Outside of the student body that lives within a three-hour radius of Syracuse, going home can be a difficult task. Just a weekend home requires planning ahead of time and scheduling flights.

Syracuse Hancock International Airport is trying to make air travel easier. The airport launched a series of advertisements this week on television, radio and in print to encourage more people to fly home.

The campaign, Fly Syracuse, costs $90,000, paid for by the city of Syracuse, which owns the airport, and the Metropolitan Development Association, an economic development planning and research group.

The campaign highlights new destinations and lower fares, according to its Web site, flysyracuse.com. The original marketing blitz began in 2004, when the city received a $480,000 Small Community Air Service Development grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The promotional site for the campaign offers this slogan to travelers: ‘You can forget about making the early morning drive to Rochester or Albany just to save money on airfares, or driving to NYC, Philly, Boston and D.C. to avoid airfares all together. Now you can travel more and pay less.’

The effort to make flying cheaper and more accessible may be useful for Syracuse University students who live outside of comfortable driving distances to school. Some students said the expense of flying is a factor when deciding on the mode of transportation to use. For some, driving is the best way to get to where they want to go, even if it does take a little longer than flying.

‘I live six hours away, and my car gets good gas mileage,’ said Kathleen Hope, a junior nutrition major from Virginia. ‘I only gas it up once on the way home. So it would cost roughly $45 to take me and my sister home, whereas it would cost $90 for each of us round trip (to fly).’

While some students deal with the extra hours, others may not have that option to drive.

‘It sucks. I have to carry everything with me,’ said Justin Kreibich, a junior finance major from California. ‘I have to bring a lot of stuff home, so my luggage is really big. That usually costs me $50 extra just to get it on the plane.’

Hancock has seen more people passing through its terminals in the first eight months of 2007 compared to a year ago, according to The Post-Standard. The number of travelers increased by 6.3 percent during that period, while nationally, numbers have risen just 2.7 percent.

One reason for the airport’s surge could be new flights offered by JetBlue Airways. In addition to service to New York City, the airline added non-stop flights to Orlando, Fla., in March. At the beginning of November, the airline will also add non-stop service to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

In addition, U.S. Airways announced last week that it will lower its fares from Syracuse to 43 cities by as much as 64 percent.

The campaign is intended to connect the dots for local flyers.

‘You can have great service and great fares, and if people don’t know about it, you won’t grow,’ said Kevin Schwab, director of air service development for the MDA, to The Post-Standard.

Yet flight cost is not the only issue that students face when traveling by airplane, junior Kreibich said.

‘I don’t have a car here, and the taxis are overpriced. I pay $40 just to get to the airport alone,’ he said.

For those who do not want to pay taxi prices, along with students who do have a car but don’t want to pay the airport’s parking prices, there are ways of catching a flight with the help of Student Association.

‘(SA) will have buses to help students get to the airport during Thanksgiving. We hope to continue that for Christmas break,’ said SA President Ryan Kelly. ‘We did this last year during spring break, and it was a huge success.

‘So as far as getting to the airport, there shouldn’t be that much difficulty for students,’ he said. ‘Hopefully we can continue the buses after Thanksgiving and Christmas break.’

However, some students do not agree that traveling is problematic for those who have to make arrangements to get home.

‘I wouldn’t call (traveling) an inconvenience. I mean, we chose to come to Syracuse knowing it would be far away from where we lived,’ said Hope, the junior Virginia native. ‘We did know that there was going to be a fair amount of traveling involved, so it shouldn’t be a problem.’

Published on October 8, 2007 at 12:00 pm