Troup hopes to give answer about EAS service to U.S. Department of Transportation by end of month

QUINCY — Quincy Mayor Mike Troup hopes the subcommittee charged with recommending an airline to the U.S. Department of Transportation to provide essential air service (EAS) can decide by the end of January. 

He plans to schedule a meeting soon, and the opinions of subcommittee members certainly will be many and varied.

“We can’t get it done this week, but I’ll circle back to see when we can get together and schedule the time to do it,” Troup said after Wednesday’s Aeronautics Committee meeting. “I want to keep it moving. We definitely want to respond to (the Department of Transportation) in January.”

Air Wisconsin, Cape Air and Contour made presentations Wednesday to the subcommittee created by Troup. That group eventually will make a recommendation to the Quincy City Council. 

The airline selected must help Quincy’s enplanement count climb above 10,000 so the airport can qualify for $1 million in federal funding. The last year Quincy reached that level was 2019. The airport received federal funding in 2020, 2021 and 2022 because of COVID waivers.

Three members of the subcommittee — Roger Lipcaman, Mark Heidbreder and Don Carpenter — said their top choice is Contour.

CEO Matt Chaifetz told the subcommittee about how his airline has consistently helped airports see increases in enplanements, touting his 30-seat jets and track record of “rehabilitating” cities decimated by poor service. 

He also suggested alternate EAS service for Quincy instead of traditional EAS service. He explained that traditional EAS is a contract between the Department of Transportation and the airline director, while the Department of Transportation reimburses the community in an alternate EAS contract. 

Chaifetz also said an alternate EAS contract would allow Quincy to easily adjust the number of times it flies into an airport. He’s offering 12 flights a week to Chicago as well as an option that calls for seven flights a week to Chicago and five flights a week to Nashville.

“I think we offer a differentiated product,” Chaifetz said after his meeting with the subcommittee. “I think it is a passenger experience that people just happen to be more comfortable with — having a lavatory, a flight attendant, flying faster and higher above weather. Quite frankly, we’ve run a very reliable operation, and I think our reliability and our services also play a role in that.”

Heidbreder, a recently retired corporation pilot, said he would recommend Contour.

“I think Cape Air provides a good product, but I think the small airplane mentality and offering fewer seats (a limit of seven) through the wintertime hurts,” he said. “I like what (Chaifetz) was saying about going to an alternative. I don’t know what the committee will decide. I think they should stick with (12 weekly flights to Chicago), but if they do decide to (fly to) Nashville, you can try Nashville and then pivot from that.”

Carpenter agreed on Contour.

“I like Contour the best,” he said. “They’re already (providing EAS service) in Kirksville (Mo.), and they may very well be in Burlington (Iowa, where Contour also is bidding for EAS service). We could have a kind of tri-state arrangement here, and that could lead to all sorts of things.”

Asked if he was OK with an airline not offering flights to St. Louis, Carpenter said, “I drive to St. Louis.”

Lipcaman, head of Knapheide Manufacturing’s air operations, thought Contour’s 12 weekly flights on a 30-seat jet offered a better chance of helping Quincy reach 10,000 enplanements than Cape Air’s proposal of 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 on nine-seat twin-propellor planes. Aaron Blinka, vice president of Cape Air, told the subcommittee his planes would likely be capped at seven passengers for flights during the winter months. 

“If you take 36 flights a week times 52 weeks, (Cape Air) has to average 5.1 people,” Lipcaman said. “For four months, (the flights are) all going to have seven seats, so they’re at  80 percent capacity. I mean, I can’t see an 80 percent load factor, yeah. To have 12 flights a week (with Contour) times 52 weeks, you’re looking at a 16-passenger capacity on every flight to reach 10,000. There you’re looking at 50% capacity.”

Chaifetz told the subcommittee that Air Wisconsin was “effectively just terminated” by American Airlines in December, which is why it was bidding for its first EAS contract in Quincy.

Mecki Kosin, owner of the Travel House in Quincy, said she didn’t like Chaifetz’s presentation “at all.” She didn’t like how Chaifetz didn’t use a PowerPoint presentation like the other two airline representatives did.

“I didn’t think he was that well prepared, but to then bad mouth everybody else that was there today, I don’t like that,” she said. “If can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.”

Carpenter said he thought Chaifetz complimented the other two airlines.

“But he threw them under the bus first,” she said. “He basically told us that Air Wisconsin lied when they said they had a codeshare (agreement) with American (Airlines). (Robert Binns with Air Wisconsin) said they had a codeshare. If they have a codeshare, then they haven’t been severed (by American Airlines).”

Kosin then said she would prefer going with Cape Air to keep the Quincy-to-St. Louis flights.

“Twelve flights to Chicago only isn’t going to do it,” she said. “We need St Louis.”

She said her company did $3.5 million in sales from Apple Vacations, which has charter flights out of St. Louis to Cancun, Montego Bay, Punta Cana and Puerto Vallarta. She said she couldn’t offer similar packages on Quincy flights to Nashville, and “people don’t want to fly out of O’Hare.”

Neither Troup nor subcommittee member Ron Frillman was willing to make a choice based on what they heard Wednesday.

“I couldn’t right now,” Troup said. “There’s a lot of information for us to digest.”

“I guess the issue is between jets and frequency,” Frillman said. “That’s the call.”