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Essential Air Service at Waterloo, Iowa / Great Lakes Aviation, Inc.

At the time of the filing of this notice, Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd., operating as Great Lakes Airlines and Mesaba Airlines, operating as Northwest Airlink are providing service at Waterloo, Iowa. Great Lakes' flights are operated under the terms of a code-share agreement with United Airlines.

Great Lakes Airlines service at Waterloo currently consists of five daily nonstop round-trips to Chicago-O'Hare International Airport, in 19-seat Raytheon/Beech 1900D equipment. Northwest Airlink service at Waterloo consists of four weekday round trips to Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport, in 33-seat Saab 340 equipment.

Increasing costs and a reduction in passenger revenue in the past year have caused Great Lakes to incur losses in providing scheduled service at many service points. Waterloo has been further impacted by competitive fare initiatives that have eroded unit revenues to the point that the market has become unprofitable for Great Lakes. Given the current economic downturn, it is unlikely that any improvement will occur in the near future.

By:  Great Lakes, Douglas Voss, 307-432-7000

Essential Air Service at Waterloo, Iowa / Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd.

After careful consideration, we have decided to allow Great Lakes to suspend service at Waterloo, effective February 7, 2003. We recognize that the remaining service is operated to only one of Waterloo’s designated hubs. However, hub designations assume that service would not be available from the community to any other hubs. If other service is in fact available when one carrier files notice to suspend service, we consider whether the remaining service can meet the community’s needs. Northwest Airlink’s remaining service, consisting of four nonstop weekday round trips to Minneapolis/St. Paul -- providing 132 seats outbound and inbound -- is far in excess of Waterloo’s guarantee of 67 seats inbound and outbound each day. In addition, Minneapolis/St. Paul is one of the largest airports in the country providing access to the rest if the country as well as international destinations. Therefore, in this case, we conclude that this service will meet the core responsibility of the EAS program to provide Waterloo a continuing link to the national air transportation system.

By:  Read C. Van de Water

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