Guaranteed winter flights to Denver may be lost

It could be getting easier to fly from Cody to Salt Lake City — and harder to fly to Denver.

A proposal now being considered by the U.S. Department of Transportation would guarantee at least two round-trip flights from Cody to Salt Lake each day throughout the year. Between June and September, SkyWest Airlines would offer even more flights to the Utah capital: three per day on Mondays through Fridays and five flights on Saturdays and Sundays.

However, the proposal could potentially spell the end of direct flights to Denver between October and May. At the very least, it could require local businesses and governments to help subsidize the flights to keep them going.

Ray Lee, the administrator for the Cody Yellowstone Air Improvement Resources (CYAIR) organization that promotes local air service, recently noted that Cody has had years of all-jet service to Denver and Salt Lake plus some direct flights from Chicago in the summer.

“If you would stack that up against any other city of our size, I would say Cody’s enjoyed a wonderful run for commercial air service,” Lee told Park County commissioners on Dec. 8. “We may or may not be able to continue that in the future.”

Airlines are happy to fly into Cody between June and September, when tourists boost the boardings at Yellowstone Regional Airport. But passenger numbers drop significantly the other eight months of the year. (As an example, the Cody airport boarded an average of only 70 people a day between January and March 2014, versus an average of 138 travelers a day between July and September of that year.)

Because of the lower traffic, airlines are only willing to keep flying to Cody in the winter if someone will subsidize the service. And, so far at least, the federal government has.

Yellowstone Regional Airport participates in the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Essential Air Service program. It provides subsidies to guarantee that the airport gets at least two daily flights to at least one major hub.

Cody has actually been able to get daily flights to two different hubs in recent years: one to Denver and one to Salt Lake. United and SkyWest have been receiving a combined $1.38 million in annual federal subsidies for the Oct. 1 to May 31 service.

The federal contract runs out in February, and United wants a change.

Rather than continuing to offer to split the subsidy — with SkyWest doing one flight and United responsible for the other — United officials said they would do two flights to Denver or none at all.

That forced Yellowstone Regional Airport leaders to choose which destination they’d rather have: United’s hub in Denver or Delta Airlines’ hub in Salt Lake.

Local officials ultimately picked Salt Lake.

“It was the hopes and desires of the Joint Powers Board to be able to maintain dual airline service to both Denver and Salt Lake City,” airport board chairman Douglas Johnston wrote to the Department of Transportation. “However, this option was not offered in the proposals.”

Park County Commissioner Bucky Hall, the commission’s liaison to the airport board, said Salt Lake came out on top largely because that airport and Delta Airlines have proven more reliable than Denver and United.

“Out of Denver, especially, United’s track record of trying to get you here is just horrible right now,” Hall said last month.

Yellowstone Regional Airport Manager Bob Hooper said he also liked SkyWest’s commitment to boosting summer service. Lee added that the airline has employees in Cody who will all keep their jobs if the company is chosen for the federal contract.

SkyWest’s proposal also stands to save taxpayers a significant amount of money.

The airline is requesting $938,050 a year from the federal government to fly the Salt Lake-Cody route between October and May. The company expects to board 35,000 passengers, for a subsidy of about $27 per ticket.

SkyWest’s proposal is roughly $216,800 (or nearly 19 percent) less than what United requested. It’s also about $442,750 (or 32 percent) less than what the federal government has been paying United and SkyWest for the dual service out of Cody.

The Department of Transportation will make the final decision on which airline gets the Essential Air Service contract. However, the department gives strong consideration to the preferences of local communities — and local leaders were unanimous in their support for SkyWest.

Northwest College, the city of Powell, county commissioners, Cody Laboratories, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and former U.S. Sen. Al Simpson all submitted letters backing SkyWest’s proposal and the Essential Air Service Program.

“As a small community college with students from across the United States and 34 countries, essential air service is imperative to Northwest College. We depend on the EAS program to recruit and retain quality faculty and staff,” wrote NWC President Stefani Hicswa, adding that, “Without the EAS program we would be forced to travel out of Billings, MT, which adds additional cost and time.”

Hooper noted that even if United loses out on the federal contract, the airline could still choose — or be convinced — to fly to Cody in the winter months.

“It’s entirely up to the airline — or the community’s also free to go out and negotiate, work with the airline to maintain existing levels of service,” Hooper said.

“It just takes money,” said Lee, whose job with Cody Yellowstone Air Improvement Resources includes helping raise local and state dollars to subsidize flights.

“Yeah,” Hooper said. “More money.”

Commissioner Hall said last month that the general consensus among airport leaders is “that United’s not going to go away.”

“We might end up with three flights a day (two to Salt Lake, one to Denver) during the winter,” he added.

Yellowstone Regional Airport leaders plan to visit United headquarters in January to discuss the airline’s service to Cody — including the possibility of adding direct flights to/from San Francisco in the summer months.

Hooper and Lee painted a bleak overall picture for small airports, with recent federal regulations putting pilots in short supply, the number of airlines and flights on the decline and aircraft with fewer than 66 seats (like those that serve Cody) on the way out.

“It’s a struggle to get the air service right now,” Hooper said.