For the week of June 25 - July 1, 2003

Chamber, SV Co. seek daily Bay Area flights

Partners eye grant to guarantee revenues

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

The Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber and Visitors Bureau and Sun Valley Co. are working together to bring daily flight service from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Wood River Valley.

Carol Waller, executive director of the Chamber, said last week that the two entities have been negotiating with Seattle-based Horizon Air to initiate one daily round-trip flight—from either Oakland or San Jose—to Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey. As proposed, the service would initially be operated from Dec. 15, 2003, to April 1, 2004, and could be instated in future years if it attracted a sufficient number of passengers during the first phase.

"We are deciding which city would be better," Waller said. "We know that the Bay Area is our number two California market."

To help secure the service, the Chamber and Sun Valley Co. are planning to submit a grant application to the U.S. Department of Transportation for funds that would in effect guarantee Horizon a specific level of revenue from providing the flights.

The grant would be administered through the Small Community Air Services Development Pilot Program, the same federal program that last year issued a revenue-guarantee grant that helped bring Horizon Air daily flight service from Los Angeles to Hailey.

Waller said the grant application will be submitted by the end of the month. She said the application will likely request a sum between $100,000 and $200,000, but her office had not yet determined an exact figure that would be needed to ensure Horizon would not lose money on the project.

Waller noted that implementation of the new flight service is not absolutely contingent upon receipt of the grant, but said the grant is a "pretty big part" of the proposal. As the entity that signs the revenue guarantee with Horizon, Sun Valley Co. would ultimately make the decision as to whether a guarantee would be offered without federal grant dollars to support it, she said.

She added that the odds the pending grant application will be approved are "much slimmer" than those related to last year’s application for funds to support the Los Angeles service, primarily because significantly more competing grant applications are expected to be filed this year.

"We’re giving it our best shot," she said.

Like the grant that guarantees revenues for Los Angeles flight service, the federal funds would be issued to the city of Hailey and then transferred to Sun Valley Co. as needed to pay Horizon for revenue shortfalls.

Waller noted that the Los Angeles flight program is doing "well," but after a noticeable decrease in passengers during the spring months, the parties to the service contract are considering reducing the number of off-season flights provided in the future.

If implemented, the Bay Area flight service would use the same 70-passenger jets that Horizon uses to fly from Los Angeles to Hailey.

Waller said the Chamber is conducting a survey of Wood River Valley visitors, residents and part-time residents to determine whether they would prefer flight service to Oakland or San Jose. San Jose is approximately 40 miles south of Oakland and San Francisco.

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