New carrier at DuBois Regional Airport to help keep essential air service

REYNOLDSVILLE - In May, the Department of Transportation recommended six airports in Pennsylvania lose their Essential Air Service. That list included airports in Cambria, Blair and Jefferson counties.

Monday, the DOT made that decision final. These airports will lose their EAS in 30 days unless they petition for a waiver.

EAS is how the government pays to keep passenger flights going to small airports.

DOT is eliminating EAS at airports because it either did not enplane an average of 10 or more passengers per day and/or the subsidy rate per passenger exceeded $200.

DuBois received $2.2 million in subsidies, but has a rate per passenger of $324.

U.S. Rep. Glenn 'GT' Thompson announced that the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded Southern Airways Express, LLC (Southern) a contract to provide commercial air service flights from the DuBois Regional Airport (DUJ) to Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) and Baltimore/Washington International-Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).

Southern Airways will provide DUJ with 19 weekly nonstop round trips to BWI and 19 weekly nonstop round trips to PIT.

Silver Airways was the carrier at DUJ for the last four years.

"The reliability of Southern airlines is impeccable and the pricing is great," Dave Stern, board member of the Clearfield-Jefferson Counties Regional Airport Authority, said. "People don't believe me but they're going to have $25 flights to Pittsburgh three times a day on most days of the week."

In 2015, DuBois had 6,793 passengers fly in and out at a rate per passenger of $324.

Southern Airways will now provide 19 weekly nonstop round trips to Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

"The hope is that with the new carrier and the pricing and new destinations that passenger enplanements will increase and once our passenger enplanements increase, our per seat cap will be reduced," Airport Manager Bob Shaffer said. "Southern Airways estimates we'll be under that by hopefully early spring."

Southern Airways won the bid out of five others and will serve as the carrier for the next two yeas.

"We've had calls from two CEO's of companies that talked to our airport manger that are really excited about the changes and guaranteed us dozens of flights each week," Stern said.

DuBois plans to petition the DOT for a waiver with Southern Airways as its main argument.

"The airport authority heard loud and clear from the community that going back to Pittsburgh was an essential thing they wanted to see," Shaffer said. "So we're looking to provide that service to them, to get them back to Pittsburgh International as well as Baltimore/Washington International."

If an airport at jeopardy does not file a waiver application, DOT will terminate subsidy for EAS on Dec. 31, 2016, and the air carrier may terminate service on or after that date.

For a previous story, click here.

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