"North Carolina Group Still Optimistic on Air Service"

Wednesday, May 5, 2004

Group Still Optimistic on Air Service 
BY SARA LINDAU
The Southern Pines (NC) Pilot


Despite setbacks in the once-promising deal with Corporate Airlines to
provide passenger service to Moore County, airport officials remain
optimistic that a regional carrier will be recruited.

Moore County and five other airports formed a consortium in effort to
get the Tennessee-based carrier to provide roundtrip flights out of
Raleigh-Durham International Airport. The consortium received a federal
grant to help the airline with some of its start-up costs. That grant is
good through next year.

The consortium remains united in its goal to attract a regional service,
regardless of whether it is Corporate or another airline, according to a
state aviation official.

It is appears unlikely that it will be Corporate Airlines.

But Harold Garner, chairman of the Moore County Airport Authority, still
prefers to say there’s an “impasse” that no one is certain “will break”
for Corporate’s efforts to obtain a waiver from American Airlines’
pilots union to allow nonunion pilots to fly the smaller Corporate
planes into RDU. At one time, the waiver appeared to be the last
remaining obstacle to overcome.

Six months later with no progress on the waiver in sight, some coalition
members are “independently talking with air carriers to try and obtain
service for their separate communities,” according to an April 15 letter
from William Williams, chief of the Aviation Division in the N.C.
Department of Transportation.

Williams also wrote that Peter Bowler, president of American Eagle
Airlines, indicated the “waiver required to allow Corporate Airlines to
operate American Connection Services at RDU will not be forthcoming.”

In a letter dated April 5, responding to a Feb. 18 letter from NCDOT
Secretary of Transportation Lyndo Tippett, Bowler said, “Corporate is
prohibited from operating American Connection flights between RDU and
the communities that desire the service.”

Bowler wrote that “American will not be able to allow Corporate’s
AmericanConnection service,” but that airline remains “committed to
finding ways to grow air service to the state.” He said American
Airlines is restricted from allowing Corporate to begin American
Connection service at RDU based on collective bargaining agreements with
the Allied Pilots’ Association that prohibit regional carriers not owned
by American from operating the service on routes that do not touch an
American hub airport on one end. RDU is not defined as an American hub
in the agreement, he wrote.

American Airlines and the unions are “continuously engaged in
constructive dialogue…covering a wide variety of issues,” Bowler wrote.
The dialogue has not so far produced the waiver. Tippet’s office
received the letter April 13.

“The need for improved or re-established scheduled air service at the
six coalition communities is as important today as when the grant
proposal was submitted this past June 2003,” Williams wrote to Teresa
Bingham, an aviation analysis associate director for the U.S. Department
of Transportation. “In light of this latest communiqué from American
Eagle, we have redoubled our efforts to find suitable partners to
provide this essential connection to the nation’s air transportation
network for the coalition.”

Williams expressed gratitude to the federal agency’s “trust and
patience. We ask that your support to the coalition continue as we
endeavor to overcome these unfortunate and uncontrollable setbacks.”

Caleb Miles, CEO and President of the Convention and Visitors Bureau in
Moore County, is a member of a task force working to recruit a passenger
airline service to Moore County. 

He said Tuesday that he and other task force members are continuing to
discuss options and plan to regroup after losing a second key member in
less than a year.

Michael Shouse, executive director of the Moore County Airport
Authority, is resigning effective May 31. Longtime airport supporter and
authority member J.T. Cotner died a few months ago. Both were members of
the air service task force.

“The task force is still in place,” Miles said Tuesday in a telephone
interview. “We plan to operate in a similar way as before. This is a
challenging time of the year, with the (tourism) season.

“Other options are being looked at. The grant (a $1.2 million federal
grant for the six-community consortium to restore or enhance diminished
service) is still there, and that’s a big plus.”

Miles said Shouse “did some very good things for the community and the
task force. You could tell he was passionate about restoring service.”

He also said Shouse, as the staff person working for the airport
authority, did a lot of coordination and legwork on behalf of the task
force, whose other members are volunteers or represent other agencies
not dealing directly with Federal Aviation Administration and state
Aviation Division officials and regulations.

Miles said he heard some say the Corporate Airlines deal is still
possible.

Corporate Airlines CEO Doug-las Caldwell was quoted by a participant in
an April 7 meeting in Raleigh as saying he “feels it may not be totally
out of the question.”

The remaining members of the local task force appointed by the Authority
are Miles, Peter Stilwell, marketing director of Pinehurst Resort,
Assistant County Manager Mike Griffin and Bob Hawkins, a retired airline
executive.

The task force was formed in 2002 to try to restore commercial passenger
airline after US Airways Express ended roundtrip service out of
Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The airline terminated the
service in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the continuing
financial struggles facing the airline industry.

The task force first tried to work out something with US Airways before
turning to Corporate, a Smyrna, Tenn.-based regional carrier that flies
connector flights for American Airlines in the Midwest and Northeast. 

The carrier had operated a regional service for a time out of New Bern
and Kinston, two of the members of the consortium.

The others in consortium are Fayetteville, Wilmington and Hickory. All
have been meeting every month with the N.C. Department of Transportation
aviation division officials.

The once-imminent deal with Corporate helped attract a $1.2 million
federal grant.

Garner told The Pilot earlier he might attend the next planned meeting
of the consortium on Thursday in Raleigh.

Williams told The Pilot in a Monday telephone interview that he expected
the consortium would discuss other options to Corporate Airlines but he
could not detail what they may be. 

He said the discussion would be more advanced that just a
“brainstorming” session.


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