The new airline slated to service Bradford Regional Airport will
likely begin doing so around late summer or early fall, officials
said Monday.

In an e-mail to airport officials, RegionsAir President Doug
Caldwell said the airline has told current carrier Colgan Air Inc.,
that it would like to make the transition in late summer. It will
also be starting additional operations in West Virginia around May
1.

RegionsAir will fly 34-seat Saab 340 aircraft complete with a
lavatory and steward into Bradford and will be using Continental
Airlines as its parent carrier. The airline will change hub cities
from Pittsburgh to Cleveland.

“There is a lot of work that needs to be done behind the scenes
before the transition can take place,” Airport Director Tom
Frungillo said. “The transition will take place between Colgan and
themselves. It will be smooth.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation selected RegionsAir to
service Bradford on March 21 after Colgan had announced last fall
that it was looking to renegotiate its two-year contract with the
DOT under the federal Essential Air Service program due to an
increase in fuel prices and a decline in passenger levels. The
final decision by DOT eventually came down to money; the federal
government would have to pay a higher subsidy to Colgan to fly into
Washington under EAS.

Airport officials had expressed an interest in retaining Colgan
as the carrier and changing hub cities to Washington, in part, to
help boost passenger levels and remove the airport from the EAS
program.

Officials are hoping the change in hub cities will also provide
additional connections across the country and world, primarily for
business travelers.

Under the transition, DOT expects Colgan to contact all
passengers holding reservations for travel to notify them of the
suspension of service and secure alternate air transportation for
them or provide a refund of the ticket price. Officials added the
bookings are changed with no extra cost to the traveler, with fares
guaranteed at the time flights are booked.

According to Frungillo, among the steps that need to be taken by
the new airline when making a transition to Bradford include
establishing code share agreements, dealing with Federal Aviation
Administration regulations and training employees at its various
stations, or stops.

“I believe there is a five-week training period for Continental
for their station people,” Frungillo said. “They also have other
stations they are trying to put online.”

The airline also has to shift over to the 34-seat planes; the
company is currently using 19-passenger aircraft in its fleet. The
airline – which will also service nearby Jamestown, N.Y. – will
make three round trip flights to Cleveland a day.

Like Colgan before them, Frungillo said RegionsAir officials
have seemed willing to work on marketing both the airline and
airport.

“They have seemed pretty receptive to those efforts,” Frungillo
said.

This is not the first time the airport has gone through a change
in carriers. In 2003, after then-carrier Mesa Air Group Inc.,
sought subsidized help under EAS, airport leaders turned their
attention to Continental carrier CommutAir, which also services
Cleveland. However, the DOT eventually chose Colgan for the
service.