BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — An anticipated non-stop destination flight from the capital city to the nation’s capital city that started in June may be coming to an end.
Today, city leaders held a campaign meeting to ask the community to take a pledge to help the nonstop flight service from Baton Rouge to Washington D.C. from leaving the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport.
Mike Edwards, Director of Aviation at Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, encourages support, and said if the community does not help this can impact the economy and future collaborations with other airports.
“Losing this flight would have a major impact on our community’s ability to attract new nonstop service in the future, as well as negatively impacting Baton Rouge’s economy,” Edwards said.
City leaders encourage businesses and organizations to use the BTR nonstop flights or even make it part of their travel policy for employees.
Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said she will be taking part in the pledge.
“I’m proud to announce that I will be implementing a new purchasing policy that will prioritize the use of the BTR airport when our City-Parish employees travel for any City-Parish business. Of course, there will be some exceptions, but any travel request that crosses my desk, or the desks of my department leaders, must make every attempt to utilize the Baton Rouge airport,” Broome said. “Through implementing this policy, I hope to demonstrate that our local government is prepared to support our local airport. I also challenge other community leaders to implement similar policies for work travel in your respective businesses and organizations.”
According to Edwards, the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport brings in $1.1 billion dollars in general annual economic output for the capital city, while also supporting 45,000 jobs.
Now, he asks the community to help and sign the pledge and book a flight to Washington D.C.
“So, we just ask, go ahead and book now and show American Airlines and all the other carriers that serve our market that are considering serving our market that the community values their business and will support it,” Edwards said.
