As/'^,,^,,^^.', ';_ 

ttr^Mm. City of Huron 

239 Wisconsin Ave SW • PO Box 1369 • Huron, SD 57350 

IMEIwiF^^ ^ Phone (605) 353-8502 • Fax (605) 353-8506 

July 14, 2010 

Mr. Dennis Devany 

Chief, EAS and Domestic Analysis 

US Department of Transportation 

400 7"' St. SW Room 6401 

Washington, DC 20590 

In response to Docket DOT-OST-2000-7138 

DearMr. Devaney: 

Thanl< you for the opportunity to comment on the proposals for Essential Air Service at Huron, 

South Dai<ota. We surely appreciate the opportunity to participate in the EAS program and believe that 

not only is it "essential" but truly is a service to the people of this community as well as the surrounding 

area. I think you would also agree that Huron, when presented the opportunity to have "good" 

commercial air service, has responded with increasing boardings numbers and has continued that trend 

through the various ups and downs we have experienced throughout our history in the program. 

As you are well aware, in 1978 communities such as ours were provided a continuance 6f 

commercial air service that would otherwise be lost due to deregulation, under the new "Essential Air 

Service" program. However, lately the concept of "service"seems to have been removed from what we 

are seeing with this carrier. When you only have two flights per day reliability is critical and if someone's 

whole day is'based on making a connection at the hub and the carrier is consistently late or doesn't fly 

at all you have basically lost the ability to claim air "service" exists at your community. Likewise, if the 

carrier seems to not care whether or not they fly passengers from your community you have again lost 

the ability to claim that you have air "service". 

The intent of this program was to provide a minimum level of service termed "basic" EAS. 

Under this "basic" EAS we are to receive, among other things, service with no more than one 

intermediate stop between ourselves and our designated hub. Now, in the latest of a long list of 

problems with Great Lakes, we find that our morning flight has now been stopping twice between us 

and our Denver hub; a direct violation of the program rules. This in and of itself would be an issue of 

significance for us due to the fact that our passengers were more than likely unaware when they booked 

their flight that it would stop twice instead of the once that they were expecting. They probably were 

also unaware that they would be significantly late in making their connections before they even left the 

ground due to that second stop. If that was the only problem that we have had with this carrier over 

the current period of service we might have been able to overlook it. However, it now takes on more 

significance when we are faced with a likelihood of continued service by this carrier under a new 2 year 

contract. 
•Wf/W 

Oevany, Page 2 

July 14,2010 

There also was another proposal submitted, this by Sovereign Air. Had this carrier bid the 

required minimum level of service for an aircraft smaller than 15 seats but more Importantly, had their 

certificate in place and a record of performance that we could see, they would have been given far more 

consideration than we were able to give under the circumstances. We cannot with good conscience 

support this bid at this time with the unknowns that surround it. 

Therefore, since Great Lakes will obviously be selected for the next contract period we would 

ask that they please be held to the requirements of that contract and that they be required to provide 

evidence of necessity for every delayed and cancelled flight that they operate. With the recent 

experience of the two stops between us and the hub where they were aware that they were violating 

the rules and were subject to losing compensation for those flights and yet continued to do so for over 

12 days that we know of shows us a complete lack of concern for what their performance (or lack 

thereof) does to the community. Obviously, the risk of losing the compensation wasn't a governing 

concern for them but it like all the cancelled and delayed flights presents a huge public relations 

problem for us when we try to keep those passengers that are inconvenienced from going elsewhere. 

We would also ask that consideration be given to providing us with a third round trip per day to give our 

passengers an alternative to those times when their scheduled flight is cancelled or excessively delayed. 

This we hope could at least be tried on a limited schedule to see if boardings would respond enough to 

offset the increased expense of the flight. We are confident that this would happen given the 

opportunity. 

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this program and the opportunity to 

comment on something which holds such importance for our community. If you have any questions 

please feel free to contact us at any time. 

Sincerely, 

David McGirr, Mayor^ 

City of Huron, SD 

cc: Representative Herseth Sandlin 

Senator John Thune 

Senator Tim Johnson