‘Definitely the way to go’: Committee recommends Contour Airlines to provide jet service from Quincy-to-Chicago; plan would discontinue flights to St. Louis

QUINCY — Asked if Wednesday’s meeting of the subcommittee he formed to review the three airlines bidding to become Quincy Regional Airport’s EAS (essential air service) provider went as expected, Quincy Mayor Mike Troup simply shrugged his shoulders.

The smile on his face said everything.

It only took about 45 minutes for the subcommittee to agree on recommending the selection of Contour Airlines, based in Smyrna, Tenn., to the Quincy City Council. Aldermen in turn will make their vote to recommend a four-year contract with Contour to the U.S. Department of Transportation at their Jan. 21 meeting.

“Everybody’s been talking,” Troup said after Wednesday’s meeting. “I’ve tried to get some information back and forth. There’s been a ton of study that everybody’s been diving into. Don (Carpenter, a subcommittee member) was calling (airport officials in) Burlington (Iowa), and he’d send me a note. Some people even in the public were saying, ‘This is what I’ve seen over here’ or ‘Don’t pick this (airline).’”

The subcommittee met for about three hours on Jan. 9 at Quincy Regional Airport to hear representatives from Air Wisconsin, Cape Air and Contour make their pitches. It took about 15 minutes during Wednesday’s meeting to eliminate Air Wisconsin as an option.

Air Wisconsin proposed flying 50-seat jets for 12 round trips per week — either 12 from Quincy to Chicago or seven from Quincy to Chicago and five from Quincy to St. Louis. Troup said firefighters would have to be at the airport for all Air Wisconsin flights, which he estimated would cost approximately $120,000 annually.

Troup also told the subcommittee that Air Wisconsin has no EAS contracts. Previous contracts with United and American have been discontinued, raising questions about any existing codeshare agreements. Troup also said he could not confirm if Air Wisconsin would have its own ticketing system.

“They’re going to have a lot of planes and staff, but that’s why they’re really diving into the EAS,” he said. “Personally, I’m a little reluctant to be the guinea pig with someone that’s setting up, and it’s going to be the first for each of these steps.”

Subcommittee member Mecki Kosin expressed concern about the increased expenditure for the city to have firefighters available for each flight.

“From a professional standpoint, I think I would pick them,” subcommittee member Mark Heidbreder said. “But I think with the ambiguity about a codeshare agreement that’s kind of come up, I would agree that we ought to maybe take a pass on that.”

Kosin supported giving a second chance to Cape Air, which was awarded a four-year, $10.8 million contract in September 2021 to be the EAS provider for Quincy. However, the Massachusetts-based airline announced in May 2022 that a pilot shortage was forcing them to submit a 90-day notice to end EAS service in Quincy.

Cape Air was offering either 36 weekly Quincy-to-St. Louis round trips or 21 weekly Quincy-to-Chicago round trips and 18 weekly Quincy-to-St. Louis round trips, using 9-passenger Tecnam Traveller twin-engine planes.

Contour’s original proposal was for 12 weekly Quincy to Chicago flights or seven weekly Quincy to Chicago flights and five weekly Quincy to Nashville flights. The subcommittee voted for asking Contour to provide the 12 round-trip flights to Chicago instead of splitting them between Chicago and Nashville. 

Either option eliminates the Quincy to St. Louis route.

“I don’t want to go to Chicago on the morning flight and then have to sit there until close to evening before I can catch my flight to Europe or something like that,” said Kosin, who owns a travel agency in Quincy. “Twelve flights a week isn’t going to do it for me.”

She said she had encouraged many of her clients to reach out to Troup to express their desire to have more flights and keep the St. Louis flights available.

“The key is going to be: What are the flight times?” Kosin said. “If I only can get out of Quincy to Chicago or to Nashville early in the morning, and I have a flight out of there later in the afternoon. I’m not going to do that. I can drive in two hours to St. Louis. That’s kind of the sentiment from those clients I’ve talked to.”

Subcommittee member Roger Lipcaman, head of Knapheide Manufacturing’s air operations, said Contour would have to average 16.6 people per flight (on 30-seat jets) for 50 weeks to reach the 10,000 enplanements needed for Quincy to receive $1 million in federal funding. Cape Air would have to average 5.5 people per flight (on 9-passenger twin-engine planes) to reach that figure.

“(Cape Air) would have to have nearly an 80 percent passenger load (during the winter months), and I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Lipcaman said. “A 55 percent passenger load (for Contour flights), I personally feel that’s much more attainable.”

Lipcaman said Cape Air officials said during their presentation that flights would be limited to seven passenger for four months a year. He also said some business won’t allow their employees to board flights manned by just one pilot. Cape Air said it would schedule two pilots per flight, but if one pilot was sick, the flight would not be cancelled.

“We can’t do that,” Lipcaman said. “Our company, we can’t do that operational-wise. I think reliability is a huge factor.”

“The jet gives Quincy the best chance to get back to 10,000 enplanements just because of the reliability issues, and the weather issues are going to be more manageable,” Heidbreder said.

Airport director Bill Lantz said Contour is “definitely the way to go” while adding that Cape Air’s departure from Quincy left a bitter taste in his mouth. The airline said it left Quincy in May 2022 because a shortage of pilots made it impossible for the number of scheduled flights to be completed.

“That part, in my opinion, was 100 percent true,” Lantz said. “But they kind of failed to mention that when they announced they were pulling out, they turned right back around and graciously dropped in another EAS bid for a much higher dollar figure. They also did that for Burlington at the same time. … We had to choose between Cape Air and our current air carrier (Southern Airways Express). I really felt like Cape Air really short-changed Quincy by not telling the real truth.”

Jeff Mays, director of administrative services, noted that Contour was the only airline that could boast of repeated instances of quick turnarounds in passenger numbers.

“I don’t want to slow boil,” he said. “We need to get back to the 10,000 (enplanements) as quick as we can, and that’s the only airline that I saw that has a proven track record of doing it.”

It also agreed that Quincy should ask for an alternate EAS contract. While a traditional EAS contract is between the Department of Transportation and the airline director, the Department of Transportation reimburses the community in an alternate EAS contract. The community enters into a contract directly with the airline, so the airline is accountable to the community. Changing flights would take months in a traditional EAS contract, compared to days in an alternate EAS contract.

“If we focus on just Quincy to Chicago for the first six months, let’s see which flights are full and that everybody’s using,” Troup said. “If we find out, ‘Gee, nobody likes this particular time slot,’ then we can say, ‘Hey, let’s take these three or four flights and pick another airport to go to.’”

Troup thought the U.S. Department of Transportation would agree with the subcommittee’s choice because of the difference in federal subsidies. Cape Air was asking for $8,617,302 in its first year of service to provide flights to Chicago and St. Louis. Contour was asking for $6,491,881 in its first year of service to provide flights to Chicago.

Troup said if the City Council agrees with the subcommittee, he would send a letter to the Department of Transportation on Jan. 22. He said he doesn’t know how long it would take for Contour to take over the EAS contract. Southern Airways Express is still contracted for nearly two more years in Quincy.

“They already have been warned we’re doing an early termination, but I don’t know how much more time (does the U.S. Department of Transportation) have to give them,” Troup said. “60 days? 30 days? I don’t have that detail, but we would encourage them to make the move as fast as they could.”

Troup had provided the subcommittee a chart showing that the Quincy airport had reached 10,000 enplanements five times since 2010.

“It is so critical now that we continue to hit that,” he said.

When a reporter asked if the airport didn’t begin consistently hit that figure, Troup finished the sentence.

“Eventually this airport will close,” he said.