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Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

I am by no means an expert on this but I think I have a pretty good grasp of the material. So here is my 2006 traffic prediction.

2006 should finish as another record year. Growth for 2006 won't be as strong as it was for 2004 and 2005. I expect 2006 passenger numbers to finish around 8.84 million which would reflect an increase of 4% over 2005. Much of the growth for the year will be attributed to schedule increases by AirTran and Frontier. Passenger numbers across the board will be sustained by a growth in the local market. The 4% growth will closely match the growth of the local market. 2006 numbers will be capped a bit due to financial problems with Delta and Northwest.

Outside of the service to Cancun I would expect Frontier to hold their schedule steady. AirTran should be increasing their schedule even more in the 2nd half of the year. The schedule of the new US Airways is uncertain. Growth would seem unlikely. If anything it would be more likely to see a small reduction in service as schedules are combined and routes tweaked. Moves by most airlines in 2006 should amount to nothing more than schedule tweaks with the exception of AirTran. Most of the AirTran schedule changes won't have a big impact on traffic numbers until 2007.

There are a number of variables that could greatly impact the 2006 final numbers. Will Northwest Airlines be shut down by a fatal pilots strike? Will US Airways greatly alter their IND schedule one way or another? How fast will AirTran increase their schedule here? One 737 can have an impact of as much as 49,320 passengers for an airline over a 6 month period. A 10 flight increase can impact the numbers by nearly .5 million passengers over 6 months. AirTran has 3 new 737's on the schedule for IND the 2nd half of the year. The impact of those 3 flights could be as much as 147,960 for the airline here. So even small changes can have a big impact. Plus it is too early to tell how much connecting traffic will be added as a result of AirTran's schedule increase.

I will post a revision to this prediction later this summer as the dust settles a bit on the Northwest and Delta bankruptcies and has US Airways gets a little work in with the new schedule. Also by June the schedule for 2006 for AirTran should be pretty well set.