Nov. 2—MARION — Cape Air has filed a notice to terminate service at Veterans Airport of Southern Illinois, along with service at airports in Owensboro and Kirksville, in order to rebid the same routes with the U.S. Department of Transportation under the essential air service program.
"The existing fixed-rate EAS contracts at Marion, Kirksville and Owensboro have become financially unsustainable for Cape Air in the current inflationary environment," Cape Air officials said in a press release.
This will allow Cape Air to account for today's expenses as compared to expenses when they bid the contracts in 2019.
Cape Air does not intend to stop flying out of Veterans Airport. Flights, schedules and fares won't change during this time.
The process itself should take 90 days for DOT to make their selection.
Airport Director Doug Kimmel said Cape Air currently is under a four-year contract that was bid in 2019, based on their expected costs. That was before the pandemic and the current rate of inflation.
The current contract would have expired at the end of 2023. The process for bidding a new contract would have taken place in the late spring or early summer of 2023.
Kimmel said this will move the process forward a little quicker.
The next step will be for U.S. DOT to put out a request for proposals with a deadline.
"It will be interesting to see who bids," Kimmel said.
Skywest submitted a proposal for air service in Marion in 2019, but they have pulled out of many of their smaller airports, such as Paducah and Cape Girardeau. Kimmel said they wanted to get back into smaller markets, but they may not be ready to do that in January. They have to have the pilots and planes to offer service.
He said they may not see additional bids.
"We won't have the answers before the first of the year," Kimmel said.
He added that this is also an opportunity for Cape Air to adjust their schedule of flights from the airport based on ridership. They may add new fights to Nashville or drop the Nashville flights based on the riders they have on their planes.
The airline is back to the pre-COVID-19 number of riders, according to Kimmel.
Once the bids are submitted, the next step will be to gather input from the airport and community. In 2019, Veterans Airport had a link on their website to the proposals. They may do that again for proposals.
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