County of Venango, 

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 

Venango Regional Airport 

www.llyfranklin.org 

1560 Airport Road Franklin, PA 16323 814/432-5333 

Mr. Dennis J. DeVany 

Chief, Essential Air Service Division 

Office of Aviation Analysis 

U.S. Department of Transportation 

400 Seventh Street S.W. Room 6401 

Washington, D.C. 20590 

Dear Mr. DeVany; 

October 1 0, 2013 

Airport Manager 

Otho C. Bell 

I am writing regarding the air service provided to Franklin/Oil City, Pennsylvania by Silver 

Airlines Dba United Express. As we have discussed in the past, our region suffered deteriorating 

service by Air Midwest as the Pittsburgh hub was downsized and service irregularities became 

commonplace. Eventually the airline simply went out of business with two (2) weeks notice in 

May of2008. 

Your office worked hard to prepare bids for new service and Gulfstream, now Silver, began 

flying our region to the Cleveland hub in September of 2008. Our community shared a Small 

Community grant for marketing with several other Pennsylvania airports and we promoted our 

new air service with targeted and meaningful advertising as allowed by the grant. 

The airline, however, was unaccustomed to winter operations, indeed only one of their planes 

had an anti skid braking system installed which hampered their ability to land in most winter 

runway conditions. These conditions resulted in an average of 22% cancellations during the 

months of December thru February for the next three (3) years and resulted in further erosion of 

our customer base that had already been shocked by the sudden departure of Air Midwest. The 

overflys of Franklin and cancellations negated our advertising and marketing efforts and 

expenditures. The airport has expended considerable funds in providing ground transportation to 

passengers affected by the airlines performance. Many of the flight irregularities fail to appear in 

the statistics which focus on "controllable" completion factors but the severity of the passenger 

impact of flight cancellations at an airport with only a few flights is far greater than at an airport 

that has more flights for rebooking. Our airport, therefore, tried to compensate by providing 

ground transpmtation to or from the hub for passengers affected by weather induced flight 

irregularities in an attempt to preserve our customer base. However it is difficult to make a 2 

hour cab ride as pleasant as flying and by the time the customer arrives at the hub; their 

connections are inevitably gone, making for a very long and arduous journey. This does not help 

generate repeat business to say the least. 
The Order 2012-9-23 Selecting Silver Airways as the carrier for a 2 year period from October I, 

2012 through September 30,2014 states on page 4: 

"Bradford and Franklin have fewer than I 0 enplanements per day and Jamestown is just over I 0 

at 10.7." "Silver and the communities, pat1icularly Bradford and Franklin, must attract additional 

passengers, thus increasing enplanements to meet the 10 enplanement statutory requirement in 

order for them to remain eligible to continue receiving EAS after FY 2013, i.e. after September 

30, 2013 ".---------

Continuing on page 5; the order futiher it states, "The Depatiment fully expects that the 

communities and Silver will work together to ensure that the subsidy per passenger is below 

$200." 

Venango Regional Airport officials have attempted to work with Silver Airways in marketing the 

air service to increase passenger traffic and there has been limited response and no participation 

from Silver Airways. I actually was even reprimanded by the airline management for including 

their phone number in a local newspaper ad. The Airport has not expected the carrier to share 

financially in marketing and advertising efforts but would have appreciated their participation in 

web and email campaigns, similar to those they do in Florida, and some pat1icipation in direct 

contact with businesses through local Chamber of Commerce events and the like. This has not 

happened. Emails and messages have gone unanswered and the marketing and promotional effort 

has been shouldered unilaterally by the Airpot1. 

I was privileged to accompany the Bradford Airport Manager, Tom Frungillo, to Washington, 

D.C. to meet with you and Mr. Schlemmer back in March of this year. We expressed our 

concerns at that time. We then traveled to the Fort Lauderdale Headquatiers of Silver and met 

with some of their staff, hoping to build a cooperative effort to work on ways to improve our 

enplanements. A conference call with Bradford, Franklin and Silver in late August proved 

hopeful when they produced a plan for marketing using email and Google ad words. The plan 

was emailed to the airports on August 22"d and we were to respond by sending our email lists to 

the airline for incorporation into this marketing effot1. The emails lists from our area were sent 

on August 23'd. As of this writing, nothing has progressed with this plan. 

Unfotiunately the relationship with Silver has not increased passenger traffic. The airline appears 

to have "written off" Franklin/Oil City. The number one reason prospective passengers give for 

not trying to fly from Franklin is "dependability". There appeared to be hope for the future in a 

press release from Silver Aitways on June 28111 of this year wherein they state that the departure 

from the Montana markets will allow them to focus on the Cleveland EAS markets. Our 

Community saw this as solving the dependability issues but we have subsequently become 

alarmed at the reduction in their B 1900 fleet, which will hamper both aircraft and crew 

availability. We have information and are concerned that the carrier may not be interested in 

bidding again on air service to our community even if we should somehow be able to remain 

eligible for the program and futiher deterioration of the service reliability will seal our fate and 

all but eliminate any chance at attracting air service. 
The airline has recently had an infusion of management talent with industry experience and the 

past several weeks have seen on time operations. We remain hopeful, as always, and the airport 

continues to work to promote and advertise our air service but the recent improvements may be 

too late to save it. We steadfastly maintain that service to the United Airlines Cleveland hub is a 

very good option for us, if properly served, but recognize that reliable service to Pittsburgh 

would be also. This community needs dependable air service to help rebuild a wounded 

economy. 

On behalf of the Oil Heritage Region, served by the Venango Regional Airpot1; I ask that you 

consider our issues regarding the apparent reluctance of Silver Airways to work within the spirit 

of the order 20 12 - 9 - 23 and we request a chance at and consideration of a waiver request now 

or in the future to secure an airline who will work with the airport and community in delivering 

adequate air service, marketing the air service and increase passenger traffic. 

Respectfully submitted; 

~~~_? Otho C. Bell 

Cc: Senator Robet1 Casey 

Representative G.T. Thompson 

Travis C1u·ist, Silver Airways 

Commissioners, County of Venango 

Mayor, Oil City, PA 

Mayor, Franklin, P A 

File