By Kalin Krohe, Panhandle Post
The Chadron City Council is recommending Southern Airways Express as the new essential air service (EAS) provider in the community.
The contract would be for two years if the bid is awarded to Southern Airways. It would be the air provider's first service in this region.
"Southern's trying to establish a new hub out of Denver," Chadron City Mayor Mark Werner said. "They are concentrated out of the southeast...Mid-Atlantic up into the New England area. Last year they went to Southern California. They're trying to slowly establish the Rocky Mountain area and their only one in the area."
The Federal Transportation Department has the final say if the bid gets awarded.
"The process also involves Alliance," Werner said. "Alliance asked that the recommendations be pushed back to the 18th of February. After they get ours and Alliance's recommendations...then the federal process...the new carrier according to what we've been told should take over in mid-June."
Mayor Werner said the council had three bids.
"The existing carrier Boutique Air, Alliance's existing carrier [Denver Air Connection] and they were all fantastic bids," Werner said. "It was a real struggle to figure out where we wanted to go."
Werner said Southern Airways has good marketing ideas for the Chadron community.
"Their marketing guy will be coming out to visit us once they get the bid for sure," Werner said. "They got a really good reputation of marketing. One of the things that they suggested they'll do here like they've done in other area is charter planes down to Lincoln for important games. They thought they would sure get to all the Big Ten home games next year for football. One person on our staff said, what about volleyball? The guy said, well we never thought about that. Volleyball is not a big deal down here in Memphis. They would also be home porting their two aircraft at the Chadron Airport. We would have minor maintenance done there. That would come with at least four pilots."
Chadron's current air provider Boutique had great ideas too.
"They're going to start flying between Chadron and Rapid City on their own dime," Werner said. "They also wanted to establish a route that would be Omaha, Chadron, Denver. They thought they could make money doing that."
Werner thought that any of the three air lines would be acceptable for Chadron.
"It just got down to the margins," Werner said. "The six of us that were on the subcommittee developed a six column matrix...went throughout the low score. Then moved on and debated the final two back and forth. In the end we decided we'd go with Southern. But like I said I thought we'd be well served by any of the three."
Werner said he thinks Southern Airways will benefit the Chadron community because of the pilots living in the city.
"We'll get a pretty good size plus up on the amount of fuel that's pumped here in town," Werner said. "They said they would buy at least one-half the fuel here in town, which would be a significant revenue generator for the City of Chadron and also the fixed base operator out at the airport. I'm getting old enough now that I read the obits. Back when Chadron was a training facility in World War II they had all sorts of men and women getting together and raising great Northwest Nebraska families. I'm hopeful that these pilots will become long term members of our community and build the airlines here."