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Home » Law In Travel » Conservative U.S. State Wants to Create its Own Airline
Law In TravelNews

Conservative U.S. State Wants to Create its Own Airline

Matthew Klint Posted onSeptember 4, 2017November 14, 2023 16 Comments

a river with trees and mountains in the background

The State of Wyoming, in the western USA, finds itself between a rock and hard place. Without perpetual generous subsidies, it cannot sustain commercial air service to smaller airports. But a lack of air access to international hubs hurts state commerce and limits quality of life. Thus, the largely conservative state is looking into (essentially) starting its own airline in order to ensure air service to eight Wyoming airports.

While demand is the main culprit, two things have hurt Wyoming. First, airlines are retiring smaller 50-seat regional jets which were well-suited to balance demand to/from smaller Wyoming cities. Second, legislation that emerged from the deadly crash of a Continental Connection flight in 2009 requires pilots to have more flight hours prior to flying commercial. Wyoming blames both of these for its commercial air service woes.

Wyoming could keep throwing money at the issue via subsidies, but legislators are proposing a different plan of attack:

The Wyoming Department of Transportation has a possible, if ambitious, fix. The agency wants to contract with airlines to provide regular service to airports in the state, similar to how large airlines like United contract with smaller carriers like GoJet to provide regional air service.

This is called a capacity purchase agreement. Each airport would in Wyoming would set the frequency, destination, number of seats, and price of flights. In exchange, the contract carrier would be paid a negotiated rate. Obviously, this would be pricier than a simple revenue guarantee via tax-breaks or other subsidies.

The Goal: Shuttle to Denver

The core goal would be bringing three daily round-trip flights to Denver to all nine Wyoming airports with commercial air service, ideally with prices aligned with national averages and few to no cancellations or delays. While the program’s proposed model could eventually be built out to include connection to other hubs such as Minneapolis or Dallas, Denver remains the largest regional hub for Wyoming, with connections to carriers like United, Southwest and Frontier.

Such a plan would implicate the following airports:

  • Casper
  • Cheyenne
  • Gillette
  • Rock Springs
  • Riverton
  • Laramie
  • Cody
  • Sheridan

Well-served Jackson is not on the list…

Let’s not kid ourselves. Airfare to Wyoming is more expensive because of limited demand. Contracting with airlines to operate on a pre-specified schedule rather than one that suits the airline will only boost ticket prices up further. I hope Wyoming has examined real costs and how much it will have to subsidize airfare to make it “affordable”.

CONCLUSION

Wyoming’s concept is neither new nor novel. I am highly skeptical that it will work without being an egregious subsidy to air travelers at the expense of other Wyoming residents. At the same time, I understand that a lack of air access limits commerce and can be commercially destructive. We’ll see how this plays out.

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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16 Comments

  1. Lack Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 7:55 am

    They can’t lower the bar on pilot qualification though, can they?

    I suspect taking out the element of uncertain revenue should increase appeal to the carries (lowering the cost), and it being a non-profit endeavor might cut further % from the bottom line, but that would probably be quickly eaten up by the higher fixed costs associated with lower volume operations.

    Perhaps they could lure Cape Air service? Cessnas should be much easier to fill.

  2. DaninMCI Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 8:03 am

    The regional jet issue is an excuse. United has a whole fleet of Q400 prop planes in Denver for just one example.
    I like Wyoming but they need to narrow this down a bit. It’s a big remote place but they have service into Jackson hole and Cheyenne isn’t really that far from Denver but might be able to support air service. Add in say two or three other airports not spread it out over eight. Other rural states like Kansas or Nebraska don’t have that many airports with spoke or hub service. Take Kansas for example. This is a huge aircraft state and basically you have Wichita, Garden City, Salina and nearby Kansas City Missouri. The other areas are supported by nearby airports like Joplin, Tulsa, Denver, Omaha, etc. So they really only have sub par service to two airports as far as I’m aware. Wyoming needs to rethink this I think.

    • UA-Fact Reply
      September 11, 2017 at 11:54 pm

      United does not operate any Q400s. They retired nearly 2 years ago.

  3. Don T Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 8:42 am

    MAGA

  4. Joseph Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 10:25 am

    I think they could go a charter route, and operate sub-30 passenger aircraft that don’t require TSA , similar to JetSuiteX, and use those to feed to Denver.

    • UA-Fact Reply
      September 11, 2017 at 11:56 pm

      That would defeat the purpose. They are clearly looking for legacy service without the legacy pricing. Picking up bags and transferring (going through security as well) would add enough time to the journey to sink the value proposition. This is already the case with Key Lime and they aren’t doing so hot.

  5. SurfinTX Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 11:36 am

    Having traveled this area by road I can tell you this plan is way too ambitious. Green River/Rock Springs is economically more tied to Salt Lake City than Cheyenne. At most it can handle a couple 20 or 30 seat planes daily. The non-elected commissions that come up with these ideas are not really conservative. The extremely rich are looking for subsidies so they can travel out to their ranch every few weeks without having to spend thousands of dollars chartering to these really small airports.

    • UA-Fact Reply
      September 11, 2017 at 11:58 pm

      RKS already has 2 daily 50 seat flights to Denver. It wouldn’t be hard for them to get a third. The bigger questions are places like Sheridan or Riverton.

  6. Jimmy Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 12:09 pm

    Cheyenne is a 90 minute drive from the Denver airport. Laramie is 2 hours. Have they considered a bus?

    • UA-Fact Reply
      September 11, 2017 at 11:59 pm

      Laramie already has several daily flights. Cheyenne is close, but so is COS. CYS in the not so distant past had ~6 daily 19 seater s to DEN.

  7. phoenix Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 4:52 pm

    Wait, wasn’t the words “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” the most TERRIFYING words in the English language??

  8. DaninMCI Reply
    September 4, 2017 at 6:35 pm

    @jimmy and @phoenix made me laugh out loud on this issue. Nice. Maybe they could just charter a Megabus

  9. Jake Reply
    September 5, 2017 at 1:43 pm

    Why should anyone who does not pay taxes in Wyoming give a hoot about this?

  10. GeezerInTraining Reply
    September 6, 2017 at 4:29 pm

    Apparently, the “invisible hand of the Free market” gave Wyoming the finger. Looks like it is time for the central government to step in and fix this ineffective free market.

  11. Ludwig Reply
    September 7, 2017 at 1:25 pm

    Leave it to thin skinned shallow thinking leftists to turn this into a conservative bashing issue. Sad.

  12. Pingback: Free Park Hyatt Stay, Your Face on Luggage, and 7 Years For Stealing a Guitar From Hilton - View from the Wing

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