Air service meetings start Jan. 6
Consultant Mike Boggs hands a folder to Jon Smith of the Grant County Economic Development Council on Monday. Boggs talked to the people who will be giving community presentations on an airline travel bank in January. Photo by Lynne Lynch/Columbia Basin Herald
COLUMBIA BASIN — Information meetings about restarting commercial air service in Grant County will be held in Moses Lake, Othello, Ephrata and Quincy.
The meeting dates are planned from Jan. 6 to Jan. 10, and from Jan. 13 to Jan. 16
If air service is restored, two trips per day from Moses Lake to Seattle could be available starting in June, said Mike Boggs, the vice president of Mead & Hunt, a consulting group working with the Port of Moses Lake on the project.
He said he estimated tickets would cost between $150 to $200 each way.
The Grant County Economic Development Council (EDC) and the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce are also involved with the effort.
Terry Brewer, the EDC’s executive director, recently spoke with SkyWest Airlines, a partner with United Airlines, about serving Grant County.
Brewer said the community presented the airline with the idea of having residents prepay $500,000 worth of airline tickets.
Boggs gave a presentation on Monday to a group of community members involved with presenting the upcoming meetings.
Boggs has been working on the project with the port for more than a year.
He gave the group answers to questions they may be asked during the community presentations.
SeaTac was chosen as a destination because of strong business ties to the Seattle area and connect on to markets like San Francisco, Boggs said.
Seattle is also where the business connections are, and between 30,000 to 40,000 estimated passengers will flow to Seattle, he said.
“We want this carrier to be successful and stay in the market,” Boggs said.
Customers using the Moses Lake-area travel bank would have access to United Airlines’ system, which offers 3,175 daily departures system wide, 44 online daily departures from Seattle to 16 nonstop markets and 335 interline daily departures to 85 nonstop markets, he said.
SkyWest’s concerns in the Moses Lake market include financial risk, existing travel habits, service awareness and a slow start-up period, Boggs noted.
He also said SkyWest will cancel the service if it doesn’t perform well in the first couple of months.
The goals of the travel airline bank are to jump-start new service, counter barriers-to-entry and promote long-term success of new air service, he said.
Seating at the meetings is limited, but people can RSVP for meetings online and view a meeting schedule by visiting www.grantedc.com/index.php?page_id=333.
Moses Lake-area customers, who pay for their flights in advance, have one year to use their money from the day service is first provided. The money is deposited in Columbus Bank & Trust. Customers receive an airline travel bank card and it functions like a checking account debit card.
If enough money is raised by Jan. 30, it would be placed into a travel ticket bank for customers’ airline tickets.
The minimum pledge is $2,500 and is considered a commitment by the business community to support the service, according to information provided by the Port of Moses Lake.