Bill Decker/Morgan City Daily Review
St. Mary officials hope they can persuade PHI Inc. to keep its Amelia-Morgan City facility open after the air transportation company confirmed Wednesday that it plans to close that operation.
At least one official, Cajun Coast Visitors and Convention Bureau Executive Director Carrie Stansbury, is making plans for what will happen if persuasion fails.
The Daily Review reported Tuesday that people connected to the Tri-City business community had learned of PHI’s plans to move the Amelia-Morgan City operation to its Houma facility. The Amelia-Morgan City base accommodates operations and maintenance and has pads for 27 of PHI’s 131 helicopters devoted to oil- and gas-related activities, according to PHI’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
On Wednesday, PHI emailed this statement to The Daily Review:
“We have made the difficult decision to close our Morgan City base due to a very difficult economic environment and changes in our customers’ needs. We continue to work through the details, including timing, and will do everything possible to limit the impact on the vast majority of our employees and the community.”
St. Mary Economic Development Director Frank Fink said Monday that he was prepared to “make a run” at keeping PHI in the parish. On Wednesday, Parish President David Hanagriff said he was notified of the Amelia-Morgan City facility closure by PHI about midday Wednesday. Hanagriff said he plans to meet with PHI officials “to discuss and figure out what led to the decision. …
“Until they put a padlock on the front door, we’re not going to give up,” Hanagriff said.
One of the first alarms about the Amelia-Morgan City PHI closure sounded this week was from Danny Donham, general manager of the Holiday Inn Express in Morgan City. He sent an email Monday addressed to “Leaders of St. Mary Parish.” He talked about the impact of the closure on hotels and motels that serve as temporary homes for the workers that PHI ferries to oil and gas work.
In slow economic times, 30 to 40 percent of the Monday-Wednesday occupancy in east St. Mary hotels “comes from guests who are in some way related to off-shore crew changing via heliports,” Donham wrote. In better times, that figure rises to 50 percent, he said.
Although the number of jobs lost would be relatively small and the workers who use local hotels are residents only temporarily, the closure stands to hit revenues from the hotel and motel tax, sales taxes and the inventory tax, Hanagriff said.
“That’s got to hurt the parish (government) and everybody else,” Hanagriff said. “This is very disappointing.”
One agency that may feel the biggest impact is Cajun Coast and its efforts to bring tourism and convention business here. Stansbury said that except for a few state grants, all of Cajun Coast’s annual budget comes from the hotel and motel tax. The bureau budgeted about $42,000 per month in tax revenue.
Stansbury is in the process of setting up a meeting to brainstorm ideas for bringing hotel and motel customers here, including sporting events.