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WORLAND – Worland will find out if it loses its municipality air service eligibility by February 24 according an order issued from the United States of America Department of Transportation.

This is a tentative decision from The Department of Transportation issued by an order Feb. 4 that states its "directing interested persons to show cause as to why the Department should not terminate the eligibility of Worland under the Essential Air Service (EAS) program and allow Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd to suspend service at the community. Objections to the Department's tentative decision are due within 20 days of the service date of this order."

Great Lakes was re-selected to provide EAS for Worland to operate 12 one-stop round trips per week to Denver, Colo., for the two year period from Oct. 1, 2014 through Sept. 30, 2016 for an annual subsidy of $2,327,987, according to the Department of Transportation.

As of today, the city has 14 days left, and if the city does not show cause why they need air service Worland will lose its commercial service license when the EAS was supposed to be renewed in September.

The loss of the commercial service license does not mean the city will lose the airport, Rick Patton, Principal Planner at GDA Engineers, said at the Worland City Council work session Monday night.

If Worland loses its commercial license it will become like 75 percent of the airports in Wyoming and become a general aviation airport, Patton said.

General aviation airports are very serviceable to the corporate traffic that would be coming in, residents would just not be able to buy a ticket and fly in and out of Worland commercially, Patton said.

Why Is Worland in this position to lose its EAS?

"The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, signed into law on February 14, 2012, amended the definition of "eligible place" for the purpose of receiving EAS," according to the Department of Transportation document.

The amendment stated, "to be eligible, a community must have had an average subsidy per passenger of less than $1,000 during the most recent fiscal year, as determined by the Secretary of Transportation."

For the fiscal year of 2015 that subsidy per passenger rate increased to $1,100, and though the city of Worland is $100 over, the EAS is still considering dropping the funding program.

Essential air service program money comes from fees that people pay when they buy an airline ticket, Worland Mayor Dave Duffy said.

Why does Worland need the EAS?

The airport is a valuable commodity.

Worland Airport Manager Lynn Murdoch said, "A reliable carrier has a huge impact on our community providing safe, efficient transportation for our economic health and growth. This is particularly important in such a rural, sparsely populated area such as Wyoming."

She said it is imperative that Worland be afforded equitable access to the national transportation systems without residents having to drive long distances.

Mayor Duffy said the retention of the EAS is important because the city needs a service to attract residents from the surrounding counties, and our own, to fly out of here.

According to a document from the Wyoming Aeronautics Division the Worland Municipal Airport, as a commercial air service, employs 12 people. If that airport becomes a general aviation airport would lose two people and only employ 10 people.

Change in hours, pilot shortage

There are a number of factors that have lead up to this point.

Pilots are required to have 1,500 hours of flying time to be hired and fly as a pilot, Patton said.

Previously, pilots only needed 250 hours of flying time to be hired as a pilot, but Congress had a "knee-jerk reaction" and changed it after a crash in Buffalo, N.Y. that left 50 dead, Patton said,

After the law went into effect, there was a shortage of pilots in airline services of all levels, and smaller airlines like Great Lakes was really hurt by that, Patton said.

For the last year and a half, "Great Lakes came up with a solution to fly under a charter – not an airline certificate – and took all but nine seats out," Patton said. "That allowed them to fly with one pilot."

By Great lakes flying chartered rather than the airline certificate they were able to follow a different set of rules, Patton said.

"Those different rules kept pilots flying under a scheduled charter and that kept them out of the 1,500 hours," Patton said.

"Great Lakes had 172 pilots and they lost 100 of them... because of that they started cutting back service everywhere," Duffy said.

"We're not the only ones in this position," Duffy said.

Worland Airport Enplanement History

Enplanements have deteriorated over the last three years, Worland Mayor Duffy said.

Based off statistics from the Bureau of Transportation, the City of Worland's enplanements decreased by over 1,000 in one fiscal year, and continued the trend of decreasing by nearly half at the end of each fiscal year.

Enplanements means the number of people who have bought a ticket and flew out of the airline, Patton said.

In 2013, the city's enplanements were at 2,784; in 2014 enplanements dropped to 1,540; and in 2015 Worland's enplanements fell to 822.

"If we had not even half the people that didn't fly from somewhere else, and they flown form here we wouldn't have been in this situation," Duffy said.

Where are people flying from if not Worland?

"The fact that they [residents] do not fly out of Worland is what's known as leakage," Duffy said.

In data collected by GDA Engineers and provided by WYDOT Aeronautics, they found out where the leakage has gone by collecting the number of tickets sold by county broken out by departure airport.

Most Washakie residents fly out of Billings. In 2014 the number of Washakie residents flying out of Billings was 272 and 262 in 2015.

Cost and dependability were brought up at the council's work session.

City councilwoman Lisa Fernandez said it cost more to fly from Worland to Denver than from Denver to the Bahamas.

"People would rather fly out of somewhere cheaper [and] know the flight is going to get there," Fernandez said.

What Worland will do to keep its EAS

"It's a given. If we don't do something we're going to lose this effective at the end of the contract in September," Duffy said.

The City Council decided to move forward and start a letter of importance to show cause why Worland needs to keep its Essential Air Service program.

"We might as well try and do what's best for our community," Fernandez said.