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Airport to keep one K.C. flightOct 02, 2009 (The Garden City Telegram - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Garden City Regional Airport will be holding on to one of its Kansas City, Mo., flights. According to Rachelle Powell, aviation director for the city of Garden City, city staff and representatives of Great Lakes Aviation, the airport's air service provider, had a conference call Wednesday to decide the air provider now will serve the airport with four daily round-trip flights to Denver, as well as one daily round-trip flight to Kansas City. The arrangement is a change from the air provider's current service of three flights to Denver and two to Kansas City, but also is an improvement over the possibility the airport would lose its Kansas City flight service altogether. Before the agreement was reached, the airport was looking at the U.S. Department of Transportation ordering the Kansas City flight service be stopped at Garden City's airport, with the airport then having only five flights to Denver. If the Kansas City service had been canceled, those wishing to get to Kansas City from Garden City would have to fly to Denver first and then to Kansas City. Powell feared some travelers wouldn't be willing to make that deviated flight from the airport to get to Kansas City, which meant the airport could lose enplanements, or people paying to fly into or out of the airport. Powell estimated between 1,000 and 2,000 enplanements could be lost if the Kansas City service was discontinued. The number of annual enplanements helps determine funding through the Airport Improvement Program. Garden City's airport is required to have 10,000 people flying into or out of the airport per year in order to receive about $1 million in federal funding for improvement projects. Not making that number means receiving about only $150,000 in funding, meaning significantly fewer improvements and possibly more money fronted by the city and local taxpayers for work at the airport. The airport had about 1,221 enplanements to Kansas City as of August this year. While January's enplanements were at 179, up from 161 in 2008, all other months have been down for enplanements for Kansas City from 2008 through August. Denver enplanements were at 4,648 through August -- January and July enplanements were up from 2008. The Department of Transportation had stated a decrease in the usage of the Kansas City flights and, in return, an increased cost to provide the service as reasons for wanting to stop the flights. Powell said the new arrangement of one flight to Kansas City isn't at the current level of service the airport is providing, but the agreement still provides some level of service to Kansas City that community members have expressed is important to them. Powell said Great Lakes is working to prepare the proposed new flight schedule, and she doesn't have the date, yet, when the changes will take effect. She said the airport should have at least a couple weeks' notification of the effective date before the start of the new service. Travelers who've pre-ordered their tickets for after the effective date will have their air travel re-accommodated through Great Lakes. Powell said Great Lakes will contact affected ticket holders, who are contained in a database, and re-accommodate their air travel. The Sept. 11 order by the Department of Transportation was a surprise to city staff and representatives, because, up to this point, the department always had accepted or closely followed Garden City's and other southwest Kansas communities' wishes for the Essential Air Service (EAS) program. EAS exists to provide small communities and airports with air service, specifically by certificated air carriers. Through the Department of Transportation, EAS funds Great Lakes to provide air service at Garden City's airport. EAS has two-year contracts with the airlines, and when the contract nears renewal, the Department of Transportation sends out requests for proposals to airlines interested in providing the service, and the communities also provide input. This time, the communities, including Garden City, spoke on behalf of option two, which allowed Great Bend to maintain its service to Kansas City, Hays' and Liberal's service to Denver and Dodge City's and Garden City's service to both Kansas City and Denver through Great Lakes. Instead, the department went with option three -- all of the communities, except Great Bend, receiving the Denver-only service. Through talks with Great Lakes, Dodge City also is negotiating a flight to Kansas City, Powell said. Under the third option, Great Lakes requests about $8.9 million in annual subsidies from the government to provide the service. The annual subsidy to the communities includes $1,884,303 to provide the Garden City service; $1,842,749 to Dodge City; $1,257,617 to Great Bend; $1,954,327 to Hays; and $1,958,570 to Liberal. In order to arrange keeping a Kansas City flight, Garden City, Dodge City and Great Lakes had to work within the annual subsidy amount, trading a Denver flight for a Kansas City flight. The department and Great Lakes were recommending five flights to Denver for both Garden and Dodge City, with no Kansas City flights. Instead, Great Lakes and Garden City worked within the subsidy amount to transfer one flight from Denver to Kansas City -- bringing the total to five flights, but with one to Kansas City and four to Denver. City Manager Matt Allen and Powell had said if the airport continued having a Kansas City flight, the service not only would need Kansas City as the destination but also a flight desirable enough to passengers that they'd ride it and it would provide some enplanements to the airport. Allen and Powell said the flight would need to be one that met a good portion of the travelers' needs -- that would be one that has good ridership and leaves semi-early and returns at a decent hour at night to allow same-day travel to and from Kansas City, as well as the ability for passengers to fly into Kansas City and then connect to a variety of other flights and destinations. While the schedule isn't finalized, Powell said the new Kansas City flight is one that will have a mid-morning departure from Garden City and a mid-evening arrival or return -- the flight will allow for same-day business travel and getting people to Kansas City to connect to other flights. Powell said Allen and city staff recognized the need in the community for the Kansas City service and wanted to do whatever possible to keep the service. On the Web: Garden City Regional Airport: http://www.fly2gck.com/ When would a Kansas City flight have to take place for you to use it? Talk about it at SWKTalk.com. To see more of The Garden City Telegram or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gctelegram.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Garden City Telegram, Kan. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |