Landing a new air carrier to Lincoln is going to take some time, airport official says
Landing a new air carrier to Lincoln is going to take some time, an airport official said. The airport in Lincoln, Nebraska, is facing a significant challenge in landing a new air carrier to the city and county, according to airport official Behmer Popp. The airport has a new terminal, a middle-America location, and a community that supports its airport. However, this will take time and may take several years, with some predicting a delay in development. Popp also found comfort with other smaller-sized airports sharing their challenges with air service. Red Way Airlines, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines, burned through $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding by the summer due to a flawed business model that began with too many air hours. The airline now focuses on its hubs, Minneapolis, with Minneapolis being one of them.
Published : 11 months ago by Pat Sangimino, pat sangimino in Travel
"You never know what's around the next corner with respect to the development efforts, but it is not fast," he said. "... It might take a year, might take five years. You just don't know. And so I really wasn't expecting anything different."
"What I found to be super helpful was to hear from other smaller-sized airports about the challenges that they were also facing with air service," Behmer Popp said. "What we're going through here in Lincoln, they're going through the same thing."
"You would think that there's some science behind it, but there's really not," she said. "That was something that I was surprised by."
Consider what Lincoln brings to the table, she said: a new terminal, a middle-America location that makes it ideal to just about any U.S. hub and a community that supports its airport.
"You think you can show them this and this and you have a slam dunk," she said. "The airline has a different perspective and every airline is different."
It wasn't long ago that Delta Airlines put its focus on the East and West coasts, Barth said. The Atlanta-based air carrier now is concentrating on its hubs, Minneapolis being one of them.
Yes, Red Way failed. It burned through $3 million — $1.5 million each from the city of Lincoln and Lancaster County — in American Rescue Plan Act funding by the end of the summer because of a flawed business model that began with way too many air hours to make it sustainable, Haring said.
"We were being watched by a lot of airports, because we were one of the ones that were willing to step out and try something," he said. "Everybody was watching to see if it would be successful. If it had succeeded, it might have been an opportunity for others to learn from it."