Southeast Iowa Regional Airport Seeks to Switch from Air Choice One to Cape Air

Aug. 24—The Southeast Iowa Regional Airport no longer will fly Air Choice if the U.S. Department of Transportation accepts a request from the airport board.

"We had a public discussion, people gave their input and so based on those discussions, they put a resolution together to put together a recommendation to go with Cape Air," airport director Sara Sandburg explained.

The Airport Authority Board voted last week to accept a proposal from Cape Air, an airline with direct connection to American Airlines and indirect connections to other airlines, to offer flights from Burlington to Chicago and St. Louis.

"With Cape Air service, Burlington becomes an American Airlines city," Cape Air touted in its proposal.

Every so often, the airport is required to look at proposals from other airlines wanting to fly through Burlington and make recommendations to the federal government about which they should contract with to provide federally-subsidized .

Prior to accepting proposals, a seven-page request for proposal was sent out by the federal government detailing exactly what the airport was looking for in service providers. Proposals detailing what service the airlines are able to provide to the Burlington airport needed to be filed by Aug. 5 to be considered by the board.

Airlines only were allowed to select two airports fly to directly to and from Burlington.

There was also a minimum number of passengers to be seated required of the airlines. The airlines could choose to make either 24 round trips per week using plains seating eight or nine passengers or 12 round trips per week seating 30 to 50 passengers.

On Aug. 11, the airport board held a meeting to allow members of the public to review the proposal before the board voted on Aug. 18 to request that the DOT grant the contract to Cape Air.

Because Cape Air has contracts with American Airlines, those who would fly through Burlington will not need two separate itineraries to book flights going across the country or the world. Also unnecessary will be exiting the secure area and re-screening for connecting flights. Because baggage would automatically transfer, there would be no need for passengers to leave the secure area or have to go through security again.

Cape Air also boasts connections with Delta, United and Jet Blue, though it does not have the same level of connections as it does with American.

If selected, Cape Air would have two planes dedicated for Burlington service, with its pilots servicing Burlington living in Burlington. The planes, both Tecnam Travellers, were designed by Cape Air, feature nine seats and will have USB access for power.

Cape Air also gave the choice of two plans for the flight schedule. One plan was to offer 17 round-trip flights to Chicago and 72 to St. Louis each week. The other plan was to offer 12 round-trip flights to both Chicago and St. Louis each week. The plan with more Chicago flights would mean the airline would expect Burlington passengers to pay a bit more.

One of the key planks of the Air Choice One proposal was it had good service in Burlington.

Issues Air Choice One could control, such as mechanical issues with its planes, accounted for cancellations in less than 1% of its flights each of the three years of its contract with the Southeast Iowa Regional Airport.

Other cancellations were caused due to weather, which the airline points out as something any airline would have to deal with.

There's one thing, though, that Air Choice One had that its competitor did not, and that was an option to trade off St. Louis for Kansas City, Missouri. The airline had offered a base fare of $75 for business class and $47 for its standard service to Kansas City, the same price as it charges for St. Louis. Under this plan, there would be 17 round-trip flights to Chicago and seven round-trips to Kansas City per week .

Other flight plans offered in Air Choice One proposals include 17 and 7, 14 and 10 and 12 and 12 flight schedules for Chicago and St. Louis, respectively.

Air Choice One also said it would change which planes it would use to fly the Chicago route if it were to have been making 17 trips to Chicago instead of 12. Rather than using a Cessna Grand Caravan, like it has used in the past, the airline instead opted for a Beechcraft, which would make the trip 40 minutes faster and would be able to transport more baggage.

A Cessna would have been used for flights to Kansas City or St. Louis.

Both companies have proposed a 5% profit rate after expenses, coming in at about $185,000.

Air Choice One expected to spend about $50,000 in marketing, with about 40% of that going toward vouchers, charities and donations. Much of the rest was focused on digital marketing, with only about $11,000 going toward non-digital, non-event marketing.

Cape Air said it would spend about $52,000 on marketing but did not give an exact breakdown of its marketing costs. Both said they would include monthly trip giveaways in addition to other mediums of marketing.

Air Choice Ones prices for Chicago is set at $84 for a business fare and $41 for regular fare. Both include a personal item, a carry-on and a checked bag, but business includes an additional carry-on bag. Passengers would have the choice of paying for additional carry-on or additional checked bags.

Cape Air did not say what its baggage proposal was in its proposal given to the airport board.

According to its breakdowns, Cape Air expected about six passengers on each of its planes to Chicago and five or six on its flights to St. Louis. The average price of each pair would be $68 to Chicago and $58 to St. Louis, netting about $900,000, depending on the option chosen, with the 17 and 7 flight netting more money.

Air Choice One did not provide an estimate on how much passenger revenue it expects.

Subsidies to Air Choice One would be slightly cheaper than subsidies to Cape Air in both a two-year option and a four-year option.

Cape Air and Air Choice One were not the only airlines to offer proposals. Florida-based Southern Airways Express also entertained a vague proposal promising to work with the airport board to design the flight schedule and to have planes to meet these needs.

The DOT is expected to review the proposals and have a decision made sometime before the end of the year. The new contract would begin Feb. 1, 2022, and would last for two to four years.

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