ROCKLAND – It was a full screen as Knox County Commissioners met via Zoom on Tuesday, July 12. Invited to make presentations were Boutique Air, Southern Airways ( ), and Cape Air. The three airlines are competing for the contract issued by the Department of Transportation to supply essential air service to the Knox County Regional Airport. 

The companies were allowed 10 minutes to make presentations.   

Chief Commercial Officer Mark Cestari represented Southern Airways. 

He said Southern is a nine-your-old company based in Palm Beach, Florida and serves 49 cities.  

“We have made reliability our number one priority,” said Cestari. “Both in locating our pilots in the hometowns we serve, basing our aircraft in the hometowns we serve and typically that has allowed us to greatly improve the reliability we have inherited from previous carriers.” 

Cestari said his company’s proposal offers an average fare of $73. Southern Air also said it has a 99 percent completion rate, and they have interline agreements with American Airlines, United Airlines, and Alaskan Airlines. 

“We are now the largest commuter in the country,” said Cestari. “We are growing very rapidly, but also very carefully to not strain our resources and not over commit them. We feel since we already have a presence here in New England that adding your market would be easy for us to accomplish and easy for us to service both from a maintenance and crew perspective.”  

Southern is offering approximately 1,300 flights per year and said it would work with airport management to adjust those flights to the seasonality of the year. It also asked for a four-year contract to allow it to make the investments in the market.  

First year compensation would be $3,375,505 million with the fourth-year compensation increasing to $3,742,739 million.  

Cape Air was represented by its vice president for planning, Andrew Bonny. Cape Air currently holds the EAS contract for Augusta and Rockland. Cape Air is proposing service with a new fleet of twin engine aircraft.  

“Cape Air has been around for 32 years,” said Bonny. “We have interline agreements with Jet Blue, as well as Boston’s largest carrier, Delta. Because of our relationship with the other major carriers, Cape Air is on the websites of Jet Blue, American Airlines, United, and Delta.” 

Bonny said Cape Air is the only airline of the proposals that connects with the number one and number two carriers at Boston’s Logan which is Jet Blue and Delta.  

“Since we have been serving Rockland for 14 years now, it has become a fairly senior crew base and a very desirable place for our crews to go,” said Bonny.

He said Cape Air has its eye to the future and has put cash deposits down on the Eviation “Alice”  ( Eviation – Eviation Alice ) electric aircraft.  

“It is an all-electric aircraft being designed and manufactured on the West Coast,” said Bonny. “I want to be clear that this aircraft will not be here for this contract as it is still developmental, but we are actively involved with bringing Cape Air into the green aviation future.” 

Bonny said there will be a $65,000 per year marketing budget for Rockland and that they will maintain the downtown ticket office in Rockland.  

Cape Air posted a 97-percent completion rate. Their proposal will ask for a four-year contract with a first-year compensation of $3,303,476 million- and a fourth-year compensation of $4,161,429 million.  

Boutique Air failed to show for the presentation. Commission chair Dorothy Meriwether said they had the company had its chance and asked County Administrator Andrew Hart how the commission should handle it. 

“I would say they missed their opportunity,” said Hart. “They were given the same information as Southern Airways and Cape Air, and a link for a meeting to give a presentation. They didn’t do that and I feel they are out right now.”  

Commissioner Sharyn Pohlman said she agreed with Hart and Airport Manager Jeremy Shaw.  

“They knew when the meeting was,” said Pohlman. “Southern and Cape Air were here. I’d say they missed their opportunity.” 

County Administrator Andrew Hart said that the last time commissioners entertained for the airport contract, it was done over the course of three meetings.  

“I asked Jeremy to reach out to the DOT because they wanted us to make a decision by July 29,” said Hart. “The DOT gave us a two-week extension to August 12, and our next meeting is August 9.”  

In 2018, the commissioners held a special meeting to review the public comments, and authorized the chair to write a letter of recommendation to the DOT.  

Two points are worthy of explanation for the purposes of this article: Completion rates and single versus twin engine aircraft.  

Completion rate is the actual number of times the planes take off. Southern boasts a 98.5-percent completion rate, while Cape Air states 97-percent.  

Jeremy Shaw explained completion rate as follows.  

“Southern Air stated a 98 percent completion rate which is the actual number of times the plane goes,” said Shaw. “Cape Air says 97 percent, but we have multiple days of fog. We have entire weeks of fog or bad weather, so Cape Air’s number is lower because that’s real time numbers. Southern is 98 percent but it doesn’t matter what types of planes they have if the ceiling is below minimum then the planes can’t land and they can’t take off.”  

Southern’s routes are more tropical, hence the higher completion rate and our market is more complicated due to weather factors of New England, he said.

Multi verses single engine aircraft 

According to Jeff Northgraves, APAC member, the DOT requires the winner of this contract to be a multi-engine aircraft.  

“Unless the community says I’m willing to live with a single engine, and then they will allow a single engine,” said Northgraves. 

Northgraves said that once the community says it wants a single engine, it cannot go back and say it wants an aircraft because it is not a single engine.  

“If we ever accepted a single engine for our EAS,” said Northgraves, “then we would never be able to raise that veto again.”  

According to Shaw, “a single engine aircraft is not allowed to fly out over water and must follow land, where a multi-engine aircraft can fly out over water.”  

Earlier in the day, Shaw gave a recap of the airport’s APAC committee meeting where the EAS proposals were discussed.  

Committee member Jeff Northgraves had asked Boutique Air about its $49 rate, which Shaw said was a very attractive rate. Boutique Air explained it as an introductory rate and that it would go up.  

Another point is that the EAS contract limits the subsidy per passenger at $200. Boutique projected $293.94, while Cape Air projected $253.82 and Southern projected $198.60.  

Shaw explained that this day and age with fuel prices, inflation, the pilot shortage and landing fees, the costs of that has gone above $200 per passenger. Shaw said it is happening all around the country and not just here in this market.  

Shaw said he had a discussion with Cape Air and that company confirmed its numbers. Northgraves said Southern’s numbers were recalculated to get them under that $200 cap and that Cape Air was actual numbers. 

Shaw said that 100 percent of received letters from the public have been pro Cape Air. None were in support of Boutique or Southern.  

The general public now has until July 29 to submit letters. See related article, Knox Airport seeks public input on air carriers: Cape Air, Boutique Air, Southern Airways Express, on how to submit a letter.  

In other APAC news a new member was appointed to the committee. T.J. Copeland, who owns Copeland Garage and is a flying club member and was appointed to that position.  

In closing the presentation portion of the commission meeting, Cestari and Bonny thanked the commissioners for taking the time to learn about air service.  

Cestari said Southern and Cape Air were friendly competitors and hoped the commission was happy with which ever service was chosen.  

Bonny said it is important to learn how your community is connected to the world and how the world is connected to your community.