Devils Lake Regional Airport (KDVL) rebounds; Thief River Falls waits for flights

Air passenger traffic is taking off in Devils Lake, N.D., since SkyWest Airlines started providing daily round-trip flights to Denver this summer.

Meanwhile, officials in Thief River Falls, Minn., hope to resume commercial passenger flights to Minneapolis by October. The city has been without service since January.

Passenger boardings at Devils Lake Regional Airport totaled 491 in July, the first full month since SkyWest started service in June. That’s nearly 200 more than July 2013 and the highest number since 2011.

“It’s been going very well for us,” Airport Manager John Nord said. “The service has been very reliable, very dependable.”

SkyWest, in a partnership with United Airlines, is using 50-seat Bombardier CRJ-200 regional jets for 11 round trips per week between Devils Lake and Denver.

Flights leave Devils Lake at 7 a.m. six days a week, with stops in Jamestown. Nonstop flights to Denver leave Devils Lake at about 2:30 p.m. five days per week.

“The 7 o’clock flight has been very popular,” Nord said. “It’s a nice, smooth ride.”

The nonstop flight takes about 90 minutes to reach Denver.

“We’ve been seeing people from out of our market area, from Grand Forks and Minot, who like the direct route to Denver,” Nord said.

SkyWest won a federal Essential Air Service subsidy contract this past spring to provide air service to Devils Lake and Jamestown after Great Lakes Aviation pulled out of Devils Lake, Jamestown, Thief River Falls and other cities in the region in January.

Jamestown Regional Airport had 652 boardings in July, the most in the past 10 years and more than twice the volume of July 2012 or 2013.

Including Devils Lake and Jamestown, the United/SkyWest flights are averaging 20 to 25 passengers, according to Nord.

Great Lakes won a new two-year contract to serve Thief River Falls. While the service was expected to resume in June, local officials say it likely will be back by October.

Great Lakes and other small, regional airlines have been hit by pilot shortages since summer 2013. That’s when new federal regulations took effect requiring first officers, also referred to as co-pilots, to log 1,500 flight hours, rather than the previous 250 hours, and pass the Air Transport Pilot exam before they can work for commercial airlines.

“There’s been a lot of factors,” Thief River Falls Airport Manager Joe Hedrick said. “Pilot shortage, retraining and recertification has been the overriding problem.”

Hedrick said Great Lakes secured a new operating certificate through the Federal Aviation Administration that allowed the airline to hire pilots with less than the new minimum standard. As a condition, the airline had to remove 10 seats out of its airplanes.

“They’re really thinking out of the box,” he said, adding that it has taken time for the airline to reconfigure its planes.

When service returns to Thief River Falls, Great Lakes is expected to make 12 round trips per week to Minneapolis, including two daily Monday through Friday, and round-trip flights on Saturdays and Sundays.

Thief River Falls Mayor Jim Dagg said the resumption of air service is vital to the economy of the city and all of northwest Minnesota.

“We’re very hopeful it’s going to return,” he said. “It sure put a real strain on us.”

Even with Great Lakes planning to resume service in October, Dagg said community leaders are looking at the airport’s long-term future.

In September, he said, the airport authority will begin drafting a plan designed to attract interest from other regional airlines.

“We want to see what’s out there, even if it’s not for this year, but maybe for next year or down the road,” Dagg said. “We’ve got to try to sell ourselves. You have to stay positive. We’ve got great things happening in northwest Minnesota.”

- Source: http://www.prairiebizmag.com