Nobody here should be happy with Elite Airways, which still hasn’t provided Vero Beach with an explanation for the sudden and mysterious way it abandoned us last summer.
We deserved better than its unexplained cancellation of flights, and ultimately its shut-down of operations.
Looking at the bigger picture, however, we should remember fondly the boutique carrier, which returned commercial passenger service to Vero in December 2015 and, despite seven years of ups and downs, put Vero Beach Regional Airport on the airline industry’s radar.
For that, we should be grateful – because without Elite then, we probably wouldn’t have Breeze Airways now.
“There’s no way to know,” Vero Beach Airport Director Todd Scher said. “But I do know that, without Elite coming here, we would not have improved our terminal building to accommodate passenger service.
“I also know,” he added, “that Vero Beach has become a market the airline industry is noticing.”
In fact, Scher said, representatives from Avelo Airlines contacted him during the past year to inquire about our city-owned airport before the Texas-based, low-fare carrier announced in April it was adding Melbourne and Daytona Beach to its route map instead.
Merely that Avelo called, though – along with Breeze being eager to come here – says plenty about the impact of Elite’s success in Vero Beach, which made flights from VRB to Newark, New Jersey, the airline’s most popular route.
It says we proved ourselves.
“When Elite showed up, people were excited to have the opportunity to fly out of their hometown airport,” Vero Beach City Manager Monte Falls said. “Breeze, which I see as more of a full-service airline than Elite, has stepped it up a notch or two … or three.”
So has our airport.
In the summer of 2015, when Elite officials first notified Scher that the airline planned to return commercial passenger service to Vero Beach for the first time since American Eagle’s flights in the mid-1990s, the airport wasn’t prepared.
Scher said the first floor of the terminal building – an area that previously contained offices for Legacy Flight Training, now located on the Piper Aircraft campus – needed to be reconfigured to create a federal Transportation Security Administration screening checkpoint and passenger-waiting area.
“That was quite a bit of work,” Scher said, “but those initial modifications were sufficient to accommodate Elite’s operations and the passenger capacity of their aircraft.”
Unlike Breeze, which has inbound passengers arriving while outbound passengers are waiting to depart, Elite’s smaller planes departed in the morning and arrived in the afternoon.
“We didn’t need separate areas for Elite,” Scher said. “We have those areas now, because we need them for Breeze’s operations, and we’re using them. They’re just not improved.
But they will be.”
Next week, Scher will present to the City Council a work order to amend his original improvement plan, which involved moving the baggage-claim area inside the terminal building, utilizing two former banquet rooms vacated by C.J. Cannon’s restaurant.
He now wants the baggage-claim area to remain outdoors – in its current location – but sheltered by a yet-to-be-designed pavilion. The walkways connecting the baggage claim to the terminal building also would be covered.
The banquet rooms, which provide a combined space of just over 900 square feet, would be used as a passenger exit area equipped with new public restrooms and rental-car kiosks.
“The more we looked at it,” Scher said, “the more we realized there wasn’t enough room indoors for everything.”
Scher said he couldn’t provide an estimated cost for the project because it hasn’t yet been designed, but the improvements will be funded by two separate $750,000 grants from the Florida Department of Transportation.
If the City Council approves the proposed changes, the design phase should be completed by the end of the year, he added, and the project would go out for bid in January. He expects a contractor to be hired in March, and he hopes to see the job completed a year later.
While Scher said he’d prefer to have an indoor baggage-claim area, the available funding forced him to settle for a something-is-better-than-nothing approach.
Although he said the airport staff hadn’t received complaints about the open-air baggage claim, he warned, “Let’s see what happens later in the summer, when it’s hot, humid and we get those afternoon thunderstorms.”
For those wondering: Scher said Breeze, which launched its operations here on Feb. 2, averaged about 6,000 passengers per month – inbound and outbound combined – through May 31.
“The numbers were fairly evenly split between passengers coming in and going out,” he said. “And the passenger loads are still up there, even though we’re into the summer. The Breeze people I’ve spoken with seem to be really pleased with the response here.”
They must be: They’re helping cover the additional costs associated with the upgraded security measures the TSA requires at airports that accommodate larger jets, such as Breeze’s Airbus A220 aircraft, which can carry up to 137 passengers.
The airport here now operates at the TSA’s highest security level, which covers the airfield’s entire perimeter.
Scher also has noticed that Breeze appears to be serving more young families and leisure-travel passengers than Elite, which appealed strongly to business fliers needing to commute to the New York City metropolitan area.
“It’s nothing scientific,” he said. “Just my observation.”
As for the likelihood of Breeze adding new destinations, Scher said airline representatives have told him they’re exploring possibilities but wouldn’t say where.
The county’s population, however, has reached 167,000 and continues to grow, so if Breeze doesn’t expand its offerings here in the foreseeable future, another opportunistic airline might be interested in filling the void.
If so, that airline will need to make the first move – because the city isn’t actively recruiting a second carrier.
“We have not approached a single airline since I became the airport director, nor have we marketed ourselves in an effort to attract an airline,” Scher said, referring to his appointment in January 2021.
“We’re not opposed to having passenger service, but that’s not our focus,” he added.
“Having a commercial carrier doesn’t define whether we’re successful or not. We can survive, and even thrive, without one. We saw that after Elite shut down.
“Don’t get me wrong: We’re thrilled that Breeze is here, because it’s great for the community, but we believe we were operating a successful airport before they arrived.”
That’s why when Breeze representatives first visited Vero Beach to talk …
“We welcomed them, but we didn’t stand there with our arms open,” Scher said. “We showed them our facilities and told them: ‘This is what we have. This is what we’re planning. If you want something more, you’ll have to partner with us.’
“And they have.”
Vero Beach, meanwhile, continues to do its part to enhance its relationship with Breeze by meeting its airport obligations and making the improvements the city can afford.
Scher said the airport has room to expand its terminal building to the west, if the additional space is needed to accommodate a second airline.
“Do we preemptively prepare, or wait to see if there’s interest from another carrier?” he said. “With the response to Breeze being what it is, everyone’s feeling good. But attitudes can change.
“We’ve also got St. Lucie County trying hard to get airline service down there (at Treasure Coast International Airport in Fort Pierce),” he added.
“Right now, our next step is unknown, but we’re sitting in a pretty good place.”
And Elite, for all its flaws, helped put us there.
