2004 Passenger Demand Analysis Report

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--~ Section 1 Introduction . _~ For the purposes of this study, MIDT includes bookings made by travel agencies in the defined Eugene ~~ Airport catchment area. It does not capture passenger bookings issued directly by airline websites (i.e., ~~ www.alaskaair.com, www.uaLcom, etc.), agency Internet sites (i.e., www.travelocity.com, www.expedia.com, www.priceline.com, etc.), or directly through airline reservation offices. Data from agency Internet sites was not used in this study since MIDT is sorted by zip code. Internet sites record all bookings as originating from the zip code in which the server resides. For example, all bookings for www.expedia.com are recorded with a Seattle zip code regardless of the air traveler's location. Including information from Internet sites would lead to incorrect and unreliable analysis. Moreover, the data used in this analysis is a sample of travel agency airline bookings and does not include all bookings within the survey period. The near elimination of commissions paid by airlines to travel agencies has reduced the number of tickets written by travel agencies. Although this development has reduced the number of tickets, the sample size is sufficiently large that it represents a statistically valid sample of the local travel market. The depiction of the travel habits of local travelers provides the basis for identifying and prioritizing possible strategies for ` new routes. By combining the MIDT information with information provided to the U.S. DOT by the airlines, the true ~t market can be estimated for the local airport. The "true market" is the total number of air travelers, including those that are using a competing airport, in the geographic area served by Eugene Airport. The true market estimate includes the size of the total market as well as estimates for specific destinations. ,, ~~~ EUGENE AIRPORT Page 2 ~!_