Bangor International Airport is both a cause and a symptom of the economic health of this region. Keeping it profitable and vibrant is in the entire state’s interest, yet as a NEWS series concluding today shows, this will not be easy.

BIA has experienced a precipitous drop in the number of its international flights and only slow growth in its domestic traffic in the last decade and has lost the large jets from major airlines. During a boom time in airplane travel, these trends suggest that BIA is becoming less and less important to the national network of airports. What that leaves people and businesses in this region is obvious: Fewer, more expensive flights and more frequent trips down I-95 to catch flights in Portland, Boston and Manchester.

The departures of major airlines such as Continental and Delta have other, less apparent effects as well. Potential new business will find the area less desirable, established businesses will find it easier to expand elsewhere, tourists will look for alternate means to get to vacation spots. All of this is well known to airport officials and to the political leaders trying to deal with the issue. Solutions are hard to come by, certainly nothing will quickly change the recent trends. But here are a couple of ideas gleaned from the series.

* Congress can help the airlines and their pilots resolve the problem of the scope clause, a negotiated agreement between them that sets pay differentials based on the size of the aircraft. Some pilots have been resistant to the increased use of the smaller regional jets because that may reduce the number of better-paying positions on the large jets. Anecdotally, however, it seems that using the 35- to 70-seat regional jet – perfect for an airport the size of BIA — increases the total number of passengers rather than shifting them from the big jets. A congressional study could clarify the issue.

* Some airlines price seats below value in more competitive airports to grab market share and dominate popular routes. The practice has significantly increased air travel in these areas, but it has diverted much-needed seats in smaller places. When a foreign company sells a product below cost to drive out competitors, Congress is quick to call the practice dumping and alert the Justice Department. It should be as vigilant within U.S. borders, as well.

* The long, broad airstrip at BIA has been one of its selling points since the city assumed ownership of it from the military 30 years ago, but it is worth little if not thoughtfully connected to roads, rails and ports. Plans for these connections exist, of course, and Transportation Commissioner John Melrose has been a champion of preparing the state for intermodal transport. But there continues to lack among Maine’s development experts a sense of urgency, a belief that it matters whether these projects are brought to completion in four or five years or 10 or 15.

* Anyone who flies in the Bangor region has heard stories of less-expensive flights to the south. BIA loses more than 100,000 passengers a year to other airports – sometimes because of lower prices, sometimes because no seat was available from Bangor. The two are clearly related: As the price rises, people look elsewhere for cheaper flights; as they look elsewhere, the airlines reduce the number of options available at BIA. If the state is determined to help out, it should identify key flight routes and ensure through subsidies that the tickets are cheap enough to increase the number of passengers wanting to use them and, therefore, increase air service.

* BIA is a symptom of economic health because the number and type of planes that fly from there stand as a judgment by the airline industry on the prospects for the region’s future. Politicians may describe the economic progress of the area in glowing terms, but unless airline executives have been given misinformation, their conclusions about the area are the more telling. And they see less rather than more. They see smaller rather than bigger. Changing this perception is not a matter of more speeches or better charts and graphs; it will require a long-term commitment to developing not merely what is good enough but what is superb.

How this is accomplished eventually is not the problem of federal or state government but of the region. The proposed solutions must come from here, and the region must be tireless and unified in its expansion of research and development, with the University of Maine in the lead, its demand for roads that better connect it to Canada and other markets and its cooperation on development projects in, for instance, industrial parks or along the Penobscot River.

The big jets have left BIA for many reasons, most of which are out of Maine’s control. But in their wake is a warning, one that is as useful as any consultant’s economic study. It says that Bangor is falling behind and that, in an ever-more competitive world, it cannot expect the airlines to help it catch up.