Evansville Regional Airport seeing usage grow and 'leakage' decline

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- Through the first six months of 2019, usage of Evansville Regional Airport was up more than 6 percent from the same time of 2018.

EVV has seen its traffic grow by about a third since January 2015.

“The healthy economy certainly does help, but we also look at market share,” said Leslie Fella, EVV director of marketing and air service. “We continue to reduce leakage to the other airports. We’ve got more people choosing to fly out of EVV than our competitors.”

Some specific examples of what’s driving EVV’s traffic jumps:

* American Airlines, which flies from Evansville to Charlotte, Chicago and Dallas, saw two months of 20-year highs in its EVV passenger traffic.

Evansville-based Berry Global is a frequent user of the Charlotte connection, although airport officials said non-Berry travelers also are boosting that service.

* Allegiant’s seasonal service to Orlando and Destin, Florida, has seen consistent usage even though Allegiant cut one of its weekly Orlando connections with Evansville due to staffing reasons.

“Last year we had three Orlando flights and two Destin flights. This year we are two and two, but our numbers are almost identical,” said Nate Hahn, who’s in his first year as airport manager.

* Due to high demand, Delta has added a fourth daily connection between EVV and Atlanta. It is currently scheduled to remain through September.

Delta also operates an EVV connection with Detroit.

* United has continued to fly from EVV to its Chicago hub. That service was added in 2015.

EVV officials said they communicate with airlines on a regular basis about adding new destinations or boosting service to existing destinations.

Those outcomes are possible if usage of EVV keeps growing, they said.

“It’s safe to say the flights are extremely full,” Fella said.