Various regional entities have smartly chipped in to provide $5 million in incentives to lure Germany's largest carrier, Lufthansa Airlines, to St. Louis Lambert International Airport, restoring a small but important bit of credibility to the "international" part of the airport's name. Focusing on Germany was a natural fit because of the region's growing ties, mainly through big local employers like Bayer and Purina, and the need to accommodate regular business travel links with Frankfurt. An airline with Lufthansa's stature also boosts the city's attractiveness to other international airlines in ways that the purple-pink planes of Iceland's defunct Wow Air just couldn't.

Some local residents might question the amount put forth as incentive for this deal, but $5 million spread over two years is a worthwhile investment to boost St. Louis' competitiveness with other thriving mid-sized cities like Nashville, Indianapolis and Charlotte. Public funding will come from two sources: $2.5 million from the St. Louis County Port Authority and $520,000 in waived landing fees from St. Louis Lambert International Airport over an 18-month period. Business chamber Greater St. Louis Inc. will provide $2.5 million in funding from its corporate members.

This investment not only will help put St. Louis back on the international air-travel map but should also ease lingering local anxieties about the $1 billion spent to construct a new 9,000-foot runway to accommodate long-range jumbo jets, only to have locally based TWA collapse in bankruptcy before the runway was completed. By the time it opened in 2006 — three years after nonstop flights to continental Europe had ended — major airlines were looking elsewhere for hubs, sticking Lambert with an expensive white elephant.

Although the airport currently is performing well despite pandemic conditions, there's still plenty of room for improvement. Proposals submitted as part of the 2017-2019 effort to privatize the airport contained lots of viable options for sprucing up Lambert's image and making it a more inviting place for travelers to spend their time (and money) while awaiting flights. Largely because of still-depressed passenger levels and vendors' difficulties finding workers, the airport retains the look and feel of a struggling shopping mall. Half-opened restaurants, bars and shops leave evening and early-morning travelers with few purchasing options. With each lost sale, tax revenue for the region goes out the window.

During the privatization debate, disputes arose about where to spend any windfall that might have come from that deal. Now the debate focuses on how to spend the city's and county's portion of the payout from the $790 million Rams/NFL settlement. Our recommendation is that both governments funnel a reasonable percentage to the kinds of improvements envisioned in the Lambert privatization proposals. The millions of air travelers passing through the airport each year need attractions that encourage them to stay, not groan when an STL stopover shows up on their ticket.

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