Cape Air CEO: We're here for 50 years

The founder and CEO of the airline that took over Essential Air Service in Montana said Tuesday that his company plans to be here for the long haul.

"I can't say our commitment to you is for life, but this is not a two-year EAS commitment," Cape Air founder and CEO Dan Wolf said. "We are here to serve you, to help you build your community ... Let's say it's a 50-year commitment."

"We want to be part of your success story, and we want you to be part of our success story," he said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday.

A host of top Cape Air officials, including the president and chief financial officer, joined Wolf flying around Montana Tuesday to celebrate the airway taking over the flights, which connect smaller Montana communities to Billings.

The team repeatedly commented on the large turnout in Havre, which filled the room in the Havre City-County Airport terminal in which it was held. The crowd included Havre Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Debbie Vandeberg, Havre Mayor Tim Solomon, Hill County commissioners Mike Wendland, Jeff LaVoi and Mark Peterson, representatives of the airport board and of the Havre City Council, along with many community members.

Wolf said his team - which pretty well filled the nine-passenger Cessna 402 in which they flew into Havre - started in Glendive, flew to Sidney, then to Glasgow, followed by Wolf Point and then to Havre.

They were flying back to Billings with a special extra passenger.

The afternoon flight to Billings from Havre was canceled due to technical issues, so the plane was taking Sylvia Purkett, the single passenger booked to fly the canceled flight to Billings, with the executive team.

"You are going to be receiving some free tickets from Cape Air," Wolf said. "I have never met a passenger as nice as you are."

He added that it is rare in the airline industry that "a passenger who you just made late and didn't perform for on your first day of service" was as friendly as Purkett was.

Cape Air is the third airline to take over the federally subsidized service since Big Sky Airlines, which provided EAS in Montana between 1984 and 2008, went out of business.

Havre was without the service for nearly a year after Big Sky went out of business that year. DOT awarded the contract to Great Lakes, which had lost its bid on the contract in 2007 to Big Sky. But Great Lakes was not able to smoothly take over the service due to a shortage of airplanes. Havre was without passenger air service from March 2008 until Great Lakes flights started in February 2009.

Then in 2011, following a unanimous recommendation of the EAS task force in Montana, DOT awarded the contract to Gulf Stream Airways, which later rebranded itself as Silver Airways.

This year, citing low passenger rates leading to high per-passenger subsidies in Lewistown and Miles City, the U.S. Department of Transportation canceled EAS in those cities. Later, Silver Airways said it would not try to renew its contract.

DOT awarded the contract to Silver Airways in September.

José Toledo of Silver Airways has been back in Havre working on the transition to Cape Air. He said that transition has gone very smoothly, adding that he has worked closely with the Massachusetts-based company before.

Toledo, who came to Havre to help train staff members when Silver Airways took over and ended up as the Havre manager for a year, said he told his company he would help on the transition on one condition - that he could work in Havre.

The first day had some glitches, a few weather-related, including the canceled Havre flight, Wolf said. He added that his company is still in the startup mode, and will be transfering more planes to its Montana fleet to use in case of problems in the future, reducing the chance of canceled flights.

He also said the company wants to increase the number of flights it is making.

It is scheduled to make five round-trip flights from Billings to Sidney each day, and two flights a day from Billings to Havre, Glendive, Glasgow and Wolf Point.

Wolf said his company's original proposal was for three flights a day to the last four cities, and he wants to build the number of flights to the communities in the future.