MOLINE -- A Quad City International Airport consultant said he believes the airport is near "the bottom" on declining passenger boardings and should start to climb back up.

Mike Bown, of Trillion Aviation, an Austin, Texas, consulting company, said after Tuesday's airport board meeting that there may be more slight declines, but "are we going to go down another 100,000 enplanements? No."

The number of passengers boarding planes in May was 34,374, down from 37,683 in May 2011.

Airport officials have attributed the continued decline to the loss of AirTran service on Jan. 6.

However, Allegiant service has increased and, with it, so has the number of passengers.

So far this year, the number of people boarding Allegiant planes has increased from 16,202 to 25,365. In May, 4,985 boarded, compared to 3,775 in May 2011.

Allegiant offers service to Orlando, Las Vegas, Phoenix-Mesa and St. Petersburg.

Airport lease discussions with Allegiant are under way and include talks about Allegiant's future plans for Moline. The current three-year lease ends in summer 2014.

In other business, the board:

• Learned Bryan Johnson, airport assistant director of aviation, earned Accredited Airport Executive (AAE) status through the American Association of Airport Executives.
• Learned decommissioning of Runway 10/28 should be completed by the end of July. The temporary runway built for use during renovation of the main runway is being converted into a taxiway.