Taking off

The Chico Municipal Airport has been a hub of extra activity the past eight months. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), in the wake of the Camp Fire, leased a westside portion of airport land to house up to 250 workers in mobile units, generating revenue for the city.

That camp remains. Cal OES, whose lease runs into December, has 100 trailers accommodating 105 people at the airport now. Fire season has started, but Airport Manager Sherry Miller has witnessed little activity from Cal Fire, which uses the space as a staging area—beyond routine helicopter movement, she saw two tanker planes head to the runway one recent afternoon, with only one taking off and the other taxiing back.

That lull doesn’t extend to Miller’s office. Aided by the first paid city intern she’s had, Chico State alumna and grad student McKena Barker, Miller is ramping up a years-long push to return commercial air service to Chico with new approaches.

Speaking with the CN&R at her airport office Tuesday morning (June 18), she expressed fresh optimism after meeting with carriers at the JumpStart Air Service Development Conference the first week of June in Nashville, Tenn. That event, she said, “matches up” airports with airlines. Meanwhile, Chico Public Works Director of Operations Erik Gustafson and Airport Commission Vice Chair Mike Antlock met with a different carrier at its headquarters.

The latter yielded promising conversations that the city would receive support for its application for a $1 million grant that would subsidize Chico-to-Los Angeles service—the route preferred by the majority of North State residents, according to a “catchment area” survey conducted for the airport.

Such funding, from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT), would cover the revenue guarantee that airlines expect Chico to front before re-establishing service. The application is due July 15; Gustafson told the CN&R he anticipates receiving a letter of support from the carrier but that the airline had not publicly announced it and, thus, he requested its identity be withheld.

Councilman Karl Ory, a former airport commissioner, sees this as a significant step. A letter of support for the grant “is not a commitment” to provide air service, he told the CN&R by phone, “but I think it’s an indication of their interest.”

Passenger air travel at the Chico airport ended in December 2014, when SkyWest Airlines—operating United Express flights—stopped its service to San Francisco, where weather often caused delays. Ory said the timing coincided with a pilot shortage that prompted airlines to streamline.

Economics and business plans change: Last year, Miller said, United returned to smaller markets, “and it’s done well for them. So I’m hoping that it’ll do well for us, that they’ll take a look at us again.” Chico officials have spoken with SkyWest, Alaska Airlines, Contour Airlines and JetSuiteX, a charter airline that books scheduled flights.

The commercial airlines want a revenue guarantee: a fund from which they could draw if ridership drops below 80 percent in a fiscal quarter. Gustafson explained that the city would administer the fund, toward which the City Council already has allocated $115,000 over two years. Businesses, Chico State and other organizations could contribute, help offset costs such as advertising or participate in a “ticket bank” of prepaid airfares.

“We’re really going to focus our effort on the revenue guarantee,” Gustafson said, because carriers look at that capacity when assessing a market.

Miller, who’s worked in the airport industry for over 30 years, said her “gut feeling is this is going to work.” Chico Airport should be able to ramp up for air service in a six-month period, with the most significant upgrade being two portables to meet requirements for security screenings; after that, it’s up to the airlines.

Ory has a sense of urgency. Chico just lost transportation to Sacramento International Airport with the shutdown of North Valley Shuttle, citing decreased ridership since November. With that loss, plus no local flights, he said, “I can’t imagine us being more isolated.”

The catchment study indicated Chico could fill two 70-passenger planes a day, roughly 20 percent of the area residents who fly out of Sacramento.

To return air service, “it’s not going to be easy,” Ory added. “[There] are expenses, but it’s well worth the investment in most people’s minds.”