On a recent weekday afternoon at Eugene F. Kranz Toledo Express Airport, Dennis Bork and his wife Joyce had the lower terminal area nearly to themselves as they watched an Allegiant Air jet with their grandson aboard prepare to depart for Florida.
Besides the Borks, some TSA workers, a few rental car employees, and some folks who brought a takeout meal to an empty lounge area, the terminal's lower floor looked deserted at the time. The baggage claim area, featuring an image of the downtown Toledo skyline, was empty. Five airline ticket counters were deserted of staff and passengers. An unstaffed limousine/taxi desk with phone numbers listed on how to call for a ride. No taxis were on site as a lone jogger entered the grounds from Airport Highway.
Mrs. Bork asked if the terminal was closing effective Sept. 7 after American Eagle leaves and Toledo Express loses all of its daily passenger service.
Her husband recalls busier times at Toledo Express in decades past. "I would say it's a quiet airport now," Mr. Bork said. "Detroit is so close, and everybody wants to go to Detroit and fly out of there.”
Starting Sept. 7, passengers will no longer be able to book a daily flight to visit loved ones, take a business trip, and head on a trip from Toledo Express.
City of stature
The end of American service will mark a long fall for the airport, which opened in January, 1955, earning praise from President Dwight Eisenhower.
Forty-six summers ago in 1976, instead of preparing to start an era with no regular daily flights, Toledo Express was welcoming Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon.
The featured speaker at the dedication of a new $4.6 million passenger terminal complex, Mr. Armstrong described Toledo Express as a key facility in the world at the time. Mr. Armstrong, Apollo 11 commander, praised Toledo Express, saying that the new facilities would enhance Toledo's image and make it a "city of stature."
The additions brought a 5,000-square-foot baggage claim area with conveyor belts to help ease the "crush" during baggage pickup, a "top level" seating area for 400, three jetways, a new cafeteria, enlarged bar, and a remodeled dining room. Known as the Forward Cabin, the eatery featured leather high-back seating and a menu that included filet and New York strip with mushrooms, each $10.95, and lamb chops at $8.95.
As planes whizzed overhead, about 1,500 people attended the airport ceremonies on Sept. 12, 1976. By 3 p.m. on the day of the event, an estimated 3,500 people had toured the new facilities at Toledo Express. Another 1,500 went through in the next two hours while lines of 100 to 150 gathered to see the interior of United DC-8 that was a stop on the terminal tour.
That summer, passengers started arriving at the renovated Toledo Express. "I hear things like 'Toledo's joined the big cities now,'' United Air Lines customer service agent Art Huff said at the time.
At the time of Mr. Armstrong's visit, Toledo Express featured four carriers, Allegheny, Delta, Eastern, and United. United alone offered 11 daily flights including to Denver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland, New York, Newark, N.J., and Washington. Delta was taking Toledo passengers to places such as Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., West Palm Beach, Fla., Columbia, S.C., and Memphis. Houston was added later in the year. Eastern was flying from Toledo to destinations that included Tampa, Fla., Miami, and Charlotte, while Allegheny's provided flights to cities that included Boston and Pittsburgh.
Today, the only daily destination is Chicago, the service that is ending in about six weeks, leaving Toledo Express with only Allegiant Air and less-than-daily flights to Mesa, Ariz., and three Florida cities.
On a recent weekday afternoon, fewer than 10 people were spotted in the lower terminal area at the time, including the Borks.
After their grandson left on the Allegiant plane late in the afternoon, the next passenger plane was not due to depart Toledo Express for more than 15 hours. The next scheduled arrival was about three-and-a-half hours away.
Down the short walkway and across the way from the Borks, the Hertz car rental was darkened, a handwritten note directing people to a Reynolds Road location miles away. Just across from the desk, airport seating was empty and aging, covering on a chair torn along a main walkway through public areas within the empty airport terminal.
Shortly before Mr. Armstrong's 1976 appearance at Toledo Express, Blade food editor Mary Alice Powell wrote that Toledo Express offered "a terminal to be very proud of featuring "spaciousness, design, furnishings" and a "top-level waiting area."
What's the plan?
Today, despite repeated attempts, the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, which manages airport, is unable to specify how many people work in the terminal and call the place home on a daily basis.
Toledo Express does not list a dedicated airport authority to lead its efforts, and no committee is listed for the airport, as well. William Carroll, chairman of the port authority's planning and operations committee, was asked about the path forward after American leaves. His committee oversees operations at the airport, the port authority said.
"We have a strategy," Mr. Carroll said. "We are working a strategy, we are moving on with the strategy. The airlines go, and airlines come. We just have to figure that out."
No details were provided by Mr. Carroll. When Mr. Carroll was pressed for further information, the telephone conversation ended abruptly as he referred further questions to Thomas Winston, port authority president and CEO or port authority staff.
Former mayor raises 'leadership' issue
Asked about the downfall of passenger service at Toledo Express, former Mayor Donna Owens brought up the issue of the port authority.
"I think we need to look at the appointments, and we ought to get strong people on it who have good connections to people and places that can make things happen, and not be too political of appointments, which they have been in the past," Ms. Owens said. "I think you have to have strong leadership from the staff down to the appointments for the port authority."
The port authority boards "used to be much stronger and not so political," she said.
Ms. Owens mentioned strong port authority leaders in the past such as the late Edwin D. Dodd, who was the chairman and chief executive of Owens-Illinois. He was a force as a community leader and in downtown Toledo's early 1980s revival that included the additions known at the time as One SeaGate, the Hotel Sofitel, and the headquarters for Trustcorp, Inc., now part of KeyBank.
"He was a very strong person on that board," Ms. Owens said of Mr. Dodd, an industrialist who served four U.S. presidents and was chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce among many other among career highlights.
Ms. Owens served as Toledo's mayor from 1983-1989 and is the city's last Republican mayor.
"One of the things I did was take economic development out of the city and put it at the port authority because they are good at that," she recalled. "But there's a lot to be desired at the airport. And the airport is a very significant piece."
Ms. Owens, also a former director of the Ohio Department of Commerce and Toledo city councilman, described Toledo Express as an important part of the city's economic development tools when she was mayor and prior to that when she was on Toledo City Council.
"It is sad," she said of its decline in providing passenger service. "We want to grow the community, not make it insignificant."
Empty space
Joe Cappel, the port authority’s vice president of business development, described the available empty space.
"Basically we have five ticket counters on the first floor, three of them are vacant," he said.
That unoccupied number will grow to four after American's departure, leaving only Allegiant Air, which provides non-daily service.
Activity will continue in the terminal after American's withdrawal.
"We are not closing the terminal down, we are not mothballing it, we are not doing anything like that," Mr. Cappel said, adding there is no need to do that.
He described the empty space as "another thing that we can offer to airlines that might be interested in coming here."
"Having available ticket counters and gates is something that we can market to other airlines that may wish to come to Toledo and say 'if you start flying routes to Toledo we have dedicated counter space, we have a dedicated gate that we can offer to you. You can park aircraft overnight in Toledo and base them here,'" Mr. Cappel said.
The terminal is home to a variety of operations at Toledo Express, and a port authority office.
"We will still have maintenance staff, janitorial staff," said Mr. Cappel, who was asked how many people work in the terminal. Other airport-based port authority employees include the airport director and two operations managers, an administrative staff position, interns, and police, he added.
As far as port authority employees based at the airport, Mr. Cappel said they are not focused solely on passenger activities but also on the variety of multiple businesses on the airport grounds.
"The employees who will be impacted will mainly be American's employees that they have dedicated to Toledo," he said of American leaving.
As Mr. Bork sat in the terminal with no one but his wife in sight, he spoke of the potential for Toledo Express.
“I would like to see it busier, but it’s a nice little airport,” he said. “You could always get a good ticket price out of here.”
First Published July 23, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
