QUINCY —Following an hour-long meeting at Quincy’s City Hall Wednesday determined that the best option for air travel from Quincy is a return to jet service.
With three finalists on the table, the special Essential Air Service committee agreed to recommend Contour Airlines to be the new EAS provider. The company’s proposal would see 12 flights a week on a CRJ-200 jet with 30 passenger seats on each flight.
The recommendation will be taken up at Tuesday’s Quincy City Council meeting.
Two other airlines were in the final running, but committee members had concerns over both.
Air Wisconsin was proposing the same size aircraft outfitted with 50 seats. A concern was raised was that the company only had limited experience providing flights under EAS contracts, as well as the added expense of additional fire safety requirements for the higher-capacity flights.
The other contender was Cape Air, Quincy’s EAS provider until 2022 when they terminated their contract due to pilot shortages leading to lower reliability. Cape Air was proposing a return of nine-seat propeller aircraft.
Committee members raised concerns over the idea that Cape Air could fly with a single pilot. At a presentation on Jan. 8, Cape Air’s Aaron Blinka said the plan was to have both a pilot and co-pilot on every flight with back-ups available, but he said in an extremely rare occurrence when a co-pilot couldn’t fly and a back-up wasn’t available, the planes were permitted to fly with only a pilot.
Even if those situations would be a rarity, the possibility was a concern that led the committee members to weigh that heavily against the company.
Contour CEO Matt Chaifetz told the committee at the Jan. 8 presentation that he would recommend not flying from Quincy to St. Louis due to the relatively close proximity. He suggested Nashville, a frequent stop for Contour, as a second destination.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the committee elected to add the recommendation that the service, if approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation, only carry flights to Chicago to begin with.
Committee Member and Travel House of Quincy owner Mecki Kosin said she doesn’t believe there would be enough demand to fill flights to Nashville, and with only 12 flights per week, she believes the allocation should go into more frequent flights to Chicago to accommodate a wider array of schedules for travelers.
One concern raised turned out to be something of a perk with the Contour proposal. Several committee members asked if there would be any added burden on the city since Contour operates under what’s called an Alternate EAS contract. This means that the airline would actually contract directly with the city, rather than with the USDOT. The city would receive payment from the federal government and then pay the carrier, as opposed to the carrier getting paid by the federal agency.
Mayor Mike Troup said the contract would essentially be a standard contract from the USDOT, but would be reviewed and approved by the city’s legal department. As for the payments, he said that would not be any added burden.
“There’s nothing there that we don’t work with every week anyway,” Troup said. “We’re currently working with federal grants that total over $36 million and that’s how it’s done. They pay us and we pay the contractors.”
The added benefit of the Alternate EAS contract is it allows the city and the carrier to make changes to flight schedules and even destinations without waiting weeks or months for federal approval.
If approved by the City Council, the recommendation will be submitted to the USDOT, which will make the final approval and determine when the new carrier will take over the contract.