Indianapolis Airport hits 10 million goal with specialty flight strategy
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the airlines that normally fly nonstop to Atlanta. The airlines are Southwest and Delta. An earlier version also misstated the status of additional specialty flights in 2025. Airlines are still considering those.
When the University of Notre Dame football team secured its spot in the College Football Playoff Championship a week ago, Indianapolis International Airport officials saw an opportunity.
Hundreds of Irish fans in Central Indiana were looking for ways to get to Atlanta for the championship game on January 20 and many searched for seats in the skies, opting out of the 8-hour drive to Georgia.
At first, options were limited. However, just a few days later, Central Indiana Irish fans could purchase seats on five newly-created nonstop flights to Atlanta, including two additional flights departing Indianapolis on Sunday and three heading back to Indianapolis on Tuesday.
As of Thursday afternoon, seats are still available for those willing to pay a premium price. An added round-trip flight from Indianapolis-Atlanta cost more than $800 for a Sunday to Tuesday trip on American Airlines. Nonstop Southwest flights out of Indianapolis began at $742.
While Southwest and Delta Airlines normally operate several daily flights to Atlanta, these rapidly created new flights on the airport’s schedule added a couple of hundred seats to address the sudden demand. Identifying opportunities for these so-called “specialty” flights, airport officials say, has helped boost the airport’s numbers in recent years.
What are specialty flights?
Specialty flights are one-time flights that are routed for specific events, said Maggie Cunningham, Director of Air Service and Airport Experience at the IAA.
It’s a relatively new strategy for Indianapolis airport executives and is not that common nationally except for particularly high-attendance events, since moving around aircraft and booking gate space can be challenging for airlines on short notice.
The IAA first ramped up the idea when the NBA All-Star Game was confirmed to be in Indianapolis in 2024, adding several flights to the city in advance of the game and several out of Indianapolis once the festivities concluded.
While sporting events provide perhaps the most lucrative and obvious opportunities for airlines to capitalize on fans ready to suddenly shell out cash for a once-in-a-lifetime game, they also prove to be the hardest events to predict and plan. When Notre Dame made the College Football Playoff in December, the team still had to win three games before heading to Atlanta.
More:How Notre Dame reached national championship game: 9 Playoff plays that led to CFP final
Still, Cunningham said she reached out early to be in touch with the airlines that operate in Indianapolis, just in case the Irish fought their way to the championship game.
“As we get closer and can understand the data better, we can go a little more in-depth and provide a little more detail to the airlines, so that they can then decide if that’s a specialty flight that they’d like to add to the market,” Cunningham said.
In less than two years, the initiative has helped lead to record travel numbers. In 2024, Indianapolis screened more than 10 million people for the first time, hitting a major milestone in the aviation industry that measures the success and importance of an airport and its contributions to regional economies.
Airlines have a slate of events for which they could choose to create specialty flights to Indianapolis in 2025, such as the WWE Royal Rumble in February and the annual Indianapolis 500 in May, Cunningham said.
“This liaison role is a strategic move by our team to build airline confidence in the market and offer our passengers in our community additional ways to get to the places that they want to go for exciting events. They also help us grow our relationship with the airline over the long term for when we’re trying to get more when we’re trying to get new dots on the map and new recurring flights,” Cunningham said.
Nor is Indianapolis the only airport to work with airlines to respond to sudden travel desire. United Airlines added a specialty flight from South Bend to Atlanta for Notre Dame fans and students. Seats on that flight are already sold out, with an economy round-trip ticket costing up to $2,000.
More:Indianapolis adds flight to Dublin, reestablishing direct connection to Europe
Alysa Guffey covers growth and development for IndyStar. Contact her at [email protected].
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