Grant County Airport recieves two EAS airline bids
The Basics
Grant County Airport has been opened for airlines to place their bids for servicing the area, and two airlines are wanting the seat. On July 11, 2024 two docket filings came up from Boutique Air and Advanced Air, LLC. Both want to connect the region to two cities, ABQ and PHX. However, the layout of their frequencies differ just slightly.
Advanced Air started serving Silver City, NM (Grant County) in January of 2019 to ABQ and PHX, and has been reelected as the region’s airline twice since then. Advanced wants to take the contract further, four years. The airline would continue the current service they are providing to the Silver City area, which is 17 weekly round trips to Albuquerque, NM (ABQ) and seven weekly roundtrips to Phoenix, AZ (PHX) utilizing King Air 350 aircraft with nine seats. Ticket prices will be around $75 each way on average to ABQ, and approximately $105 each way to PHX. With 24 weekly round trips out of Grant County, that sets them up for a realistic outlook of around 12,700 passengers annually (both ways). This is not enough to reach the 10,000 departing passengers mark that airports must reach to annually recieve $1M of federal funds to aid in the improvement and general upkeep of the airport. However, the airport can expect around $350K in aid from this level of service.
Advanced Air’s request for extension of contract will cover 22,464 seats, and around 19,968 scheduled seats (it’s around a 96% annual flight completion rate, the proposal didn’t include the actual number for the airport, although it is 99% for the past 5 years).
Boutique Air’s proposal is slightly different, more so in flexibility to change the frequency. Boutique will fly Pilatus PC-12 aircraft with 8-9 seats, pressurized cabins, a lavatory, power outlets, and in-flight refreshments. The frequency has two options; 24 flights to Albuquerque, NM (ABQ) weekly or (the more flexible option) they will fly to ABQ 18 times per week and 6 times to PHX with the ability to move up to 6 of the weekly ABQ flights to PHX with no change in the subsidy. The airline itself has not done so well historically, with losing almost all of their past EAS contracts due to lacking what other airlines have as far as aircraft. The airline has also had past struggles with ridiculous flight delays, as famously covered by Noel Philips. Could this be Boutique Air’s attempt to reel its way back in to the EAS business?
Boutique also has an interline agreement with American Airlines, which means you can book a connecting flight all on one itinerary. Your baggage and tickets will all stay connected while connecting from Boutique to an AA flight.
The airport is open for community comments regarding which airline to choose, the airport’s website is down below where you can find contact information.
Author’s Opinion
Advanced Air all the way! The airline has already been rooted into Grant County’s soil for 5 years and has given exceptional service with no plans to stop. The airline itself also shows signs of growth similar to what Contour Airlines has recently seen, to its own extent.
