Moses Lake groups discuss air service

Consultant:'Not a pipe dream'

MOSES LAKE - Members of the Moses Lake community gathered last week to discuss the possible return of commercial airline service.

Mike Boggs, business unit leader and vice president of Eugene, Ore.-based aviation business service firm Mead & Hunt, Inc., led the meeting.

"We talked about a lot of things - ticket prices, the size of airplanes, the frequency of the service, what the needs of the business community are versus the leisure community and we talked about the various carriers out there providing service in the west and in the northwest," he said.

Even considering those factors, those roughly 11 business members in attendance at the meeting believed the community would support air service, Boggs said. There is strong support for service to Seattle, he added.

"They acknowledged that performance of the market related to past carriers was spotty, but they believed the change in the economic demographics of the community and the growth here would lead to positive results this time around," Boggs said.

Boggs said he tried to provide the information about what might be possibilities. What the community chooses to do is up to its members in further discussions, he added.

"There are certain realities associated with small-community air service these days," he said. "A couple of those are it takes a significant effort on the part of a community to achieve the air service improvements they're wanting to achieve. It can take as long as 18 to 24 months for an airline to make a decision to come into a market."

Sometimes it can happen sooner than that, but in Boggs' experience working with smaller communities, a community effort really makes the undertaking successful.

"One person alone never gets it done," he said.

Mead & Hunt was recommended to the Port of Moses Lake to hold a community meeting and an initial airline evaluation by one of the carriers in discussion with the port district. Boggs stressed the firm does not work for the carriers.

"We work with them a lot of times on service, but we're always working from the perspective of a community, an airport or a chamber of commerce," he said.

As part of a Washington and Oregon program, Boggs said, some analysis has been done on the Moses Lake market.

"What that analysis showed us is Moses Lake does have an air service market that can support service to the Seattle and Portland market," he said. "We've done the evaluation of the passengers and the ticket prices and we know what we're discussing here is not a pipe dream. Successful service can operate in this community based on our analysis, if of course it's supported by the community."

Boggs made his recommendations at the meeting, but declined to discuss them specifically for reasons of sensitivity. He also preferred media not be present at the meeting.