There was rarely a week that went by over the last couple of years when North Central West Virginia Airport Director Rick Rock and members of the Benedum Airport Authority didn’t hear complaints regarding their daily air service provider Silver Airlines. The concerns were generally in the same area – delays and cancelations.

 

“When you have unreliable service it’s only a matter of time before that service is no longer used,” said Rock Wednesday. “I know it’s early, but we’re nearly three weeks in and those problems are gone.”

 

On Oct. 1, the NCWV Airport said goodbye to Silver Airlines. In its place was ViaAir, which was the new federally subsidized daily carrier under the FAA’s Essential Air Service program.

 

“As of today (Oct. 19), there has been zero service issues and there has only been one delay. That was a weather delay related to fog that couldn’t have been avoided no matter who was flying,” said Rock. “The big thing is we’re not seeing flights canceled due to maintenance.”

 

Also as of Wednesday, there have been 573 flights through Via Air and that’s been done without a whole lot of marketing on the airport’s part. Rock said that even though the new service – flying daily to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and four times a week to Charlotte’s Douglas Airport – is offering promotional fares on flights for roughly $13 through October, he expects the traveling public to continue to use the service with consistent flights and what will still be what he and Authority President Ron Watson have described as “really cheap” fares.

 

The 573 is significant. Silver’s highest month in 2016 was 465. In fact, only four times did the airline go over 300 passengers in one month with a low of 128 passengers in March of this year.

 

“Since July of 2009 I’ve never seen an (EAS) plane come in with 27 people. We’ve already had that,” said Rock.

 

ViaAir uses a 30-seat Embraer 120 Brasilia turboprop aircraft. And Rock said there is better news already.

 

“We have a flight coming from Baltimore Sunday that has 30 people on it and a flight coming from Charlotte on Monday that’s got 30 people on it. Since 2009, we’ve not had one sellout and we’re going to have two in two days,” said Rock. “The really good news is that there’s a whole lot of flights in the future that already have 20 or more seats reserved and a few capacity flights already.”

 

Rock, Watson and Authority member Mike Romano recently joined others on a trip to Baltimore.  They were pleased with Via’s attention to service and the ease of the flight. Watson then took his wife on a flight where they made a day trip to New York City via the train service at BWI.

 

“It was a great experience. The train ride was about three hours to New York, but it was comfortable and they had plug-ins for any of your electronic devices,” said Watson, who emphasized there was no switching of trains along the way.

 

Rock said he’s optimistic Via will be able to get a code share for BWI. The code share allows you to book your flight through Via and then be able to book a connecting flight at BWI at the same time. Right now, individuals have to book their own connecting flights.

 

“We’re still waiting on word on the code share and don’t have a specific timeline,” said Rock. “I’d hope by the first of November, but I just don’t know right now.”

 

Rock did say that for the first time flights are showing up on travel sites. He said the Via service shows up on Priceline.com and they have that they have to other sites involved as well.

 

“This is what we had hoped for with their service. I was surprised they wanted to and actually got going full steam on Oct. 1 considering they  were expanding into  four cities,”  said Rock. “From day one, they’ve been on the money and we hope to see some additional flights.”

 

Rock and the airport were working on a lease deal for space to provide to Via. Rock is hoping that can be leveraged into additional flights to Charlotte, particularly one on the weekend.

 

Via Air has nonstop flights to Baltimore twice a day Monday through Friday. The airline has one flight on Saturday and Sunday. The Charlotte flights include a stop in Beckley and go on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

 

Editor's Note: Top photo shows Authority President Ron Watson, right, talking with NCWV Airport Director Rick Rock prior to this past week's meeting, while the middle photo shows a ViaAir plane at the facility in Bridgeport. Bottom photo shows the new service desk for ViaAir.