After the bad news that Seattle-based Horizon Air had decided to not resume winter service between Oakland, Calif., and Friedman Memorial Airport, the good news was quick to follow: Horizon would resume its winter service between Los Angeles and the Hailey airport.
This route was opened in 2003, according to Carol Waller, executive director of the Sun Valley/Ketchum Chamber & Visitor's Bureau, and for several years required subsidies from the federal government and directly from Sun Valley Co. Waller said for the past several years a standby subsidy—a Minimum Revenue Guarantee—of $485,000 has not been tapped. Contributions from the valley business community account for half the fund, while the other half was donated by Sun Valley Co.
The daily nonstop Los Angeles flights begin Dec. 19 and will continue through March 30, 2009.
A Horizon Air spokesperson said information and reservations might be available as early as this weekend at the airline's Web site—www.alaskaair.com.
Horizon Air, which is one of two airlines serving Friedman (SkyWest is the other), has launched a major financial retrenching. It has announced it eventually will eliminate all of its small regional jets, and use only 70 to 78 passenger Bombardier Q400 turboprops of the type serving Friedman.
Nationwide cutbacks in air service have come at an inopportune time for the valley. The new Fly Sun Valley Alliance had been counting on some type of new direct service by Frontier Airlines to Friedman from Denver, which would have linked to major cities nationwide.
However, Frontier has fallen victim to the same crisis of fuel costs that has forced air carriers into sharp reductions in service. The Denver service is at least temporarily improbable.
As Waller noted in the announcement of the Horizon Air Los Angeles service, the community is hamstrung in trying to promote nonstop service to other cities by operational limitations of Friedman that restrict flights to certain aircraft because of safety rules imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
