Cedar City Regional Airport receives two bids for airline service

For the past few years Cedar City Regional Airport has been served by Delta Connection (Skywest) with Bombardier CRJ-700/900 aircraft (63-78 seats) with 12 weekly round trip flights to Salt Lake City SLC. The contract with Skywest expires late September of this year and it’s time for the airport board to choose whether to approve an extension of the current service, or to allow another airline to begin operations at the airport entirely.

Skywest Proposal

Skywest Airlines (DBA: Delta Connection) is proposing to continue flying 12 weekly round trips to SLC, but with a smaller Bombardier CRJ-550 (50 seats). The CRJ-550 is a variant of the CRJ-700 that was intended to solve the comfort issues with the CRJ-200’s intensely packed fuselage, which made flying on a regional jet a nightmare for many passengers.

The airline is expecting to fly 21,840 passengers annually to SLC, although expects a load factor of 35%.

The annual subsidy for essential air service routes has increased dramatically in the past six years and these bids really show how high the prices have reached.

Skywest Subsidy Costs:

Year 1: $6,426,743

Year 2: $6,876,615

Year 3: $7,357,979

Annual percentage change of 7%.

Subsidy per trip: $5,309

Average ticket fare: $110

Boutique Airlines Proposal

The other airline submitting a bid for service in Cedar City is an interesting one. Boutique Air was once an extremely popular essential air service airline that fell during the pandemic amid other financial losses due to reliability issues. Although, there are a lot of changes that have been made to the airline since.

Boutique Air is offering to service Cedar City with either Piaggio P180 Avanti (8 or 9 seats) aircraft or Pilatus PC-12’s (8 or 9 seats) in 5 different options which are listed below:

Option 1: 30 round trips to SLC weekly (P180: ~$10M | PC12: $9.5M)

Option 2: 12 round trips to SLC, 18 round trips weekly to PHX (P180: ~$9.5M | PC12: $9.3M)

Option 3: 12 round trips to SLC, 18 round trips weekly to LAS (P180: $8.7M | PC12: $8.4M)

Option 4: 30 round trips weekly to LAS (P180: $7.8M | PC12: $7.6M) *cheapest

Option 5: 30 to PHX (P180: $9.1M | PC12: $9.2M)

The airline is expecting about 21,000 passengers to fly on their publicized private jets. A 2, 3, or a 4 year term is also available for the airport board to choose from. Representatives from the airline also plan to meet with local representatives to listen to their ideas and hopefully meet an agreement on how to implement the service in a way that’s best for CDC travelers.