In a surprise move, the Department of Transportation has awarded the Essential Air Service contract for the Alliance Municipal Airport, rejecting a bid voted on by the Alliance City Council to have Contour Airlines serve the community.
The City Council voted to approve an agreement with Contour Airlines at their meeting on Jan. 21, a company that offered to use a jet with 30 seats available. The contract was set to take effect on June 1, though the ultimate decision rested with the U.S. Department of Transportation, which delayed their decision over the summer.
“We’re moving forward under the assumption that DOT will accept Contour and we’ll be working on the budget amendment in the mean time,” said City Manager Seth Sorensen in January. “We tried to answer everybody’s questions at the meeting. I think this represents a really big opportunity for Alliance to capture some of the customers that we’re not currently serving. I’m really hopeful that this is going to be a success.”
Sorensen said they submitted the request for jet service to the Department of Transportation and that they gave an extension for service to Denver Air Connection while they considered the proposal.
“We were getting a little bit worried toward the end of August, because that’s when the time was going to run out,” Sorensen said. “Late on the 27th (of August) we got word that Denver Air Connection was going to be appointed for four years starting Sept. 1.”
The contract will last for four years, with Denver Air Connection offering 12 weekly round-trip flights to Denver International Airport for 17 weeks a year, and 14 weekly round-trip flights between Alliance and Denver for 35 weeks a year. The flights will be offered on a nine-seat Metroliner 23 turboprop aircraft.
Sorensen said that the Department of Transportation stated in their notification to the City of Alliance that if the contract with Contour Airlines for a jet were approved, it would put undue pressure on other regional Essential Air Service airports.
“We’re trying to find out more about what that means,” said Sorensen. “Denver Air Connection did also win the bid for Chadron. We’re grateful that we continue to be funded by the federal government so that we can provide commercial flights. If they were not subsidizing those flights, there’s no way that we could pick up that kind of slack. It gets used. Every time I drive out to the airport, the parking lot’s pretty full.”
Denver Air Connection issued a statement in a press release, thanking the Department of Transportation for selecting them to serve Alliance.
“DAC wishes to express our gratitude to the Department of Transportation for its continued trust in our reliability,” said Jon Coleman, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at Denver Air Connection. “Alliance was our first EAS route, and we are pleased to continue our partnership with the community. We will work diligently with the City to establish a schedule for the extended service awarded to Alliance by the DOT.”