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Topeka's Forbes Field next month will see the return of commercial scheduled service, and local officials are confident more airlines can be lured back to complement the airport's extensive military and charter operations.
Allegiant Air is scheduled to introduce two direct roundtrip flights weekly from Topeka to Las Vegas beginning March 24, the first time in more than a year Topeka has had scheduled passenger flights. "It's been a long time since we've had commercial air service...We hope this will be the first of many new destinations," said Metropolitan Topeka Airport Authority President David Stremming.
Stremming said the MTAA's first focus will be "making sure the [Las Vegas] flights are well received...and that this service is sustainable." He hopes Allegiant will be persuaded to add more frequencies and more markets, and the MTAA is also talking to "a couple of other carriers about different direct destinations." Airlines will start paying more attention to Topeka "when our [origin and destination] passenger count starts showing up on the radar screen," Stremming said.
In the 1980s, Topeka was served by United, Frontier and Midway and was boarding up to 180,000 passengers a year. The airlines cut almost all that service by the end of the decade, however, and Topeka was left with Air Midwest commuter service to nearby Kansas City. The carrier canceled those flights about 18 months ago, Stremming said.
MTAA is targeting mainly hub airports other than Kansas City, which is a little more than an hour's drive from Topeka. "We're not opposed to resuming commuter service, but it's not our primary aim," Stremming said. He noted that it "doesn't bode well" for the longevity of air service if the flights serve a city just 80 miles away.
Topeka still has adequate infrastructure for commercial flights. Its terminal building has a large ramp facility, one full-service loading bridge and two other gates. The airport has a primary runway nearly 13,000 feet long that was rebuilt six years ago and a 7,000-foot crosswind runway. It also boasts a parking lot directly in front of the terminal, and MTAA says parking fees are only $2, no matter how long a car stays in the lot.
Although its scheduled commercial service has dwindled, Topeka still handles 15,000-20,000 passengers a year from civilian and military charters -- enough to qualify Topeka for FAA airport grants, Stremming said. The airport is close to two Big 12 Conference universities -- Kansas State University and the University of Kansas -- so it sees a lot of charters for sporting events. Regular charter flights also go to Nevada casino towns. Topeka is close to Fort Riley and other large military facilities in northeast Kansas, and is used for commercial military charters. It isn't unusual to see five or six widebody aircraft on the ramp at once for military flights, Stremming said.
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