North Central West Virginia Airport Director Rick Rock was bracing himself to tell members of the Benedum Airport Authority at today’s meeting that the new flight schedule for its daily service to Washington Dulles International Airport wasn’t going to be changed as they had lobbied for.  Fortunately, the news changed – and for the better.

 

Rock told members of the Authority – the airport’s governing body – that the daily Silver Airlines flight will only have one month involving an additional stop in Parkersburg and one direct flight that leaves at 8 p.m. in the evening.

 

“I literally got the phone call about an hour or so ago,” said Rock. “This is good news and I was certain I was going to have to give you bad news.”

 

The Silver Airlines service to Dulles is part of the Essential Air Service (EAS) program that provides federal subsidies to airlines to provide service to large hubs from smaller, more rural airports on a daily basis. NCWV Airport recently re-bid for EAS service and the best bid was another bid from Silver, which was much worse than what already existed.

 

The new flight schedule under the new EAS bid goes into effect Oct. 1. As Rock found out today, it’s only a temporary schedule and will be changed to what he believes is a much more convenient and traveler friendly schedule Nov. 6.

 

“The schedule on Nov. 6 is similar to what we have now, which is a pretty good schedule,” said Rock.

 

The new schedule includes flights Monday through Friday from Bridgeport at 5:30 a.m. (from Bridgeport to Morgantown to Washington), a 3 p.m. direct flight to Washington and then an 8 p.m. to Dulles (from Bridgeport to Morgantown to Washington).

 

“We weren’t going to have any direct flights,” said Rock. “Silver heard our concerns because that 8 p.m. flight was going to be our only flight and now we have three.”

 

The weekend schedule is also more in line with what Rock and the Authority were hoping for. There will be a direct flight on Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The new lineup also has one flight directly from Dulles to Bridgeport, while another will stop at Morgantown before stopping in Bridgeport.

 

“There’s some give and take and some compromise,” said Rock. “We’re very excited that they listened to what we had to say.”

 

From the start of October to the new date in November, the flights will be limited and will include an additional stop in Parkersburg. That was one of the things Rock and the Authority were adamantly opposed to and, ultimately, saw rectified at the last minute.

 

“It’s for one month and we’ll have to suffer through that,” Rock said.

 

Even prior to the schedule change, Rock and his staff were tasked by the Authority to address ongoing concerns from the traveling public regarding delays, canceled flights and other issues they had reported to them with Silver. A one-month review of how they handled those issues was presented today with much of the problem – outside of major weather-related issues that Rock said no airport can get around – involved baggage times.

 

Rock said Silver’s turnaround is in the 20-minute range, which meets the airline’s guidelines. However, the turnaround for flights from Allegiant – the twice-weekly service to and from Orlando – is between 10 and 15 minutes. Rock showed members a letter that he is sending to Silver showing why he believes the airport staff can better handle luggage.

 

“We’re really working with these guys trying to improve their service,” said Rock.

 

Editor's Note: Photo of NCWV Airport Director Rick Rock at today's Airport Authority meeting.