Smith felt that the most promising leads were JSX, Allegiant & Frontier. He added that the CEO of Frontier made time to meet with them. Discussion was heard on this item. IX. Presentation and Discussion on Emerald City Cargo Lease Director Smith reported that this item would be going to City Council on August 10th. They would be located in the terminal in bellycargo. They plan on installing cold storage units for fish, flowers, etc. He presented a map of the space this company plans on utilizing. X. Presentation and Discussion on Sterling Air Service Lease Director Smith briefed the members that Sterling Air Service, who operates a medical transport company, would be entering into a service agreement to oversee the hangars located near their facility. This maintenance was once under the agreement with Signature Aviation until they pulled out of the Airport. This agreement will allow Sterling Air Service to make repairs to the hangar in lieu of payments. XI. Presentation and Discussion on Al Dodds Lease Director Smith reported that the Airport would be entering into a lease agreement with Al Dodds. He also presented a map of the area where Al Dodds facility is located. XII. Presentation and Discussion on Chapter 9 Director Smith briefed the members that staff had begun revisions to remove the parking rates out of Chapter 9 and move them to Airport Rates and Charges. However, the City Manager felt the Airport parking rates needed be kept in Chapter 9 to be uniform with other City departments. Director Smith added that the ordinance relating to parking lot fees would be taken to City Council for the following changes: 3 hours free parking; increase parking rate from the current $10/hr. to $12/ hr., covered parking rates will stay the same at $12/hr.; and, Long Term parking will increase from $7/hr. to $8/hr. Discussion was heard on this item. XIII. Director’s Reports A. General Updates i. TML Legislative Update – Suspension lifted of online meetings 09/01/2021 Director Smith informed the members that beginning with the September Airport Board Meeting on September 15th, all board members would need to be physically present in the Board Room to be counted for purposes of a making a quorum. ii. IT Security Deputy Director Miller reported on information he received from the IT Manager regarding internet security. He was informed that training required by all City employees, including Airport staff. He added that the training was inclusive of phishing, password protection and other features necessary to keep the City’s IT network safe and secure. iii. FAA Certification Inspection Deputy Director Miller reported to the board on the FAA inspection. He reminded members that the FAA did not conduct an inspection in 2020 due to COVID. This year’s inspection was held June 28th through 30th. An administrative review was conducted as well as a runway and perimeter inspection done both during the day and at night. An ARFF test was also conducted, which consisted of a simulation of an aircraft emergency. The inspection results were overwhelmingly positive due to changes created and implemented since the last inspection. He added that he is waiting on the final close-out letter later this week which indicated an issue of the thermoplastic markings on the airfield. It was noted that the runway will be repaved this year based on the plan in place which satisfied the FAA inspector. He expects the close-out letter to be coming this week. B. Monthly Air Service Update Director Smith reported on the growth of advanced booking numbers since the start of April. He added that retention for June 2021 is at 59% which is higher from June 2019 which was 51% and June 2020 which was 46%. In comparison to other cities during July – August 2021 vs 2019, CCIA lost 8.2% while cities such as San Antonio lost 19.8%, El Paso lost 18.8% while nationally lost 16.9%. He felt that CCIA is doing better than average locally and nationwide. He added that all the major airlines, with the exception of Southwest, are down. He added that Spirit and Allegiant are doing exceptionally well with Spirit up 31.5% and Allegiant up 16.6%. He felt this was mostly leisure travel. C. General Activity Report (GAR) Director Smith reported for June 2021 enplanements which reflected 30,133 passengers compared to June 2020 with 8,528. While in 2019, June’s numbers were at 31,919. He felt that enplanements were back to pre-COVID numbers. He also reported that the airline’s load factors were extraordinary with Southwest at 90.5, American at 92.2 and United at 89.4. He reported that a press release was in the works regarding this information. He continued by reporting freight numbers were also climbing by 32%; and, he feels that this will continue grow. D. Financial Report Finance Manager, Kimberly Miller, updated the Board on the numbers regarding parking revenue which indicated a 379% increase. Director Smith interjected that this was an all- time high for the history of the CCIA. He also added that trend was also seen with the concessionaire. Ms. Miller continued by reporting that revenues are on target for 75% of the year with a budget of $8.8M and for YTD through June at $6.3M and actuals at $6.5M leaving a remaining budget at $2.2M. For expenses the budget is at $10.5M with YTD through June at $7.6 and actuals at $5.9 leaving the remaining budget at $4.5M. This is with 57% on expenditures. Deputy Director Miller added that the CRISA rescue package passed through Congress which will inject $2.58M into revenue that will go back into reserves for loss of revenue from the last calendar year. However, she added that revenue is experiencing an upward trend. F. Marketing Report Kim Hunt, Marketing Manager, updated the members on the digital marketing campaign. She reported that it is still performing very well with ads appearing in Goggle search results pages nearly 21,000 times in the last 30 days with 2,310 clicks going to a landing page. She added that 1,411 people clicked through to “Book It” and that the conversion rate is 62% with 25% as a benchmark for this company for other Airport clients. Last month, the conversion rate was 59%. The Facebook targeted ads served 30,000 impressions with 272 clicks to the landing page with 25 “Book It” clicks. Display ads have 69,000 impressions with 305 clicks throughs to the landing page for a CTR (click through rate) of .44% with an industry average of 0.4%. She added that the social media performance overview indicated that CCIA has almost 10K followers on Facebook with a total reach of 309K; post engagement of 38.3K; page clicks of 37.1K; total fans are at 57 which is up by 14% within the last 30 days. She continued by reporting that there are additional Facebook ads that target those who are not in the catchment area. She felt that this has helped increase the numbers for the campaign. G. Construction Status Report Deputy Director Miller reported on three updates to the Airport’s ongoing construction projects. He began by reporting that staff is working with our architect/engineering firm to coordinate with the FAA and the Texas Historic Commission on justification for the demolition of Hangar 1. The timeline is sensitive as it will take about six to twelve months. In the meantime, City staff is working to put together RFPs for a potential FBO for the east side where Hangar 1 is located on in. He continued by reporting on the project to rehab the concrete on the terminal ramp and the east & west side of the airfield. Tenants near Hangar 2 impacted by the construction have been relocated to Hangar 3 until after the project is completed. They will be relocated back to Hangar 2 once the work is completed. The last phase of concrete replacement on the terminal ramp, which was on hold due to rain delays, is ongoing. It should be completed soon and will also include in a Change Order some additional panels to improve the drainage in that area. He continued by reminding the members that the west side concrete is not being replaced. Only the seals are being replaced as they have reached their useful life. The final project he reported on is the TSA relocation in the ticketing lobby. The contractor began work about 3 weeks ago. They are working to moving two pieces of TSA screening equipment into the ticketing lobby. He felt that this move would be beneficial in locating any potential new airlines within the terminal. The project should be completed by mid- September. H. City Council Action Report None. I. Items for next Board meeting None. XIV. Adjournment As there was no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:28 p.m.