Proposal for United replacement possible soon

A proposal for a potential replacement of United Airlines’ direct Denver flights could be ready before the end of the year.

That update came from Gary Peters Tuesday at the first meeting of the board that oversees the Lewiston airport since United announced Friday it was discontinuing nonstop Lewiston-Denver commercial passenger flights this winter.

He and Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport Director Michael Isaacs have been on calls every day for the last three weeks knowing the announcement about the flights was coming, said Peters, the chairperson of the airport authority board.

United will operate service from Denver to Lewiston through Jan. 31 and service from Lewiston to Denver through Feb. 1.

“We had a very good call on Friday,” Peters said. “So it’s not over. We’re going to keep fighting and dig in and hopefully we’re going to have another option” for Nez Perce County and the city of Lewiston, the owners of the airport.

“We’re not going to be able to fix this without money,” Peters said. “By not spending, it is how you lost it and by spending is how you’re going to get it back.”

The Denver flights, according to airport officials, have never been profitable for United. They have been subsidized with government money since they debuted in 2021.

In the first three years, they were backed by $4 million of Nez Perce County’s $7.8 million allocation from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The city of Lewiston paid United just more than $4 million for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 for a yearlong minimum revenue guarantee agreement.

United requested another $4.9 million minimum revenue guarantee for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. The Nez Perce County Commission committed $500,000 and was trying to find other parties to contribute.

The city of Lewiston hadn’t provided any money for a minimum revenue guarantee for the present fiscal year, citing a number of concerns such as draining the municipality’s reserves.

The Lewiston airport still has nonstop flights to and from Salt Lake City and Seattle on Delta, which are not subsidized.

Salt Lake City and Seattle are much closer to Lewiston than Denver, the third-largest hub in the nation, so the Delta flights require less fuel, a primary expense for airlines, Isaacs said.

Additionally a large number of the travelers on the Denver-Lewiston flights are going to other cities as their final destinations, which means that only a portion of the revenue from flights is attributed to the Denver-Lewiston route, Isaacs said.

The itineraries of the travelers on the Lewiston flights heading to Salt Lake City and Seattle are generally different, with a higher percentage of passengers staying in those places as final destinations, Isaacs said.

United carried about one third of the passengers using the Lewiston airport, who brought in about $23 million annually in spending in the area, Isaacs said.

The airport will have to look at its budget because it will have less revenue from a number of sources such as its parking lot and landing fees, Isaacs said.

As Lewiston is losing its United service, another community in the Southwest will be gaining flights from United in May, Peters said.

That town will be paying $7 million for two years and United will be using CRJ-200 jets, Peters said.

That jet is smaller than the 70- to 76-seat E-175 jets United introduced in Lewiston at the end of September and had pledged to keep on the Denver route had the airport found the money for United’s requested subsidy.

The Southwest town, which Peters said he didn’t name because the addition of the flights hasn’t been announced, has “been waving a $7 million check in front of United since 2017,” hoping to get the service.

“It took us saying no for them to get their opportunity,” Peters said. “So I guess now we all know that United wasn’t bluffing and was not holding anything back when they said, ‘We have more profitable places to go and if you can’t recognize the investment, we are going to go somewhere they are.’ So they have. So I can’t blame them.”

Moving forward, Peters said the Lewiston airport will use a “road map” based on what the Southwest town did working on the state and federal levels.

As Lewiston airport officials seek a replacement for United, the airport board is accepting applicants for a spot that will open on the board Jan. 13 when Joe Gish, a present airport board member, is sworn in as a Nez Perce County commissioner.

Applications are available at golws.com. The closing date for applications is Jan. 9.

Staying on the airport board as a county commissioner would be a conflict of interest since the county is an owner of the airport, Gish said.

Something the airport board might consider in the future is having a city councilor and a county commissioner serve on the five-member panel, said Don Beck, a Nez Perce County commissioner who is leaving his post after choosing not to run for another term this year.

The city councilor and the commissioner would have knowledge about the budgets of the entities they represent, Beck said.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.