Air Wisconsin, Breeze Vie for More Subsidized Routes

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more unique Essential Air Service proposals have been submitted by a wider variety of airlines. Unlike in the past, these communities have been seeing a lot more air service on quite large mainline-sized aircraft. And not only are the aircraft getting more unique serving these communities, but they are also seeing more airlines that have never held EAS contracts before now winning them for the first time.

Unique Service Options

The first unique and new airline to win an EAS proposal was Sun Country, which held the contract in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and flew a Boeing 737-800, but now no longer does this, as SkyWest won the contract back in 2024.

Sun Country 737-800 in the EAS community of Eau Claire (Photo: AirlineGeeks | Joey Gerardi)

The second is JetBlue, which won the contract for Presque Isle, Maine, and began flights there in early September 2024 with daily service to its hub in Boston and currently flies there using the Embraer E190. The carrier will switch to its larger Airbus A220 once the E190 gets retired from the airline’s fleet. 

The third is Breeze, whose proposal awarding date and start date were only 10 days apart from each other, which is really short even by EAS standards. Breeze started flying to Ogdensburg, New York, on September 27, 2024, from Washington Dulles with daily flights on its Airbus A220s. The airline also started additional flights a couple of times per week from Orlando in March of 2025, although these flights are not part of the EAS contract and are unsubsidized.

More Interesting Proposals

Recently, some more interesting EAS proposals have come up in the past week, as there are a handful of cities in Virginia and West Virginia that are in the time period where they need to re-select the current airline or select a new one that will provide service for their respective communities. 

With Air Wisconsin losing its contract to fly American flights, it still needs to operate scheduled flights in order to keep its Part 121 certificate, and recently, the carrier has even started “scheduled flights” between Appleton and Milwaukee, both of which are in Wisconsin, with Saturday-only service.

However, it is unclear whether or not these flights have actually operated as they were supposed to start a couple of weeks ago.

Air Wisconsin has submitted a handful of proposals for EAS communities in the past, but it has not yet won any and is giving it another shot. Most recently, they have submitted proposals for four communities: Shenandoah in Virginia, along with Beckley, Parkersburg, and Lewisburg, all of which are in West Virginia.

The proposals are all pretty standard, and each community would see 12 departures a week on board the now Air Wisconsin-branded CRJ-200, which seats 50 passengers. Parkersburg and Beckley would see service to Charlotte, Lewisburg would see service to Chicago O’Hare as well as Charlotte, and Shenandoah would see service to Chicago O’Hare, along with flights to either Philadelphia or Charlotte, which would be decided by the community if selected.

Although the regional airline has ended the agreement where they will operate flights on behalf of American, if selected for EAS in any of these communities, it would be codesharing with American and could transfer bags directly to the larger American network.

An Air Wisconsin CRJ-200 aircraft (Photo: Air Wisconsin)

Breeze Looks to More EAS Markets

Breeze has also continued to submit EAS proposals, with the airline having submitted one for three of the four same communities that Air Wisconsin did: Shenandoah, as well as Parkersburg and Lewisburg.

But, unlike Air Wisconsin, Breeze has already won a contract in the past. With these three more recent proposals, the airline is proposing similar service to its other EAS route, with a daily flight from each community to Raleigh, North Carolina.

The airline mentioned nothing of possible interline partnerships in its three proposals for the communities in West Virginia and Virginia. 

In addition, these aren’t the first proposals that Breeze has submitted since Ogdensburg, and it did put in a request to serve Pueblo in Colorado, but did not win that contract, most likely due to their inability to connect to other airlines from Denver, which serves as a hub for United.

Other airlines have submitted proposals for all four of these communities, including SkyWest and the current operator at all four airports: Contour.

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Joey Gerardi

Joey has always been interested in planes for as long as he can remember. He grew up in Central New York during the early 2000s when US Airways Express turboprops ruled the skies. Being from a non-aviation family made it harder for him to be around planes and would only spend about three hours a month at the airport. He was so excited when he could drive by himself, the first thing he did with his driver's license was get ice cream and go plane spotting for the entire day. He graduated from Western Michigan University in 2022 with a B.S. in Aviation Management & Operations and a Minor in Business, and currently works for a major airline in his hometown.

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