BIA airspace buzzing despite initial fears

BANGOR – Her morning flight to Wisconsin delayed one recent morning, Jen Huske wasn’t using the extra downtime at Bangor International Airport to worry about terrorists hijacking her plane.

With the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks approaching, the 30-year-old Belfast woman – and frequent flier – had no reservations about jetting home to visit her family in the Midwest.

“It hadn’t crossed my mind,” said Huske of a reluctance to fly nearly a year after the event.

Even weeks after the hijackings, Huske didn’t curtail her travel schedule: In October 2001, she flew to Nashville, Tenn., and shortly thereafter, to New Orleans for Halloween.

In some ways, Huske could be considered typical of the brand of air traveler that has flown through BIA in the past year.

Since Sept. 11, the small, city-owned airport has bucked national trends and posted a 13.8 percent growth in passenger traffic.

Nationwide, air travel is down about 10 percent.

In the 21/2 months after the attacks, BIA – like its counterparts – saw significant drop-offs in air traffic, no doubt exacerbated by a three-day grounding of the nation’s commercial air fleet.

Since then, however, the airport has posted growth of anywhere from 4 percent to 24 percent depending on the month.

Airport officials acknowledged that the resumption of ComAir flights after a strike the previous year accounted for some of the gains, but not all.

BIA director Rebecca Hupp said the growth rate – the third-fastest in the nation – was also due to passengers’ preferring to avoid large cities and large airports if possible. She also credited the airport’s marketing campaign and the relatively stable Bangor economy that, unlike its southerly counterparts, depends less on the Boston and New York markets.

In Bar Harbor, Maine’s most popular tourist destination with nearby Acadia National Park, officials saw fewer visitors from those major cities.

Clare Wood, the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce executive director, said that European traffic also was down this summer, signaling a hesitation by some foreigners to fly.

While there might not have been as many international fliers heading for the coast, there were plenty of cars, with travelers apparently opting to stay closer to home during their vacations, Wood said.

For the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, reservations in Bar Harbor were “iffy,” but pick up significantly in the weeks thereafter, according to Wood.

All in all, Wood called the summer season “a good year, but not a record year.” There were some nervous travelers,” Wood said.

Waiting for her morning flight from BIA, Huske made it clear that she would not allow herself to worry. “I fly too much for that,” she said.