The Airport Committee’s nomination to be the next airline carrier to jointly serve Fort Leonard Wood, Waynesville and St. Robert is Cape Air, the Daily Guide has learned.
Cape Air and Air Choice One, the other contender for the potentially lucrative air-traffic business from Forney Field, gave final-hour pitches to members of the Airport Committee over coffee at 8 a.m. Monday at Smitty’s in west Waynesville.
An ensuing e-mail vote tally of board members ruled in favor of Cape Air, a board member later confirmed.
A formal announcement is forthcoming, but officials were waiting for a joint statement from representatives of both Waynesville and St. Robert. A recommendation also is expected from officials at Fort Leonard Wood.
The committee, consisting of Waynesville, St. Robert and airport officials, was drafting its recommendation letter Monday late afternoon to submit to Department of Transportation officials in Washington, D.C.
While this decision is only a recommendation that must be forwarded to DOT officials by today’s deadline, the recommendation still must be approved by those federal authorities.
However, more than one board member pointed out that seldom does a federal agency go against the recommendation of a local aeronautics board, especially when the decision is with an established carrier and Essential Air Service success story such as Cape Air.
The program at Forney Field is funded by federal EAS dollars.
While Cape Air does business out of Cape Girardeau, it is a subsidiary of Hyannis Air Service, Inc., an airline headquartered at Barnstable Municipal Airport in Barnstable, Mass.
It operates scheduled passenger services in the Northeast, Florida, the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic States, Midwest, and Micronesia.
Flights in Micronesia are operated as Continental Connection flights through a code share partnership with Continental Airlines. Flights between Hyannis and Nantucket, Mass., are operated under the Nantucket Airlines brand, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cape Air.
The big draw for Cape Air and its competition, Air Choice One, is that it offers service to St. Louis.
The airline was co-founded in 1988 by company pilots Craig Stewart and Dan Wolf and investor Grant Wilson.
Initially, Cape Air flew between Provincetown and Boston, but throughout the early 1990s new routes were added to destinations across southeastern New England. Services in Florida and the Caribbean were added in the late 1990s, and service in Micronesia commenced in 2004. In 1994, Cape Air and Nantucket Airlines merged and now offer hourly flights between Nantucket and Hyannis.
In late 2007, the airline began a new round of expansion in the Northeast and Midwest. On Nov. 1, 2007, the airline began service between Boston and Rutland, Vt.,, with three daily round trips. The route is subsidized by the U.S. government under the Essential Air Service (EAS) program, such as it would be at Forney Field.
With the help of a government grant, Cape Air expanded into Indiana on Nov. 13, 2007, offering flights from Indianapolis to Evansville and South Bend. The airline did not get the passengers numbers needed to be financially successful once subsidies would come to an end. The last Cape Air flight in Indiana was on Aug. 31, 2008.
Air Choice One, who was a finalist, is an airline with headquarters in Farmington, Mo. It acts as a regional airline offering commuter flights between Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (serving St. Louis, Missouri) and Kirksville, Missouri subsidized under the Essential Air Service program.
Owned by Multi-Aero, Air Choice One was founded in 1979 under the name Multi-Aero Corporation. In October 2009 Air Choice One won the EAS contract to serve Decatur, Ill., and Burlington, Iowa.
Cape Air was also looking to offer service on the west coast.
Cape Air reportedly submitted bids to offer service between Newport and Portland in the state of Oregon.
The airline was hoping to be selected by the Newport city council to receive a financial grant to jump-start the service. Ultimately, it lost out to another local airline which was able to get the service going sooner than the 2010 date that Cape Air had submitted.
Forney Field is a potentially lucrative market, as evidenced by the increase in fuel sales from June to July, as recently reported during the Waynesville City Council meeting.
Fuel sales have skyrocketed from just more than 2,000 gallons in June to 3,100 gallons in July.
