Harrisburg’s Chicago Challenge

Harrisburg's airport has a unique challenge - attracting passengers. Of course, every airport needs to deal with that, but it's a bigger issue for Harrisburg because of its proximity to other airports. Baltimore is 70 miles away, Philadelphia is 84 miles from the airport, and both Washington airports (Dulles and National) are 94 miles away. All of these airports have plenty of nonstops and can be considered to be hubs in one way or another. And low-cost-carriers already have strong presences at Baltimore (it's a big Southwest focus city) and Philadelphia.

So Harrisburg must work to convince travelers to use them instead of one of the larger airports. So it has created a campaign focused on its code, MDT, which stands for the money, distance, and time saved. For money, the airport reports that its average fares have been shrinking (especially thanks to help from new service from AirTran), but it also notes that passengers need to look at the total travel expenses, not just airfare. For distance and time, the airline suggests how travelers in central Pennsylvania will save time by driving the shorter distance, and claims that the time spent driving more than compensates for having a connection when flying out of MDT versus a nonstop from Philadelphia. In fact, the airport even has a calculator page to show how passengers can save money by choosing MDT.

The airport recently expanded this promotion to really show how MDT can save travelers time. This week, American Eagle came to the airport after a 16-month absence, and is now flying three roundtrips to Chicago O'Hare. So the airport decided to have a "Chicago Challenge," giving two local radio personalities the opportunity to fly to the Windy City for the day. The airport gave each a set of tasks, and wanted to see who would get back home to Harrisburg first - the one who flew from MDT or the one who flew from PHL. Not surprisingly, the former won.

Anyway, kudos to Harrisburg for getting creative here. So far, they've been doing  a great job of attracting new service. Let's hope that will continue.