By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

A new marketing campaign highlighting the convenience, affordability and reliability of passenger service at the Hays Regional Airport will ramp up this fall and continue through January.

A total of $50,000 has been earmarked for the effort–$25,000 from the Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) and $25,000 from the City Commission Financial Policy Projects fund.

The advertising will be done by the Hays CVB with input from Sixel Consulting Group, an airport marketing specialist.

“Potential passengers are operating on assumptions based on second-hand accounts and misinformation,” according to City Manager Toby Dougherty. “I’ve challenged my staff to download Google Flights on their smart phones so they can talk to people about why they should check Hays first.”

Starting with billboards, Dougherty said the “targeted audience will be those customers who never came back after Great Lakes left and those who left due to the SkyWest schedule blip in January through March” when the early morning flight was cancelled and then returned in March with an 11 a.m. departure.

SkyWest service in Hays started August 1, 2014, with a 6:50 a.m. departure to Denver.

A jet now leaves the Hays airport for Denver at 10:15 a.m., arriving at DIA about 40 minutes later. The previous carrier, Great Lakes, ended service at the end of March 2014, leaving the Hays airport without commercial service for four months.

Dougherty told commissioners he is in “constant communication with SkyWest” and explained why “other options for passenger service in Hays are not viable.”

There are 12 non-stop flights weekly from Hays to Denver.

“A lot of cities would kill for this (SkyWest service and schedule),” Dougherty added.