Airport board to vote on proposals Wednesday

Five airlines plus five different aircraft plus at least four destination choices add up to one challenging decision for the Cape Girardeau Airport Advisory Board.

The choice is tougher when considerations such as attitudes toward customer service, opportunities to add jobs or sell significant amounts of fuel -- a key revenue source for the airport -- are taken into account.

The final element, on display in every meeting with carrier representatives, is a dark humor about the current state of passenger service that reveals intense skepticism toward any promises being made.

"We're in a hole," board member Walt Wildman said. "We are in a bad way and it is not pretty out there."

But abandoning St. Louis to fly elsewhere is asking a lot, airport manager Bruce Loy said during one presentation. "It just has a lot to do with our geography to St. Louis. How do you make a change?"

SeaPort Airlines pilots take members of the Airport Advisory Board on a short flight Thursday over Cape Girardeau. (Fred Lynch)

The nine-member board will meet Wednesday at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport to debate and vote on proposals to provide federally subsidized commercial passenger service. The choice must be ratified by the Cape Girardeau City Council, which has a special meeting scheduled for Sept. 15 in order to meet the next day's deadline with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The airlines asking for the job are a diverse lot. Air Choice One, of Farmington, Mo., is a charter service hoping to add new lines to its existing contract to carry passengers from Kirksville, Mo., to St. Louis. Two of the airlines -- Gulfstream International Airlines of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Cape Air of Hyannis, Mass. -- are well established small-plane airlines hoping to expand from successful markets.

SeaPort Airlines of Portland, Ore., serves the northwestern U.S. and Alaska and wants to add Cape Girardeau to the four Arkansas cities it will begin serving in October as a subsidized carrier. SeaPort's difference is that it will not use baggage screeners, instead delivering passengers to a private terminal in Memphis and shuttling them to the passenger terminal.

The fifth choice is a company with an ambitious plan to make Cape Girardeau a hub for direct flights to several cities including Kansas City, Paducah, Ky., Branson, Mo., Bowling Green, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn. From the smaller cities on that list, Locair wants to provide service on a continuing leg to major airports. For example, the Paducah, Ky., flight would continue to Cincinnati. The Bowling Green flight would visit Atlanta before beginning the return trip. But Locair isn't ready to provide daily service to any single location because of the way it is licensed.

Nate Vallier, general manager, said the variety in his bid allows for testing consumer tastes. "Without daily service to one point, you are right, that is our downfall," Vallier said. "But you have two daily flights to a hub right now and it is not working."

Pros, cons to consider

At the end of a week spent listening to each company explain its proposal, airport board chairman Robbie Rollins said he sees advantages for the Cape Girardeau area in almost every proposal. Each has drawbacks as well, so the decision may be difficult, he said.

"What we have to consider is what the community wants or what we perceive the community wants," Rollins said.

The contract award is under the Essential Air Service program, a federal subsidy to air service in smaller cities. Cape Girardeau's current carrier, Great Lakes Airlines, has been providing two flights a day, one fewer than its contract directs, and has failed to attract substantial business.

Cape Girardeau passengers flying on EAS carriers have always flown to St. Louis except for a six-week period in 2007 when Big Sky Airlines flew to Cincinnati. But with Lambert-St. Louis International Airport a two-hour drive and the availability of a taxi van, the transportation department suggested in the request for proposals that Cape Girardeau may want to try a different destination.

Reviving Cape's airport

At 1.3 emplanements per day for the last 12 months, "Traffic levels at Cape Girardeau are quite low, so a change in service, whether it be a new carrier, new flight schedule, or a new hub utilizing a full schedule of its awarded service may revitalize traffic there," the department noted in the July 9 order calling for bids.

Cape Girardeau is grouped with five other locations -- Decatur, Ill., Marion/Herrin, Ill., Quincy, Ill., Burlington, Iowa, and Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., in the bidding process. The transportation department can award all the contracts to one bidder or split the awards among two or more bidders.

One airline, SeaPort, wants only Cape Girardeau's business. Gulfstream International Airlines wants all six and Mickey Bowman, the company's vice president of corporate development, told the Airport Advisory Board that his company wants all six or none.

Air Choice One is the only other company to bid all six routes but the airline isn't insisting on an all-or-nothing deal.

The five airlines are asking for subsidies ranging from $1.1 million to $2.2 million a year to fly from Cape Girardeau.

The U.S. Department of Transportation asked bidders to use aircraft with at least 15 seats, two engines and two pilots, flying 18 roundtrips each week to a hub airport. The specifications allow for smaller aircraft, but the number of flights increases to 24. That works out to three flights a day, with three on weekends, for the larger aircraft and four daily and four weekend trips on the smaller planes.

Three bidders offer 19-seat planes.

SeaPort offers Pilatus PC-12s, and took board members on a quick flight over the city Thursday. The Pilatus PC-12 is made by Pilatus Aircraft Ltd., a Swiss company, and has a single turboprop engine and a pressurized cabin. It is still in production.

Gulfstream International would fly Beechcraft 1900Ds, the same model being used by Great Lakes and its immediate predecessors. Built by the Beechcraft Division of Raytheon, it is a twin-engine turboprop plane with a pressurized cabin. The last one was built in 2002.

Locair would use a Metroliner, built by Fairchild Aircraft of San Antonio. It is a twin-engine turboprop plane with a pressurized cabin built until 2001.

The two bidders offering smaller planes are Air Choice One, which would use Cessna Caravans, single-engine turboprop planes that are not pressurized and are still in production by Cessna Aircraft Co.

Cape Air wants to use Cessna 402s, an aircraft with twin piston engines that is not pressurized. Cape Air uses the 402 exclusively on its land-based U.S. routes and owns 57 of them. The company is the second-largest consumer of aviation gasoline in the nation, said Andrew Bonney, Cape Air vice president of planning.

Safety records

None of the airlines asking for Cape Girardeau's recommendation has a history of significant safety violations. Gulfstream International is, however, battling the FAA over a regulatory reprimand and $1.3 million proposed fine for problems in crew time logs and the installation of air conditioner and vent fans. The issues are all about paperwork, "non-safety-of-flight issues," said Mickey Bowman, vice president of corporate development, and were fixed before the FAA found them in an audit.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent addresses:

Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, Cape Girardeau, Mo.the

VIDEO

SeaPort Airlines demonstrates nine-seat Pilatus for Airport Advisory Board

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