By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Hays City Manager Toby Dougherty said he “was shocked,” although in a good way, when conformation came last Friday that an early morning flight would be reinstated at the Hays Regional Airport by SkyWest/United Express in early January 2017.

“They are reinstituting the early morning departure with the late arrival,” Dougherty said.

The plane will originate in Hays with the first flight to Denver International Airport at approximately 6:40 a.m. There will be a mid-day turnaround, meaning the plane will come back into Hays, unload passengers and board new passengers, and then head immediately back to Denver. There will be a late arrival in Hays at about 10 p.m. with the plane remaining overnight, then leaving again the next morning on the same schedule.

The Monday through Friday schedule is scheduled to start the first week of January.

Dougherty had not yet seen a weekend schedule. “On the weekends where we only have one flight in and one flight out, I assume it’s going to be a morning departure with a later arrival because I would assume the plane will spend the night in Hays on the weekends as well.”

The schedule change was a SkyWest decision and Dougherty is not aware of their process or strategy leading to it.

He is, however, very happy with the change.

Passenger boardings at the Hays airport have been averaging 8,000 a year since SkyWest service began in Aug. 2014. In Jan. 2015, SkyWest made modifications to its fleet and as a result, dropped the early morning flight out of Hays.

Boardings four, five and six years ago with then-provider Great Lakes, which Dougherty called “an unreliable airline,” averaged 10,000 passengers a year. He hopes SkyWest ridership will increase with the return of the early morning flight out of Hays.

Use of the Hays airport for business trips has fallen off although pleasure flights remain stable.

The city, along with the Hays Area Chamber of Commerce and the Ellis County Coalition for Economic Development, “reached out to the business community to find out why they weren’t using the Hays airport as often,” Dougherty said.

“Feedback showed a lot of people lamented not having that morning flight and claimed that was their biggest barrier. We understand there are times it’s not going to work out, but when it does, we need the business community to use the Hays airport.”

Price was also mentioned in the recent online survey, the results of which was shared with SkyWest/United Express by Hays Airport Manager Nathan Marcucci.

“Evidently, they were listening,” Dougherty said.

“We had reached out to the business community with the message that if you want the morning flight back you’re probably going to have to earn it with higher utilization before they’re going to put it back.

“We didn’t dream they were going to put it back in January. Evidently, SkyWest sees potential in the Hays morning flight and they reinstituted it. Now, I hope our passengers appreciate it and utilize the Hays Regional Airport whenever possible.”

Although “there’s never a guarantee in the airline industry, right now, SkyWest has indicated to us it is their intent for this to be a permanent move. But if we don’t respond as a flying community and enplanement levels stay somewhere to what they are, the next time they need the jet somewhere else overnight, it’s probably gonna get moved. The way we can make it permanent is by utilizing it,” Dougherty emphasized.

Price will always be an issue flying out of Hays, he acknowledged. “We will never be cheaper than Denver, Wichita, Kansas City, Dallas–places like that with many more flights a day.

“It costs a lot of money to fly any plane in and out of the Hays Regional Airport.”

And yet, there’s still more good news for Hays passengers.

“I do know SkyWest has reached out to United and they are in the process of lowering fares for the future. In conjunction with the morning flight, they’re having a lower fare rollout–across the board, if they can.

Dougherty said he’s already aware of some people who booked flights after January 1 finding fares significantly cheaper in some cases as compared to December travel for the same flight.

“All we can ask is for the flying public to check United.com for flights out of Hays first,” he urged.