Air service agreement could serve as model for some Wyoming communities

The Wyoming Aeronautics Commission has approved an air service grant that could serve as a model for future service to Wyoming communities facing a loss of flights due to changes in federal regulations.

The grant approved Tuesday will allow expansion of current jet service by Denver Air Connection between Sheridan and Denver to include Riverton beginning July 1.

The Sheridan-Johnson (County) Critical Air Service Team, Fremont (County) Air Service Team and WYDOT Aeronautics Division negotiated the agreement with Key Lime Air, a Colorado corporation doing business as Denver Air Connection.

The grant provides $1.2 million in assistance from the state’s Air Service Enhancement Program for the flights serving each of the communities, and Sheridan and Riverton will each provide $795,000. The agreement extends through June 30, 2017.

“It’s unique,” WYDOT Aeronautics Division Administrator Dennis Byrne said of the agreement. “It’s the only case that we know of in the country that the community has significant influence in setting price controls for an airline. They can gauge how much traffic is going in and out and reflect that in the pricing.”

The hope is demand will grow until both communities can support direct daily flights to Denver.

"The air service program is important to the economic development of the small communities in Wyoming,” said Pete Schoonmaker, chairman of the Aeronautics Commission. “This may very well represent a new model of how we provide air service, and how we expand air service to the smaller communities in Wyoming."

The value of commercial air service to the state’s economy was quantified by an economic impact study in 2013 using a Federal Aviation Administration approved methodology that estimated operations at Wyoming’s airports support about 10,000 jobs and more than $1 billion in economic activity annually.

Bruce Garber, chairman of the Sheridan-Johnson Critical Air Service Team, said people using the new service verify the positive impacts the flights are having on Sheridan’s economy.

People flying into Sheridan have told him they are shopping and doing business there that they wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t been able to fly into the community.

Area residents are spending money and paying sales taxes in Sheridan that they would have been spending in Billings, Mont., if they had to drive there to catch flights.

“It’s easier to do business and there is more business going on because it is easier to get here,” Garber said. “This has just been a great project, with collaboration from state and local governments and the private sector.”

Sheridan lost air service in April 2015 as a result of a pilot shortage caused by the increase in flying experience required by the Federal Aviation Administration for co-pilots on flights carrying 10 or more passengers.

The change forced Great Lakes Airlines to drop more than half of its Wyoming flights, and reduce the number of passengers on the remaining flights from 19 to nine in order to continue to fly with co-pilots who don’t have the flying hours required by the regulation.

As a result, regardless of demand, far fewer people are able to fly in and out of some of Wyoming’s airports, while the cost of operating the remaining nine-passenger flights is unchanged.

For more information on WYDOT’s Air Service Development Program and news about air service in Wyoming go to www.dot.state.wy.us/home/aeronautics/air_service.html.