Delta to cancel nonstop flights from Jacksonville to Memphis

[spuwho]

On a similar but unrelated note, I'm just going to throw it out there: I love JIA. It's modern, clean, and accessible. Never a long wait a security and a friendly staff. We're literally a 45 minute connection to almost any direct flight in the world out of ATL. Outside of having a JFK to ATL or LAX style airport (which I don't like, convenience be damned), we have the next best thing.

+2

Having flown in just about every major air hub in the US and many in Europe and Africa, I would say JIA ranks at the top for convenience.  Now if we could get some sort of high speed (any speed) linkage with the city center like the London's Heathrow Express, that would be the cherry for the ice cream.

[chipwich]

JIA is a pleasure to travel in and out of.

However, can anybody here (maybe someone in the aviation business) explain why JIA passenger traffic is down to now averaging about 5.5 million traveler's a year vs the 6.3 million/ year in 2007?

I understand the economy hit travel hard in 2008, 09, and 10, but its been 5 years and our traffic is not getting better.  In fact, traffic has declined very year since 2007 and year over year, traffic is down another 1.5% this year thus far. 

http://www.flyjax.com/content.aspx?id=18

[fsquid]

what are the flight number comparisons?

[coredumped]

Economy is a big factor. Also, a lot of business are opting for video conferencing rather than in person meetings.
Looking at other airports, they're also declining:

Cin/KY airport:
http://www.cvgairport.com/files/files/Air_Traffic_Stats/CVG_Stats_12.pdf

Raleigh has also decreased since 2007:
http://www.rdu.com/authority/stats.html

[chipwich]

what are the flight number comparisons?

Aircraft Operation   
2007 - 118,493   
2008 - 106,774   
2009 - 95,927   
2010 - 96,440   
2011 - 97,801