Nonstop L.A.-Hailey
jet connection planned
By TRAVIS
PURSER
Express Staff Writer
Daily
nonstop jet service between Hailey and Los Angeles could begin next year,
if negotiations among Sun Valley Co., the Ketchum-Sun Valley Chamber of
Commerce and an Oklahoma-based airline go well.
A
35-passenger Fairchild Dornier jet capable of nonstop flights to Los
Angeles lands in Hailey on Saturday. Negotiations are underway for Great
Plains Airlines to begin offering regularly scheduled nonstop flights to
Los Angeles as early as next summer. Express
photo by David Seelig
The new and
unusual route would bypass the national hub system set up by the country’s
largest airlines. For the first time, travelers would be able to fly
between Los Angeles and Hailey without first going to Salt Lake City, or
some other metropolis. A new kind of small, powerful, long-range jet makes
the route possible.
Those
involved with the deal say it would boost the tourist economy here because
travel from Los Angeles would be reduced to an easy hour-and-45-minute
flight. The trip, with a plane change, now takes several hours.
Also,
current flights involve relatively unpopular turboprop planes. An all-jet
trip may encourage more travel, say those involved with the deal.
Few details
of the ongoing negotiations are available. However, Jim Swartz, cofounder
of the tiny Great Plains Airlines, said his company is in discussions with
Fairchild Dornier representatives to purchase a 35-passenger regional jet
for the route. Before that happens, Sun Valley Co. and maybe other Wood
River Valley businesses would need to offer a suitable financial guarantee
that the airline won’t lose money on the new route, he said. The
guarantee could run into millions of dollars.
Great
Plains Airlines cofounder Jim Swartz said the newly formed airline’s
niche "is to operate…where competitors cannot offer service."
Express photo by David Seelig
Also yet to
be decided is the number of flights per day and whether the flights would
be year-round or only during the busy winter season.
Fares would
be competitive with general market prices, airline cofounder Jack Knight
said.
On
Saturday, Swartz and other Great Plains representatives flew into Hailey
in one of the company’s two existing Fairchild Dornier jets for a
show-and-tell session.
The group
that watched from the tarmac as the small white-and-green plane circled
Hailey about 12:30 p.m. and landed from the north with surprisingly little
noise included Hailey Mayor Brad Siemer, state Sen. Clint Stennett,
D-Ketchum, chamber of commerce director Carol Waller, Sun Valley Co.
director of marketing Jack Sibbach, and airport manager Rick Baird.
The plane
arrived from Salt Lake City, where Sun Valley Co. owner Earl Holding had
toured it with "extraordinarily positive" reactions, Knight
said. At 4 p.m. Saturday, the plane continued its trip to Jackson, Wyo.,
where Knight and Swartz hope to also begin offering nonstop flights to
major metropolitan areas.
People in
the airline industry refer to Great Plains as a "hub bypass
airline" because it focuses on directly connecting small markets like
Sun Valley with larger markets that are hard to reach through the hub
system. New jet technology makes this possible. Representatives for Hailey’s
current airlines, Horizon and SkyWest, have said that their smallest jets,
at about 70 passengers, cannot take off at full capacity from the high
mountain environment. So they won’t offer jet service.
Great
Plains pilot Kathy Birkhofer said Saturday that the $11 million Fairchild
Dornier was built with powerful engines and other features specifically
for airports like Hailey’s.
The niche
of Great Plains, which began flying its only existing route between
Oklahoma City and Albuquerque on May 25, "is to operate the airplane
where competitors cannot offer service," Swartz said.
Great
Plains Airlines was formed in December 2000 as a private-public
partnership in Tulsa, Okla. A coalition of Tulsa-area chambers of commerce
and city and state political leaders helped start the airline with Swartz
and Knight through a specially created tax credit incentive program, the
company’s Web site states.
Hailey
airport manager Baird was enthusiastic about the recent changes in
aircraft technology and in the airline industry.
"We
believe an aircraft like this is the future of an airport like ours,"
he said after touring the plane Saturday.