ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
Many people fly in and out of Liberal every day and recently, it was announced Liberal Municipal Airport will retain its EAS program designation.
“What happened is, there was an executive order issued earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and that order extends Essential Air Service (EAS) coverage for an additional three-year term for Liberal Mid-America Regional Airport,” Airport Manager Brian Fornwalt said. “That means service will continue from SkyWest Airlines with 12 weekly round-trip flights to Denver, and will continue service under EAS and receive federal subsidies to ensure vital flight connections are maintained. Something else that makes us really proud with this is Liberal is one of only five communities in Kansas to receive EAS support in recent years. The DOT had approved SkyWest May 1, and then May 3 was when the DOT contacted me via email to tell me SkyWest was approved for the next three years. Their approval started May 1 and will run through April 30, 2027, and that's part of how we're keeping our EAS designation. There are also currently two acts making their way through Congress – one in the House and one in the Senate – and we still don't know what the outcome will be with either of those. But we were able to keep SkyWest at this time, which is great because everyone likes SkyWest. Our numbers have increased since we started with them, and we have multiple frequent travelers.”
Fornwalt added the primary emotion regarding the announcement has been relief.
“Relief was the primary emotion, because we'd been waiting for about a year about all of this. We'd done the first round of bids around this time last year but only got bids from SkyWest and a company that used to be called Northern Pacific,” Fornwalt said. “We recommended SkyWest, but something happened with all of that, so we had to go back out for bid, and we only got bids from SkyWest and Boutique Air. Boutique Air is a single-engine, nine-passenger aircraft, while SkyWest is a twin-engine, 50-seat jet, and we knew we didn't want to use the smaller planes. We again recommended staying with SkyWest, and that's what we were finally awarded. Having everything official now definitely takes a lot of stress off, and I'm glad everything's come through. It was really frustrating waiting on the DOT to figure out what all would be going on and whether or not anything would actually happen.”
Keeping the EAS designation, Fornwalt said, carries many benefits for the community.
“Keeping our EAS designation helps the city with economic development because we'll be able to keep flying people in and out. We pull customers from down in Oklahoma and even down into Texas,” Fornwalt said. “I have people around here who would rather fly from here than down in Amarillo or another big airport so they can avoid paying the parking fees and all of that. It's a very big draw having the airport here, and SkyWest is a big help. Everyone likes SkyWest, they do really well around here – we don't have nearly the amount of cancellations we used to, but there is the occasional hiccup due to weather or some sort of maintenance needing to be done since planes are just like any other mechanical device. I've gotten many compliments about SkyWest and how they work, and it's a big boost to the airport and the community.”
With the news officially coming through, Fornwalt said there is even some excitement for some other potential projects.
“With SkyWest remaining, and with our numbers increasing, it will help with the possibility of expanding the terminal and some other projects. We are looking at working on the parking later this year, and the new terminal would hopefully start around this time next year, and we would just keep going from there,” Fornwalt said. “Our terminal is old, it's been here for a long, long time, we've outgrown it, and our passenger load is too big for the current terminal, so we need the space. Now that everything's official with SkyWest, and now that that's off my plate, I'm going to try and start working on ... I know we can't get it done in these three years, but I'm going to try working on adding another flight to another hub possibly. However, that'd be far in the future, and there's a lot of logistics that would go into that. We'd talked about that in the past, but the COVID-19 pandemic and some other circumstances pushed all of that rather to the wayside.”
Overall, Fornwalt said, there is a lot going on at the airport.
“The terminal and putting in a parallel taxiway are the two biggest projects we've got coming up more immediately. The terminal so far is running at about $15 million, and the taxiway will run about $5 million, and we're looking to have those come through grants through the FAA,” Fornwalt said. “The FAA is on board with the terminal project because they've seen what we're working with, and they agree we've outgrown the space. It'll all just take some time and patience, but we'll get everything worked out.”
