Wings away: air traffic looks up: Alaska's air industry hopes to rise above turbulent skies in 1994.

• Author: Tyson, Ray

After a year of sluggish activity in cargo and passenger traffic, business at Alaska's international airports in Anchorage and Fairbanks started to perk up toward year's end, raising hope for a rally in 1994.

"The industry is sort of holding its own, but fundamentally the numbers are about as flat as you can get," observes Neil Fried, a state labor economist.

But for Alaska, flat doesn't look all that bad compared to other states and countries whose economies have been less than robust. Air industry employment in Alaska remains virtually unchanged from a year ago, with about 7,500 workers. On other fronts, 1993 was the year MarkAir finally emerged from bankruptcy and Alaska Airlines posted its first profit in more than two years. And consumers again benefitted from another round of fare cuts spurred by the arrival of Alaska permanent fund checks.

"It used to be easy to forecast the airline industry," notes Fried. "But it's not nearly as stable in this deregulated environment."

Meanwhile, Anchorage International Airport expected to post a modest 5 percent annual increase in cargo business by the end of the year and perhaps a small gain in combined numbers for domestic and international passenger flights.

But the long slide in international passenger service, caused by the exit of 10 major carriers from the Anchorage market since the late 1980s, could subside in 1994 and even begin to move upward, as the airport continues to look for additional carriers to help fill the gap.

Since 1989, the number of passengers aboard transit flights stopping in Anchorage has plummeted from 1.7 million a year to about 557,000 a year, primarily because of new long-range jets that made refueling stops in Alaska unnecessary.

"International passenger service is not going to come back the way it was, but we don't see it going down anymore either," says Lowell Humphrey, Anchorage airport director.

FOCUS ON FOREIGN CARRIERS

And Humphrey adds that opportunities lie with the so-called "origin and destination" traffic, or foreign carriers such as Korean Airlines, Aeroflot and China Airlines that are now willing to pick up and drop off passengers in Anchorage enroute to other U.S. or overseas destinations.

Anchorage now provides nonstop passenger service to Russia, Taiwan and Korea year-round, and could soon add Germany and Switzerland to the list. Both Condor, Lufthansa's charter subsidiary, and Balair, Swissair's charter subsidiary, flew Europe/Alaska routes last...