Earlier, later flights proposed

Plan would drop Sacramento flight

Local residents may soon be able to fly out of Crescent City earlier in the morning and return later at night.

That would come at the expense, however, of losing one of three airline flights a day in and out of the local airport.

Currently SkyWest Airlines flies twice a day nonstop to San Francisco and once to Sacramento via Arcata.

SkyWest has proposed dropping the Sacramento flight and changing one of the San Francisco flights to an earlier departure and later return.

That time change has long been sought by some airline passengers, but “it’s a net loss of three to two flights,” said Airport Manager Jim Bernard.

At the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority meeting Thursday, Bernard said that SkyWest has not specified the new departure and return times. SkyWest wants the changes to go into effect in September, he added.

Authority Chairman David Finigan said an early morning flight “prior to the logjam” at San Francisco International Airport could more easily get people to Sacramento or all the way to the East Coast in the same day.

The new schedule, he added, could entice more people to fly out of the local airport, which eventually could lead to more flights.

“If the demand is there, we can put the third flight back,” Finigan said.

Board members seemed happy with SkyWest’s proposal, but wanted to see a new flight schedule before making any decisions.

Responses of local airport patrons in a survey done last summer indicated that people wanted an earlier flight to San Francisco in order to catch connecting flights to other cities.

Currently, the two San Francisco flights leave at about 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. and return flights are at about noon and 6 p.m.

In addition, people with business in Sacramento were unhappy with the current flight’s evening departure around 6:30 p.m. and the morning return at about 8:30 a.m. Coming back later in the day requires a stop in San Francisco.

Because on average there are only a handful of people on the Sacramento flight, the airport board had requested that SkyWest replace it with a third San Francisco flight that left earlier in the day.

According to Bernard, SkyWest officials thought that was too risky.

“Looking at their numbers,” he said, “two flights a day meets our need.”

Bernard said the U.S. Department of Transportation, which manages the federal Essential Air Service program that subsidizes flights at the local airport, would have to approve SkyWest’s proposal.

According to the EAS program,  he said, SkyWest only has to provide access to one hub and current “passenger  load is accommodated by two flights.”

Bernard said that SkyWest will submit its proposed new flight schedule to the board soon.