During an El Dorado Airport Commission meeting earlier this month, Johnathan Estes, manager of South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field, said bids were being accepted for a federal contract to serve as the area's Essential Air Service provider.
The bidding period opened Sept. 27 and on Oct 10, Estes told commissioners that only one airline, the San Francisco-based Boutique Air, had inquired about the area's flight service pattern, which extends to El Dorado, Hot Springs and Harrison -- all EAS communities --, Dallas and Memphis.
Estes and airport commissioners said they expected current EAS provider, Southern Airways Express -- which is headquartered in Palm Beach, Florida -- to submit a proposal by the Oct. 27 deadline.
Southern Airways has served as the EAS carrier for El Dorado, Hot Springs and Harrison since 2017. The airline also serves Jonesboro.
The airline's most recent federally-subsidized EAS contract in El Dorado began in 2021 and will expire Feb. 28.
The new agreement begins March 1.
Estes notified airport commissioners Oct. 28 that Southern and Boutique had submitted proposals offering commercial flights out of SARA.
In an email, Michael Gormas, of the USDOT's Office of Aviation Analysis, asked Estes and airport commissioners to review the proposals and forward any comments by Nov. 28.
Now is also the time for the community to voice its preferences for EAS routes, Estes said.
Proposals
The government contract calls for 18 round-trip flights per week out of El Dorado.
As a part of the 2021 - 2023 USDOT contract, Southern Airways offers 14 flights per week to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and four to Memphis International Airport.
While poring through bid packages in 2021, the El Dorado Airport Commission agreed to stick with Southern Airways and settled on an option that reduced the number of flights to Memphis from six to four and increased the DFW route by two round trips per week.
The option was also approved by the USDOT.
Commissioners and Estes said at the time that not only was the DFW leg used more often than the Memphis route, it also drew more interest among commercial air travelers who fly out of SARA.
The same year, Southern Airways launched an un-subsidized, weekend route linking El Dorado to Hot Springs and Harrison as part of its "Connect Arkansas" marketing campaign to help boost air travel within the state.
In its bid proposal that was submitted on Oct. 27, Southern Airways offered the same route as the 2021 - 2023 contract.
The airline also pledged to continue efforts to engage with community.
Southern has hosted Business After Hours and included tickets as prize giveaways for BAH and other local events.
Southern also teamed up with SARA and Survival Flight emergency medical air service, to participate in the Scare on the Square, a Halloween event that was set for Saturday in downtown El Dorado.
The partners purchased dozens of pounds of candy and other Halloween-themed items to hand out to trick-or-treaters.
In 2019, Southern reported the second highest number of passengers per departure within the past 15 years in El Dorado.
Boutique Air previously submitted proposals to serve El Dorado and South Arkansas.
For the current bid cycle, the airline has offered 18 non-stop round-trips to DFW each week, with an option to allot six of the flights to Memphis, if desired by the community.
The airline flies Pilatus PC-12 airplanes with eight- or nine-passenger seat configurations, while Southern operates nine-seat Cessna Grand Caravans for its El Dorado flights.
Both carriers have interline agreements with major airlines, Southern with American, United, Alaskan and Hawaiian and Boutique with American.
Boutique also has a code-share agreement with United.
With interlining, passengers may book different legs of their flights with more than one airline and under a code-share, airlines market the same flight and air flight code on their flight schedules.
Southern and Boutique packaged their bids with contract options of up to four years.
Southern requested $3.45 and $3.54 million in an annual subsidy for year one and year two, respectively, and Boutique asked for $5.1 and $5.3 million for the first and second years.
The airport commission's next regularly scheduled monthly meeting is 3:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 in the second-floor conference room of the SARA terminal, during which commissioners will review bid options.
Community involvement
Several months ago, Estes posted a survey on the SARA Facebook page to gauge the public's interest and preferred commuter routes out of SARA.
"We had a pretty good turnout on [Facebook]. We had a lot of people comment and we did actually get a good data pool," Estes said.
The top three cities/areas that were cited by responders to the Facebook post were Fayetteville (Northwest Arkansas), Houston and New Orleans, he said.
"There were other miscellaneous cities but those were the big three," said Estes.
While discussing the matter on Oct. 10, airport commission chairman Mickey Murfee suggested, "One thing Southern may want to promote is a lot of people from down here go to Fayetteville for sporting events -- basketball and football games."
Estes said he has heard plenty of chatter around the area about people who have expressed interest in such an intra-state route and he has spoken with Stan Little, Southern's chairman and CEO, about the matter.
"He is a proponent of going to hub cities. He said it's going to take money and he would really have to backpedal on some of the politicking he's done for the last couple of years," Estes said.
Southern Airways would take a risk by adding NWA flights to its flight schedule, Estes said.
Among the considerations would be how many times per month or year would passengers book the route; what days would passengers fly to and from NWA; would their travel be personal- or business-related; and is local there business or community interest in providing a revenue-guarantee for Southern.
"The government isn't going to subsidize an extra $139 for us," Estes said, referring to round-trip ticket prices.
If Southern flew to Fayetteville round-trip four days a week, at least 70%, or six of nine seats, "would need to stay booked for it to be remotely profitable" for Southern, he explained.
"At least 288 people a month would have to travel round trip to make that route possible. That's 3,456 passengers a year," Estes continued. "It wouldn't be just people going from El Dorado to Northwest Arkansas but it would also be people traveling from Northwest Arkansas back to El Dorado."
Estes said if there is a swell of community support for an NWA leg, he and the airport commission would work with Southern to make it happen.
Another option, he said, would be for community members to book semi-charter NWA flights with Southern and sell eight or nine seats or ask for one the airline's larger airplanes.
"They have a 30-passenger aircraft that they do charter and cities can call to request a charter-style flight," said Estes, adding that charters would need to be booked about three weeks in advance.
He said SARA and the airport commission are seeking public input from El Dorado and surrounding areas, including Camden, Magnolia and other South Arkansas communities.
Estes also said he plans to reach out to the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce to possibly conduct an online community survey for future reference.
"We'll take that and put it in our back pocket and save it for the next bid cycle," he said.
Current challenges
Estes said he is awaiting an end-of-the-month enplanement/deplanement report from Southern, saying that enplanements had dropped in September.
Boardings for DFW decreased from 249 to 230 between August and September and disembarkations, 246 to 207.
For the Memphis route, enplanements fell by six, going from 62 in August to 56 in September and deplanements tumbled from 72 to 44, respectively.
Estes said he expects numbers to fall further in October.
"It's probably going to be the worst month of the entire year because of canceled flights, delayed flights and rerouted flights," he said.
Issues with aircraft maintenance and pilots have also reportedly cropped up in El Dorado, Hot Springs and Harrison.
"I contacted the (US)DOT and they said it's a problem and it's happening all over the U.S., particularly with EAS companies and they have been watching it," said Estes.
He said Southern has been working diligently to address the situation.
"October passenger counts are probably going to be pretty dismal because of a lack of planes flying and people canceling flights because they don't want to get to El Dorado at one o' clock in the morning or at 11 o'clock at night or miss connecting a flight," Estes said.