B-TOWN SPURNED: A COSTLY SERENADE FOR AEROMEXICO

By Juan Montoya

In what is fast becoming a monotonous case of unrequited love Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport Aviation Director Larry Brown says the city will continue to court AeroMexico to resume service by offering a "solid economic argument" to return after it jilted the city.

Brown told the local daily business writer that he feels the airport has a solid economic argument for persuading the airline to resume service to Brownsville. AeroMexico did not respond to requests for comment.

It's not as if the city hasn't spread the welcome tarmac (among other things) for AeroMexico. 

Under the much-touted agreement with the Brownsville Economic Development Council and announced in July 2011 at a gala press conference by victorious Mayor Tony Martinez, AeroMexico was offered up to $500,000 in subsidies through the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation if ticket sales didn’t live up to expectations. 

Another $175,000 in marketing funds were approved, $100,000 of which went to Brownsville advertising firm Breeden McCumber and $44,000 of which went to AeroMexico for marketing its Monterrey-to-Brownsville service in Mexico.

Were these outlays based on the successful performance of their PR? If so, we might have a refund coming, don't you think?
And even though BEDC officials say that the airline hadn't collected on the subsidies, they refused to divulge the amount that the Mexican airline could collect if it merely asked.

Initially, AeroMexico started twice-a-week service between Brownsville and Monterrey  for a three-month trial period.

Once the GBIC announced that it would offer the incentives package from BEDC, AeroMexico announced it would extend the trial period by a year and later added a third weekly flight. It cleaned up on Semana Santa when it doubled its number of flights. Once that peak was over, it suspended flights altogether, citing falling ticket sales.

So far, even though Brown and BEDC vice-president Gilbert Salinas are singing outside its balcony, the haughty airline has not succumbed to their dollar-sweetened entreaties. Now Brown says he wants to sweeten the deal even more.

“We are interested in having AeroMexico start up service again and taking to them additional information regarding the business market,” Brown told the Brownsville Herald.  “We trust that they will be interested in hearing what we have to say. If they weren’t interested we wouldn’t be going to all this trouble.”

But he – using the tried and proven formula  for not divulging how much of the public's money they want to give away – said that he couldn't divulge the details of the offer since he didn't want to "tip off the competition." 

Salinas also played coy with the facts, refusing to divulge how much the airline could receive it only it asked for it saying "we haven’t executed any part or form of the incentives program; hence, we cannot disclose such information due to the confidentiality agreement."

Meanwhile, in nearby McAllen, in April the Mexican carrier Aeromar began service between Mexico City and McAllen, announcing earlier this month its intention to add more flights to meet higher demand.

Brown, always the good sport, said it was just like a baseball tournament against other Valley cities.

“Imagine that the Valley’s three major airports are baseball teams,” he said. “We all play baseball against one another. We all compete every way, every day.”

Well, Larry and Gil, given Titan Tire, T-Mobile, and other boondoggles, one more strike and you may be out.