McCook Daily Gazette: Local News: Great Lakes, Denver service to return (05/08/08)

Great Lakes Aviation has been selected by the federal Department of Transportation as McCook's new airline, at a subsidy of $1.58 million.

The two-year essential air service contract will begin with Great Lakes when airline service commences between McCook Regional Airport and Denver.

The DOT also chose Great Lakes as the essential air carrier for Jonesboro, Ark. Great Lakes already has 12 essential air service contracts with the DOT.

McCook's previous airline, Air MidWest/Mesa, notified the DOT in January that it was terminating service to McCook and Grand Island in April, citing significant losses and little prospect of future profits.

Great Lakes first submitted a bid for McCook for service to Kansas City. The McCook City Council, upon recommendation by the McCook Airport Advisory Board, requested service to Denver rather than to Omaha as Air MidWest provided.

Great Lakes agreed and submitted another bid to the DOT with Denver as its destination for McCook.

Essential air service is a federally-subsidized program that ensures rural communities have access to flight service.

Do we have any idea on what the fares will be for a Denver flight? Before, when Great Lakes was here and flew in and out of Denver, they were very cost prohibitive.

One instance that comes to mind: I flew into Denver and was looking at a 6 hour wait for my ride to McCook. I checked with Great Lakes and found that they had a flight leaving for McCook within an hour. They had "2" passengers booked on the plane. Not only was Great Lakes going to charge me full fare of $154.00 to fly, but also was going to tack on and extra $50.00 because I had not booked my flight at least 24 hours ahead of time. Needless to say, I sat the 6 hours in the airport in Denver.

Until the falling out with US Airways, they were very affordable, with as good of connections in Kansas City as one could get in Denver.

-- Posted by charlotte5050 on Mon, May 12, 2008, at 3:41 PM