YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
YOUR BUSINESS AUTHORITY
Springfield, MO
The U.S. Department of Transportation selected Mesa to provide essential air service (EAS) to the airport for the next two years. The airline will get an annual subsidy of $849,757.
The department selected the least expensive of the three options presented by the two carriers bidding to provide the service. City officials had said they favored a second option presented by Mesa that would have offered flights to Kansas City and Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
The second option would have given the airport 12 nonstop roundtrips a week to Dallas/Fort Worth, plus six nonstop roundtrips a week to Kansas City with an annual subsidy of $1,149,875.
“We are unable to conclude that the Dallas/Fort Worth element contained in Option Two makes that choice so superior to Option One as to justify the much higher subsidy,” the department wrote in its decision. “In fact, from a perspective of service quality, there are reasons to believe that the all-Kansas City service of Option One is at least as good.”
The department noted Mesa’s code-share alliances with both US Airways and America West at Kansas City and lack of an agreement with American Airlines, the dominant carrier at Dallas/Fort Worth.
The third option, presented by Regions Air, proposed 19 nonstop roundtrips a week to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport with an annual subsidy of $1.3 million. All three options called for service on 19-seat turbo-prop aircraft.
The department needed to select a new EAS carrier for Joplin after TransStates Airlines announced its intention to leave the airport. TransStates, operating in Joplin as AmericanConnections, currently offers 14 nonstop roundtrips a week between Joplin and St. Louis. The annual subsidy is $755,762.
Mesa expects to begin operating out of Joplin in the next 60 to 90 days. TransStates will continue to serve the airport until then.
The department said it was willing to consider authorizing service to Dallas/Fort Worth.
Jeff Wells is editor of Joplin Tri-State Business, SBJ’s sister publication. This story originally appeared in SBJ’s May 15 free e-news Daily Update. Click here to register.[[In-content Ad]]
Under construction beside the existing Republic branch of the Springfield-Greene County Library District – which remains in operation throughout the project – is a new building that will double the size of the original, according to library officials.