Regional airline SkyWest remains bullish on broadening its network to include more small communities across the U.S., despite uncertainty with federally funded programs.
Earlier this year, a White House budget proposal outlined plans to slash the Essential Air Service (EAS) program’s funding by roughly half. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy also told Congress that the program may have to do “more with less.”
SkyWest is one of the largest recipients of EAS subsidies, with nearly 40 contracts in the Lower 48.
But even without mentioning EAS support, the U.S.’s largest regional airline sees more room for growth in small communities. This includes the potential for new routes, destinations, and expanded service in existing markets, company leaders shared during SkyWest’s third-quarter earnings call last week.
“We’re about at 70% of where we were in 2019 pre-pandemic on [pro-rate flying]. We’re seeing strong demand throughout the whole country on pro-rate,” said SkyWest chief commercial officer Wade Steel during the call. “There’s still a lot of opportunities with small community service, both enhancing frequency and then also restoring dots on the map.”
Steel said SkyWest is working with each of its partners on pro-rate agreements.
“As I said, we do a lot of that for United. We have also started an agreement with American. We also do that with Delta as well. So all of our major partners, we’re working with them on additional dots on the map. And so we’re excited about the opportunities that are in front of us, and we’ll continue to execute on those,” he continued.
Pro-rate flying refers to a type of agreement where the regional carrier operates flights for a major airline and receives a percentage of the fares for passengers who connect from their flights to the major airline’s flights.
“We are seeing opportunities to return SkyWest service to several communities and we will continue to work with the airports we serve in the best way to expand our service,” Steel added.
Connecting the Dots
Just last week, United added three new destinations to its route map, all of which will be served with SkyWest CRJ-200s.
The Chicago-based airline and SkyWest also recently inked a new deal to keep the 50-seat aircraft flying longer within United’s regional network.
