HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - The Huntsville International Airport Authority approved a resolution Tuesday morning that will offer more than $6 million in credits and incentives to airlines that lower fares and improve customer service.

Huntsville International Airport's round-trip ticket prices are the highest in the nation, but the airport hopes to lower them with a new incentives package.(Eric Schultz/eschultz@al.com)

The goal is to get airlines to lower fares enough to prevent the local market from driving to Birmingham or Nashville airports, both of which are served by low-cost carriers.

The fares don't have to be lower than Huntsville's competitors, said Rick Tucker, executive director of Huntsville International Airport, but they need to more competitive and less than $100 more to fly out of Huntsville.

"People are willing to pay more to stay at their hometown airport," he said, "but not hundreds of dollars more. So don't make it worth the drive. Surveys have shown (higher ticket prices) need to be down in double digits"

The incentives are divided into three categories:

$1 million to improve customer service, namely ensure baggage claim takes no longer than 15 minutes and make more people available to assist passengers.

$2 million to the first airline or airlines that establish a practice with the airport for increasing passenger traffic to specific numbers. One airline could receive entire allotment.

$3 million to be shared by all airlines that help airport increase passenger traffic. If the increase is above projections, the airport will give each airline a $15 credit per passenger.

Tucker said if airlines take advantage of all incentives and credits, and traffic increases 200,000 above the projections, airlines could lower their operating costs by 45 percent and be their lowest operating expense here in 20 years.

The airport will not borrow any money to pay for the incentives.

Some of the money will come from credits currently given to airlines but with no conditions, Tucker said. Other funds will come from other revenues, such a parking fees, that previously were not shared with airlines, he said.

"We've given that credit with no strings attached," he said. "Now were adding the strings."

In May,

, with fares running about $544 per passenger. It was

the airport was listed as having the highest fares in the nation.

Passenger traffic decreased 17.4 percent in May compared to the same month a year ago. In addition, passenger totals for the year are 7 percent below projections for Fiscal 2013. The airport anticipates its Fiscal 2014 passenger traffic to be lowest since 2004, at 1,112,500 passengers.

Huntsville lost its non-stop service to two of three most popular destinations, Orlando and Baltimore, after AirTran Airways pulled out of the airport last year.

Tucker said getting an airline to offer non-stop flights to both those destinations would go a long way to increasing local traffic.

This article was updated Tuesday, June 11, 2013, at 11:25 a.m. with quotes from Rick Tucker and links to past articles.