The Sarasota Bradenton International Airport wants your help

The Sarasota Bradenton International Airport wants your help. SRQ President and CEO Rick Picollo sent a email blast to community leaders Saturday asking them to join a marketing campaign targeting Southwest Airlines. The goal: convince the carrier to reverse a decision announced earlier this month to pull AiRTran service out of SRQ by Aug. 12.


The carrier represents about one-third of the airport's entire passenger load.


Piccolo is asking stakeholders to write letters to executives at Southwest, pleading for them to stay. He admits letter-writing campaigns don't always help, but he said at least the airline now is paying attention. As a result of recent media coverage of the AirTran withdrawal, company executives have called Picollo to apologize for the way it happened. 


Typically when a carrier pulls out of an airport, an executive will fly down to deliver the news in person. In this case, a mid-level manager called Piccolo on the phone Jan. 20, with little explanation for the move, Piccolo said.

"It drew the attention of Southwest as I received a call from, Ron Ricks executive vice president and chief legal and regulatory officer, on Thursday to apologize for the way that Southwest handled the notification process.  He agreed that a decision of this magnitude should have been done in person and their method was wrong," Piccolo said in the email. "While it was not a call to inform us that they were reversing their business decision, it demonstrates that they are paying attention to what is being said and further validates the need to continue making the community’s voice heard."

During that conversation, Ricks also confirmed that the ground service costs were about 60 percent higher at SRQ and was a factor in their decision, which was not in their press release.

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Welcome to the new Manatee Money Matters blog

Welcome to the new Manatee Money Matters blog.

I took over as the business beat writer for the Bradenton Herald in late December. Aside from my stories in print, I will do my best to share interesting tidbits and articles not slated to run in the newspaper here. So please check back regularly for the latest on finance, real estate and other business news in the Manatee-Sarasota area.

You can also follow me on Twitter @JoshSalman