Great Bend flights to Wichita may cease: Airline requests scheduling change to increase passenger counts

When Seaport Airlines took over as Great Bend’s Essential Air Service provider in June, it offered flights to Wichita. However, the air carrier has learned those flights were not that popular and this was putting Great Bend Municipal Airport’s federally-funding EAS status at risk, a company official told the City Council Monday night.

“We want to do everything we can to continue our partnership,” Seaport’s Jeff Dale said. “We want to get more people on that plane.”

So, at the request of Seaport, the council voted to submit a letter to the United States Department of Transportation seeking permission to drop the flights to Wichita and replace them with flights to Kansas City, Kan. The USDOT has the final say in the matter since it is the agency that manages the EAS program.

The Seaport Airline proposal is to replace  the 12 weekly round trips to Wichita and six one-stop flights to Kansas City with 12 weekly  round trips to Kansas City. Although number of daily departures would decline by a third, hours flown by Seaport would increase by 50 percent.

Flights to Kansas City showed a higher usage, a study done by Seaport in August noted. Despite being a one-stop and having 50 percent less frequency than Wichita, Kansas City flights generated  69 percent of the traffic since SeaPort took over EAS service.
What does this mean? Airport Manager Martin Miller said the feds will subsidise the carriers at airports like Great Bend up to a $1,000 per passenger under the EAS designation.

However, when passenger counts go down, the subsidy paid to the airlines increases, something frowned upon by the DOT. Through August, subsidy per passenger averaged $1,462.

The result the change, Miller said, would be increased usage which would reduce the subsidy.

Dale said the ticket price would remain at  the current $49 to $99 price points.

If approved by the DOT, the new schedule would take affect Nov. 16.

The request came with the endorsement of the Airport Advisory Committee held a special meeting on the matter Sept. 10.

In June, SeaPort Airlines, based in Portland, Ore., started commercial air service from Great Bend, offering  flights to Wichita Mid-Continent Airport and Kansas City International Airport. The carrier, which also serves the Salina Regional Airport, was awarded a two-year Essential Air Service contract for Great Bend by the United States Department of Transportation, replacing Great Lakes Aviation.

- Source:  http://www.gbtribune.com