City Council recommends Contour for EAS contract; Troup says he’ll get written guarantee for flights to Chicago and Nashville

QUINCY — It took three meetings of the subcommittee formed by Quincy Mayor Mike Troup and nearly an hour of discussion by the Quincy City Council, but aldermen finally gave Troup the votes he needed to recommend Contour Airlines of Smyrna, Tenn., as the essential air service (EAS) provider for Quincy Regional Airport.

It took an amendment to the resolution, however, for it to finally pass.

The resolution called for Troup to send official notification of the city’s recommendation of Contour Airlines to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to provide EAS service for the next four years. (The city will learn in the next few months if the DOT agrees.) However, aldermen Eric Entrup (R-1) and Ben Uzelac (D-7) wanted assurances that the city could alter the contract.

Contour’s presentation to the subcommittee called for two options — 12 round-trip flights weekly, with all 12 flights going from Quincy to Chicago under one proposal, or a second proposal calling for seven weekly Quincy-to-Chicago flights and five weekly Quincy-to-Nashville flights. Either option eliminates the Quincy-to-St. Louis route it now has with Southern Airways Express, its current EAS provider.

After receiving feedback from aldermen, Troup amended the resolution to dictate Contour would start with 12 Quincy-to-Chicago flights but would eventually add Quincy-to-Nashville flights by the end of the first year of the contract.

The subcommittee voted last week for asking Contour to provide the 12 round-trip flights to Chicago instead of splitting them between Chicago and Nashville. Airport Director Bill Lantz confirmed that vote during Tuesday’s meeting, and Troup seemed to agree early in the conversation. 

“Because we have such poor service today with Southern, for six months, let’s see what kind of activity we can get,” Troup said. “That’ll help determine what time of flights work best for our passengers. Let’s get all the options out there and then, within that six months, decide if can we pull back any of those and then look at another market — which not only would be potentially Nashville but could be another market to fly to.”

Troup said Contour CEO Matt Chaifetz recommended flights to Nashville International Airport because it offers more flights on Southwest Airlines than Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. He also said other national airlines have more flight options out of Nashville than St. Louis.

Then he added, “The subcommittee really wanted to focus on Chicago. They said, ‘Give us six months, and then you can see which way you want to go.’”

Entrup said most of the people he has spoken with in the past week were “universally” in favor of adding the Nashville option.

Kelly Mays (R-3) wondered if the city could ask for 10 round-trip weekly flights to Chicago, allowing for five days a week of two flights per day, and two round-trip flights to Nashville.

“People would want to go (to Nashville) for the weekend, and we could have a flight there on Thursday that comes back on Monday,” she suggested. “Then you could still service business people who were going for the week or people who just wanted to go there for the weekend. You could still get a flight to Chicago easily.”

Troup said the city already has started a conversation with Contour, hinting he wants to agree up front to have the ability to change what airports Quincy passengers go to. 

“(Contour) can’t just say, ‘No, no, no, we’re only going to O’Hare (International Airport in Chicago),’” the mayor said.

Dave Bauer (D-2) and Mike Rein (R-5) both were not confident that Contour would do what it promised.

“We’ve had airlines before say we’re doing this many flights, and then they come back and say, ‘Well, we’re going to do this many instead,’” Bauer said.

“(Airlines) always promise all kinds of stuff and a proposal they never live up to,” Rein said. “They fall short.”

“Do we have a written guarantee from Contour that they can handle in Nashville if we ask?” Uzelac asked Troup.

When the mayor said, “Not yet,” Uzelac suggested tabling the issue for a week to get that guarantee in writing.

“If we’re asking (Contour) to go to Chicago right now, how are we guaranteeing that they will go with the other proposal later if we ask?” Uzelac said.

“I’ve had conversations with them,” Troup said.

“That’s not a written guarantee, Mayor,” Uzelac said.

“We’re coming here tonight,” Troup said. “We’ve got to do this in sequence. We’re at the liberty of what DOT and EAS wants us to do, and we’re under a time schedule. We’re trying to do the best we can.”

The City Council did briefly talk about selecting Cape Air and its nine-passenger turboprop airplanes for the EAS contract. However, Lantz thought Contour would be more reliable, and Troup noted that many local companies will only their employees fly on jets for business trips.

Eventually Troup agreed to modify the recommendation to the Department of Transportation to say the contract should go to Contour but the city won’t agree to sign any document with Contour unless it includes a guarantee it will add Nashville as a hub when the city makes that request.

“I just think we need to make it clear to Contour that we have full intention of going to Nashville (and find out) whether that timeline could be adjusted,” Entrup said.

“I know the CEO has no problem with that,” Troup said. “He’d love to have that conversation.”

After the resolution was amended, Jeff Bergman (R-2) spoke up to compliment the spirited discussion and information that was shared.

“Unfortunately, from reading the packet, not a single thing that was discussed here for the last however many minutes about the airport was in our packet,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate, because I think a lot of this (discussion) could have been avoided, and some of these questions could have been asked ahead of time. We could have had a little bit better clarity and less questions right now. 

“I guess it’s just a frustration to me that not any information as far as Contour, the amount of flights, the split between Nashville and Chicago and any of the comparisons with the proposals … was given to us in the packet.”