Great Lakes Airlines will continue to serve Page as its Essential Air Service provider for at least two more years. In a statement released last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced it went against Page City Council’s recommendation of bringing in the California-based Boutique Air to replace Great Lakes as the city’s EAS airline. Instead, it will reinstate Great Lakes until 2019 for an annual subsidy of roughly $2.28 million.  
EAS is a federally mandated and subsidized program established in the 1970s that allows smaller, rural communities to maintain an airport with guaranteed flights when it would otherwise be financially infeasible for airline companies to operate. Of the more than 150 markets in which EAS operates, 45 are located in Alaska. The program costs around $250 million of taxpayer money per year.  
In March, six members of Page City Council voted 4-2 to bring in Boutique — the first time in the city’s history that council recommended an airline besides Great Lakes. The vote initially ran 3-3, with councilman Dennis “Dugan” Warner flipping his vote at the last minute after stating his confidence in Great Lakes had waned. Councilman Levi Tappan, who was not present for the vote, has said he would have voted for Boutique if present.
All members of council, alongside frequent flyers in the Page community, have expressed some degree of concern with Great Lakes’ service and reliability in recent years. The gripes came to a head in 2013 after Department of Transportation mandates changed required flight hours for pilots on larger aircraft. Specifically, the new ruling cranked the minimum pilot hours to operate a 19-seat or higher aircraft to 1,500 total hours — making many pilots who were previously qualified instantly exempt. Great Lakes in response removed 10 seats from their 19-seat Beechcraft 1900 airplanes, bypassing those requirements and keeping pilots within the eligible pool. But the airline still struggled with keeping pilots available to service Page.  
The FAA has claimed the change to the hour requirements was to increase safety and accountability. But many airlines, even some larger than the likes of Great Lakes, say it’s constricting an industry with an already low flow of new jobseekers. Great Lakes continued to suffer from an increasing string of pre-canceled flights and reliability complaints leading up to their Page EAS renewal in 2015. During that vote, a divided council voted 4-3 to renew Great Lakes. Cities served by Great Lakes reported similar reliability issues during the same timeframe. However, throughout the year, Page city officials reported Great Lakes made tangible efforts to reinvigorate their service in Page, which included domiciling pilots dedicated strictly to flying Page routes. In 2016, the company reported a 97 percent flight completion rate. At its worst point in 2014, Great Lakes was canceling more than a third of its flights to and from Page.
Great Lakes President Chuck Howell told council that the airline would also be reinstating its 19-seat configuration on its aircraft this spring, claiming he believed the airline would continue to increase its reliability.

It is a rare occurrence that the DOT goes against a city’s recommendation in selecting an EAS airline. In documentation provided to the city, the department outlined its reasoning for bringing back Great Lakes.
It stated: “[Great Lakes] has had improved service reliability over the past year, marketing arrangements with a larger air carrier, and electronic interline ticketing agreements with American, Delta, and United Airlines.”
The department also said that it weighed “community input” into the decision, noting the division among city council in its initial vote. Furthermore, DOT officials said a primary factor was Great Lakes’ proposed bid, which came in at $1.2 million less than Boutique.
“The department finds that Great Lakes’ proposed service and subsidy levels to be reasonable at Page,” the document concluded.
EAS has remained a controversial subject among lawmakers and some aviation officials as reports of overspending and a lack of fiscal responsibility have increased in the last decade. EAS carriers sometimes run flights with no passengers on board because they are still paid for the flight under current EAS guidelines. In many cases, it’s more profitable for an EAS subsidized airline to run a flight even without passengers. Some routes, such as at the Lancaster Airport and Harrisburg Airports in Pennsylvania, are dubiously close to major hubs — eliciting questions from lawmakers as to whether they should be subsidized with taxpayer money.
Boutique, a young airline which has rapidly been replacing Great Lakes and other similar airlines as EAS carriers across the country, has received a reputation of reliability among its EAS-served cities. While Boutique’s bid came in substantially higher than Great Lakes’, the airline declared its newer and higher quality fleet of airplanes and avionics, as well as its high enplanement numbers warranted the increased cost.
However, it’s clear the DOT weighed the cost factor heavily into its decision, as many aviation officials and lawmakers have been promoting the EAS program “reclaim fiscal responsibility,” with some even proposing its outright dissolution. Calls for total defunding from the Trump administration has stirred further moves to lower the financial impact of the program.
Mayor Bill Diak, who voted to reinstate Great Lakes during March’s vote, said he believed Great Lakes was the right decision primarily due the fact the bid was more than $1 million cheaper than Boutique.
“I’m the type of person who will always take the Chevy over the Cadillac,” he said.
Great Lakes’ contract will officially be reinstated Sept. 1, but the airline will continue to run its regularly scheduled flights until then. Great Lakes will also continue to provide between 24 and 48 scheduled departures per week to Phoenix, Denver and Los Angeles. The contract will be up for renewal and rebid in 2019.