Breaking news: Gulfstream gets board's backing

All Great Lakes flights in Montana, after March 1, may be cancelled.

On Thursday, members of the Essential Air Service board for Montana had a conference call with representatives of the two airlines bidding for the Department of Transportation subsidy, Great Lakes Airlines and Gulfstream Airlines.

A several hours, the board voted six to one in favor of Gulfstream taking up Montana flight service.

"After four hours of talking on the telephone with these people we finally put it to a vote," Gerry Grabofsky, Havre-Hill County Airport's representative, said. "Hopefully we will start getting better service up here."

Grabofsky said he was one of the six votes for Gulfstream.

"Great Lakes didn't have the answered that I thought they should have," Grabofsky said. "It didn't sound like they were going to try to do anything drastic to improve their service here."

Grabofsky and the rest of the board wanted to hear Great Lakes' plan to satisfy all of its critics and customers who were upset after frequent delays and cancellations had stranded many would-be fliers, including Grabofsky.

Gulfstream accepted proposal is to resume flights to Billings for all EAS airports, the way it was before the Denver flights began less than three months ago.