Proposals flying in to airport; hoping to land business soon

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The Yarmouth airport’s contract manager said Thursday they hope to land some business for the facility soon and are anticipating in the coming weeks that they will be receiving formal proposals for business.

Jeff Monroe said they expect to hear these proposals around the beginning of November.

“Right now we’re just making sure we’ve got all of the questions answered for them,” Monroe said .

The proposals from airlines, said Monroe, will include a connecting service five days a week into Halifax that involves two flights daily – an early morning flight and a late afternoon flight.

To correspond with that would be air service into Portland, Maine twice a day, giving passengers the ability to connect to flights departing from that U.S. city.

“The flights would correspond with each other so that business travelers from Portland can travel into Yarmouth and then go from Yarmouth to Halifax,” Monroe said, adding, “We’re looking at predominately a leisure market in and out of the United States and a business/medical market in and out of Yarmouth/Halifax.”

Monroe added that one of the carriers proposing service is looking at the potential for cargo business.

“We’re waiting to hear what the folks are proposing to us but we think that the critical mix here will be either, initially, a smaller aircraft moving into a bigger aircraft later on, or even potentially starting out with a bigger aircraft.”

Monroe said it is felt the ideal aircraft for this market is a 19-seater aircraft.

He said another factor when it comes to air service is the price sensitivity issue.