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By Greg Stiles Mail Tribune May 12. 2015 2:03PM Medford airport still flying high with record passenger counts Larger regional jets result in higher traffic numbers through the Medford airport. Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Even with fewer commercial flights, the Medford airport reeled off its eighth-straight record month for passenger travel in April. The 17 daily departures, one down from a year ago, still carried off and delivered 57,060 passengers in April, up 14 percent from the 49,897 a year earlier and easily beyond the previous top mark of 51,798 in 2007. The reason is capacity, said Airport Director Bern Case. "We have more seats." Soaring operations costs changed commercial airlines models in the final decades of 20th century. Fuel, ground and flight crew expenses escalated, spawning mergers followed by reduced competition and increasing use of smaller planes. But as passenger demand — here and elsewhere — has overcome post-9/11 and Great Recession hurdles, the need for seats has led SkyWest to upgrade from 30-passenger EMB 120 Brasilias to 50- and 70-passenger Bombardier regional jets. In May 2014, the available outbound seats from the Medford airport totaled 31,540. The seat count this month will be 34,916, a 10 percent jump, primarily attributable to United Express, operated by St. George, Utah-based SkyWest Airlines, converting to regional jets beginning in late 2014. "Some of the airlines were running a 90-percent load factor, which is good for them," Case said. "But there are still some seats and they have room to grow." The Medford airport numbers include both arriving and departing passengers, so the potential is close to 70,000 passengers even before Allegiant adds seasonal service to Arizona this summer. "Airlines adjust their planes by the volume they're handling and what the market will bear," said Brian Meine of Caveman Travel in Grants Pass. If they are filling planes and don't want to add flights, they'll send in a bigger plane." Seven of the eight record-breaking months have been seen double-digit growth. However, April marked the first time since January all four commercial carriers reported year-over-year increases. Delta Connection was up 27.3 percent, United Express up 26.4 percent and Allegiant up 12.2 percent, while Alaska's Horizon Air unit, the dominant player in the market, saw an 8.3 percent gain. "It's pretty good when all four are doing well," Case said. "Back to January they where all up, Allegiant was only up 3 percent." Through the first four months of the year, the airport has processed 213,123 passengers, up 16 percent from the same time frame in 2014.  Case said no new destinations are on the docket, partly because Minneapolis, Chicago and other possible destinations are just beyond the effective range of the regional jets. Another smaller Oregon airport made headlines last week when a United Airlines Boeing 737 flying from Chicago to Portland was diverted to Pendleton because it didn't have enough fuel to circle indefinitely during President Obama's visit to Portland.  "For us, it's a matter of a few flights when a president is here," Case said. "For Portland, it's a real inconvenience involving probably hundreds of flights. When a president or candidate comes here during political years, it's good for the local economy, so you take the pain with it." Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 541-776-4463 or  [email protected] . Follow him on Twitter at  www.twitter.com/GregMTBusiness , on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/greg.stiles.31 , and read his blog at  www.mailtribune.com/EconomicEdge .   http://www.mailtribune.com/article/20150512/news/150519846 © 2016 Copyright © 1995-2011 Crain Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use Privacy Statement -->