Seaport Airlines Will Fly Daily

to Oakland & Burbank For $59

September 18,2014

The Visalia City Council this week decided to wave goodbye to Great Lakes Airlines and welcome SeaPort Airlines to serve Visalia through the federal Essential Air Service (ESA). The vote was 3 to 2 to go with Seaport rather than quit the ESA program altogether and qualify to receive $2.9 million for airport use. According to a city staff report that ‘take the money’ option was second best, saying it” would provide substantial benefit to the airport, but having reliable air service provides a greater benefit to the community.” All agreed Visalia has had enough of Great Lakes Airlines who have served the city for several years.”They ended up being unreliable and chased away business with their frequent cancellations” says city council member Warren Gubler who sat on a city subcommittee to recommend to the council which of five airline proposals to accept. The subcommittee had recommended Portland-based SeaPort who will fly daily routes to Oakland and Burbank if the Department of Transportation (DOT) approves the city’s recommendation as expected. Service is likely to start toward the end of this year. SeaPort will fly the 9 passenger Cessna Caravan. The Caravan is a non-pressurized, single engine aircraft. While this aircraft effectively has the same number of seats as the Great Lakes Beechcraft 1900, it is a non-pressurized, single engine aircraft and some travelers may have an aversion to flying on those aircraft notes the city staff report. “I think people will get used to them” suggests Gubler adding “this is the last best hope for the ESA in Visalia.”  City airport manager Mario Cifuentes says SeaPort has agreed to ”do the marketing necessary put people in the seats.” DOT has stated that they intend, going forward, to enforce compliance with the EAS statute that prohibits the Department from subsidizing service to communities receiving per passenger subsidy amounts exceeding $200. As proposed, all communities receiving subsidies under the EAS program would have until September 20, 2015, based on data from October 1, 2014, through September 30, 2015, to ensure compliance with the $200 subsidy cap or face termination of subsidy eligibility. Accordingly, Visalia has just over a year of eligibility remaining if we don’t select an air carrier that can deliver reliable service and board enough passengers to keep the per passenger subsidy below $200 says the report. Visalians would rather fly to LAX and the report notes that – but the service to date has been bad through Great Lakes who has been having pilot shortage issues across their service areas. ”The vast majority of our passengers have a history of flying on United Airlines and their code share partners. Almost 90% of our regular passengers continue on to other airports by connecting in LAX. Unfortunately, given the subsidy amounts requested in the proposals this go around, we have to look more favorably on carriers that can carry the most passengers to the connecting airport if we’re to remain under the $200 per passenger subsidy cap. For instance, given the projected passenger totals included in the proposal from Great Lakes and their requested subsidy amount, we will exceed the $200 per passenger subsidy on an annual basis. Since the submital of their proposal, Great Lakes has promised to add a 19 passenger aircraft (to replace the current 9 seat configuration) back to the service pattern, but the subcommittee has no guarantee as to when or if that will happen. Unless they are willing to provide a third daily departure, the Subcommittee cannot recommend that Council support a proposal that is projected to exceed the cap.”

SeaPort Offers $59 Fare

SeaPort does not have landing rights at LAX. But Gubler points to the fact that both Burbank and Oakland have good connections including international flights out of Oakland.  Also, SeaPort Airlines announced a few weeks ago 4 nonstop flights between Burbank and San Diego International Airport (SAN) beginning on October 1, 2014. The proposal for Visalia is for a mix of daily one-stop and nonstop flights to Burbank-San Diego and Merced-Oakland. Fares would start at $59 per one way trip to Burbank and Oakland.  SeaPort is proposing a total of 24 departures per week, 12 to BUR and 12 to OAK; resulting in 216 available seats per week. Gubler says unlike the other proposals, with SeaPort ”whatever happens with Merced does not affect us” with the DOT ending ESA for Merced this summer. Merced has appealed the decision. If the Visalia council had decided to exit the ESA program, the city could use some of the money from DOT to subsidize a charter ground transit service to connect to Fresno and Bakersfield airports suggested council member Greg Collins who with Steve Nelsen was on the losing side of the 3 to 2 vote. In the past four years the subsidized flights from Visalia have attracted from 8 to 11 daily passengers.