American Airlines to Invest $550 million in Tulsa Maintenance Base

[SXSW]

Yes, indeed, COVID-19 is hitting air travel hard, but that hardly explains Tulsa's dismal January performance.

For comparison, January 2020 airport traffic among regional cities of somewhat similar scale:

TUL:  Down 4.6%
OKC:  Up 2.6%
OMA:  Up 5.4%
LIT:    Up 3.3%
ICT:   Up 5.8%
MEM:  Up 8.89%
DSM:  Up 8.5%

Not sure how to explain that, obviously people in Tulsa either are not flying as much as other cities (not likely) or they are driving to XNA or even DFW.  We know the oil industry is in the dumps which would hurt traffic but that should also impact OKC and their traffic is up..

[DTowner]

Wow, that is really distressing.  Besides, COVID-19 should not have had much impact on any domestic airport’s January numbers. Tulsa’s economy really seems to be out-of-step with even other energy dependent economies like OKC. 

[swake]

Please, one month is not a trend. It's a data point.

[DTowner]

It is just one data point, but this week United suspended 10% of its domestic and 20% of its international flights through April with possibility through May.  I suspect other airlines will follow.  It seems unlikely any airport will have a good first half in 2020.

[buffalodan]

https://talkbusiness.net/2020/03/united-airlines-to-halt-xna-flights-to-san-francisco-because-of-coronavirus/

It should hurt Tulsa as much as nearby airports though.

[DTowner]

Presumably real international airports will suffer the most, particularly those with a lot of flights to Asia.

[Conan71]

Utilizing the port of Catoosa and TIA together as a Multimodal hub is the kind of thing that could be a great boon.  If we manufactured anything in the US anymore, that is.

It already is to an extent as evidenced by the Russian heavy-haul aircraft and others that fly oil patch parts in and out of Tulsa.  I would assume they are picking up items fabbed by Matrix or any other fabricators out at the port.