OoT-OST- S)coa-^^^'^(o 

Q IT P'" 

U.S. Department Of 

Transportation 

Office of the Secretary 

of Transportation 

1200 New Jersey Avenue. SE 

Washington, DC 20590 

January 12,2010 

The Honorable Luci Larson 

Mayor of Salina 

Room 202 

City/County Building 

300 W. Ash Street 

Salina, KS 67401 

Dear Mayor Larson, 

I would like to update you on the essential air service (EAS) situation at the Salina Municipal Airport and 

give you an opportunity to submit any comments on the record before we submit a recommendation to the 

Assistant Secretary for Aviation and International Affairs. As you know, Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd. is the 

current EAS provider at Salina, and their contract expires March 31, 2010. In anticipation of that, we 

issued Order 2009-11-25, November 30, 2009, soliciting proposals from carriers interested in providing 

subsidized EAS for a new, two-year period, beginning April 1, 2010. In response to our request, four 

carriers responded: Great Lakes, SeaPort Airlines, Sovereign Air, Inc., and TransportAzumah. 

You should have received a copy of the proposals from each carrier, and they can be accessed at 

www.regulations.pov by entering the number DOT-OST-2002-11376 in the search block. As a result, 

will only briefly summarize them here. 

we 

Great Lakes has proposed one service option to provide Salina with two nonstop round trips each weekday 

and each weekend (12 a week) to Kansas City or Denver with 19-seat Beechcraft I900D aircraft for an 

annual subsidy of $1,517,138. 

SeaPort has proposed one service option to provide Salina with three nonstop round trips a day (18a week) 

to Kansas City with 9-seat Pilatus PC-12 aircraft for a first-year annual subsidy of $1,489,435 and a 

second-year of $ 1,493,381. 

Sovereign Air has proposed two service options, both of which would be using 9-seat Beechcraft 350 

aircraft. Option 1 would offer five daily (35 a week) nonstop round trips to Kansas City for an annual 

subsidy of $899,995. Option 2 would offer four daily (28 a week) nonstop round trips to Kansas City for 

an annual subsidy of $840,028. 

TransportAzumah proposes to act as a Part 380 Indirect Air Carrier and to hire Charter Air Transport, a 

certified air carrier, to actually operate the service. TransportAzumah has proposed two service options, 

both using 30-seat Embraer EMB 120 aircraft. Option 1 offers 12 weekly Salina to Kansas City round trips 

for an annual subsidy of $2,806,156. Option 2 offers 18 weekly Salina to Kansas City round trips for an 

annual subsidy of $3,868,860. 

The schedules that the carriers have proposed are illustrative only and they may make schedule changes to 

reflect changing conditions, e.g., to better meet shifting connecting bank times at the hub. However, the 

Department does expect a subsidized air carrier to maintain well-timed and well-spaced flights in order to 

ensure full compensation. 

We request that you review the proposals and submit any comments you may have as soon as possible, but 

no later than February 19. We will carefully consider your comments before we submit a recommendation 

to the Assistant Secretary for a decision. 
Please send your comments via e-mail to HAS@dul.t;ov or by fax to 202-366-7638. If you have any 

questions, please feel free to contact Michael Martin of my staff at michael.f.martin@dot..i;ov or 202-366-

6494. 

Sincerely, 

Dennis J. DeVany, Chief 

Essential Air Service Division 

Office of Aviation Analysis 

cc: Timothy F. Rogers, Salina Airport Authority