KXO RADIO - Flight service may continue

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Todays is : Friday, 09 January 2009

Written by George Gale
Thursday, 20 November 2008
(Passenger air service to continue at County Airport)…..The service is currently provided by Skywest Airlines. Recently Skywest announced they would cease operations. It now looks like they will continue. The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a letter of support to be sent to the Department of Transportation. The letter supports the continued passenger air service at Imperial County Airport. Airport Director Steve Birdsall told the Board that two bids had been submitted to the Department of Transportation to provide the local service. It would be subsidized by the Federal Government because the local airport has been determined to be an essential airport. Birdsall said the Skywest submitted a bid of over $600,000. The bid from a Great Lakes Company is for over $1 million. He said the contract would probably go to the low bidder. Birdsall said service will probably not change, with two round trips six days per week, and one round trip on Saturday. Birdsall said the flight times might change, however. He said he has discussed the issue with Skywest and explained to them the reason they were losing money may have been because of the inconvenience of the times their flights were scheduled.