Amid a flagging economy, Southwest Airlines wants to give up nearly a quarter of its gates at Maryland's flagship airport, company officials said yesterday.
The low-cost carrier, which operates more than half the flights at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, is seeking to shrink its footprint without reducing the number of flights offered. The move comes just months after state officials granted millions in concessions to persuade Southwest to maintain its investment here.
BWI officials estimate that Southwest's pullback could cost the state-owned airport between $3 million and $3.5 million a year at a time of declining passenger traffic and falling revenues.
"This is another illustration that these are very tough economic times and ... we can't afford to leave money on the table," said Joseph Shapiro, a spokesman for state Comptroller Peter Franchot, who objected in May to the proposal to forgive $32.2 million in undercharges to Southwest and other carriers.
That month, state officials reduced terminal rents and landing fees charged to Southwest - and forgave the millions in mistaken undercharges to it and other airlines - arguing that efforts to recoup the money could prompt the carriers to retreat from BWI.
But a nose-diving economy appears to have precipitated the outcome they were trying to prevent.
Yesterday, airline and airport officials insisted that the May deal and current negotiations with Southwest are unrelated. "The economic world looks very different today than it did at that point," said Timothy L. Campbell, executive director of the Maryland Aviation Administration. "I thought it was the best deal we could reach at the time, and I still do."
Southwest's plan to reduce its lease at BWI from 26 gates to 20 gates represents a scaling back of long-term expansion prospects in Maryland. In 2005, the airport opened a $264 million terminal dedicated solely to Southwest, which planned to use the extra capacity to expand its offerings.
"They were anticipating growing the operations at BWI where they would at some point need those 26 gates," Campbell said. "I think economic forces have developed in a way where they don't see that expansion developing in quite the same time frame."
