MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The United States Department of Transportation has selected an Essential Air Service (EAS) for the Morgantown Municipal Airport.
SkyWest Airlines, who will operate as United Express, was selected to provide the services for the next three years, making it the first time the airport will have jet service providers at the airport. Morgantown Municipal Airport Director Jonathan Vrabel is excited for the opportunity to have the service come to the airport that will hopefully expand on enplanements when it officially begins in December.
“We’re able to go to a hub that we’ve never been able to go to before, like Chicago, it also provides us the ability to have different types of customers that we haven’t had in a long time,” said Vrabel on the new EAS with SkeyWest Airlines.
The EAS provided by SkyWest Airlines will consist of 12 nonstop roundtrips per week, with flights taking place on a daily basis via the Untied Express jet service. Flights will fly passengers on 50-seat CRJ200 aircraft that will include five weekly round trips to Washington Dulles International Airport and seven weekly round trips to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. While flights to Pittsburgh originally provided by Southern Airways to Pittsburgh International Airport will discontinue, options for flights across the United States are expected to expand as a result of the new EAS in planes that are considered more comfortable in comparison to the Cessna aircraft that were a part of the previous EAS.
“It’s 2-by-2 seating with overhead bins inside the airplane, so when you come in and have a carry-on bag, you take the carry-on bag onto the airplane,” said Vrabel on how the expanded space on the CRJ200 will improve the flight experience. “You don’t have to turn it over to somebody else and then wait for it getting off the aircraft,” he said.
Vrabel also stated that the CRJ200 aircraft are expected to create the same amount of noise that has been heard by residents by planes frequently heard at the Morgantown Municipal Airport.
When passengers officially begin to use the Skywest Airlines United Express air service, they’ll notice several changes in comparison to flights provided by Southern Airways. As part of a partnership with United Airlines, flights booked under the United Express air service will allow for flight connections across the continental United States with any checked-in luggage handled by United Airlines employees as soon as the Morgantown flight lands at either Washington Dulles or Chicago O’Hare airports. This also allows for the reservation of flights under the United Airlines banner, allowing passengers at the Morgantown Municipal Airport to avoid paying for flights from two different providers, like what has taken place under the Southern Airways EAS.
“Once you book that flight, you will be talking to United (representatives) the whole time, it’s seamless,” said Vrabel. “If you’re in L.A. and you’re coming back to Morgantown and you have an issue, you’re talking to United, if you’re leaving from Morgantown and going to Seattle, you’re talking to United,” he said.
The hope for Vrabel and other Morgantown Municipal Airport officials is that the new EAS will allow the Morgantown Municipal Airport to reach over 10,000 enplanements for the first time in 12 years. Based on conversations with SkyWest Airlines officials, there’s an expectation that the goal can be achieved by the offering of flights into the Washington D.C. and Chicago areas, which in turn will open up for passengers who are government employees who are required to fly in two-engine airplanes by law. With the CRJ200 expected to be taking passengers at the Morgantown Airport by December 15, Vrabel feels that the opportunity is there for the airport to get the enplanements needed for an extra $1 million in Federal Aviation Administration allocations.
“Just because of that extra connectivity we’ll have now, particuarly with the government employees, this gives them another option,” said Vrabel on the possibility to expand on enplanements at the airport. “If they’re coming from the south, they can still go into Clarksburg, but if they’re coming from the D.C. area, or from a point out west, they’ll now be able to come into Morgantown, and we’ve never had that before,” he said.