Cape Girardeau Regional Airport hopes to keep current EAS provider

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has set a May 19 deadline for air carriers to bid on Essential Air Service (EAS) at eligible U.S. airports.

Katrina Amos, manager of the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, has been quite pleased by the service Utah-based SkyWest Airlines has provided as the local EAS carrier for nearly four years.

SkyWest was awarded an initial agreement to service Cape Girardeau in 2017 and again received the nod from DOT two years later.

"We had our best year for passenger volume in more than two decades in 2019 with more than 11,000 enplanements," she said, noting SkyWest connects Cape Girardeau with O'Hare Airport in Chicago.

Amos told the Southeast Missourian the 50-seat, CRJ-200 SkyWest jets, which operate as United Express, are a decided advantage over nine-passenger planes used by SkyWest's predecessor, Cape Air, from 2009 to 2017.

"If you add up the numbers, SkyWest can simply fly more people on those jets," she said.

Amos acknowledged some people would prefer flying to St. Louis, as Cape Air did.

"Destination is not the only factor in determining the best EAS carrier," she said. "SkyWest can fly more people and we have found its service reliable, dependable and safe."

History

Four years ago, SkyWest was the only airline to offer jet service to Cape Girardeau with other EAS competitors offering to use turboprop planes seating eight or nine passengers.

SkyWest jets, according to the company, have a designated flight attendant and a restroom on board, something none of SkyWest's competitors was able to duplicate.

SkyWest, according to information provided pre-pandemic by the company, has 421 aircraft, makes more than 2,000 flights daily to 226 destinations in North America.

EAS

The Essential Air Service was created by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 to ensure qualified airports would receive air service. Without EAS, the residents of many small communities would be forced to drive many hours to a larger airport.

Not every airport desiring the EAS program can qualify.

According to DOT, there are three basic requirements:

• The airport must have a per-passenger subsidy rate of $200 or less, unless the community is more than 210 miles from the nearest medium or large hub airport.
• While in the program, the community must have an average of 10 or more "enplanements," the industry term for number of passengers, per day.
• The community must be located more than 70 miles away from the nearest medium or large hub airport.

Process

Amos said Cape Girardeau Regional Airport officials, in consultation with the Airport Advisory Board, will review bids sent by DOT and will make a recommendation to Cape Girardeau City Council, since the city owns the Scott County facility, long ago known as Harris Field.

The City Council will then make a formal recommendation on an EAS carrier to DOT, who will choose the carrier.

Amos said typically the federal government follows the desires of local government officials when it comes to EAS but the feds have the ultimate decisionmaking authority.