Essential Air Service at Brookings, South Dakota and Devils Lake and Jamestown, North Dakota

Order 2008-1-26
OST-1997-2785

Issued January 28, 2008 | Served January 31, 2008

Order Approving an Alternate Service Pattern | Word

In response to the communities’ continuing desires for increased capacity on the early morning and late evening flights, we received a request from Mesaba on December 21, 2007, to link Devils Lake and Jamestown together, altering its service pattern for a second time. Mesaba would continue to provide each community with twelve round trips a week to Minneapolis, but part and parcel of Mesaba’s proposal is that the first flight of the day be routed Devils Lake-Jamestown-Minneapolis and the last flight be routed Minneapolis-Jamestown-Devils Lake, six days a week. That routing has the practical effect of making more seats available for Devils Lake and Jamestown passengers because, under the current schedule, each community is served on the same routes with a very strong traffic-generating community. Devils Lake’s other six weekly mid-day round trips would stop at Grand Forks, North Dakota; Jamestown’s at Brainerd, Minnesota. This alternate service pattern will constitute the same frequency level and annual subsidy requirement for both communities ($2,685,675) as described in Order 2007-8-16. Mesaba intends to begin this new service pattern in May.

By Order 2007-8-27, the Department approved an alternate service pattern. Nonetheless, the communities continued to work with Mesaba for further schedule enhancements.

By: Todd Homan