The U.S. Department of Transportation has chosen Colgan Air
Inc., to service Bradford Regional Airport for two more years, a
ruling which moves the airline one step closer to changing hub
cities to Washington.

In a whirlwind series of events, the DOT had chosen competitor
RegionsAir to provide commercial air service to both Bradford and
Jamestown, N.Y., only to have the airline balk at starting service
three separate times – leading Colgan to intervene and attempt to
take back the market.

That process eventually proved successful – Colgan had argued
the delays were affecting its bottom line and the traveling public
– as the DOT last month vacated its original order giving
RegionsAir the service.

For the time being, Colgan will continue to fly into Pittsburgh
under US Airways, while probing whether a move into Washington
would be possible – an idea strongly backed by local airport
officials worried about declining enplanements under the federal
Essential Air Service program.

“Obviously it’s good news and what we originally wanted,”
Airport Manager Tom Frungillo said Wednesday. “This is the
direction we feel will be best for the region and to increase our
enplanements out of the airport.”

According to the DOT’s order issued Wednesday, Colgan will
maintain service at Bradford Regional until Sept. 30, 2008, with an
annual EAS subsidy of $2,434,827. The subsidy is provided for both
the Bradford and Jamestown markets combined; the service was
effective on Oct. 1.

“We are very, very happy about this,” said Colgan’s Director of
Development Dennis Burnett, adding airline brass never expected the
bizarre set of circumstances which took place during the ill-fated
transition period.

“This all moved pretty fast,” Burnett said. “Our actions came
about because of the continued delays. We have an employee group
there we are trying to protect. We felt it was necessary to at
least put our comments in (to DOT) and say let’s move on.

“We ran all the flights on schedule and tried to make the
easiest transition we could.”

In earlier documentation to the DOT, Colgan officials said due
to the uncertainty of the transition period, problems arose in
Jamestown, where employees transferred out to other bases when they
thought the airline was going to be leaving that location, as well
in booking flights.

Officials also cited RegionsAir’s lack of reliability in West
Virginia markets as another reason to continue using Colgan as the
carrier.

Conversely, officials with RegionsAir said that airline had also
suffered substantial losses, and perhaps “irreversible harm,”
claiming Colgan never told them the delays were imposing a hardship
on the airline.

Last fall, Colgan announced it was looking to renegotiate its
two-year contract with the DOT due to a decline in passenger levels
and a hike in fuel costs.

“We had been hit with some hard times,” Burnett said, adding he
understood the DOT’s decision to originally go with RegionsAir, in
part, because of the difference in subsidy rates between the
airlines – nearly $1 million. “The Bradford folks did a lot to
endorse our service.”

RegionsAir had proposed changing hub cities from Pittsburgh to
Cleveland, and parent carriers from US Airways to Continental.

Ironically, the DOT had selected RegionsAir over Colgan largely
because of the smaller EAS subsidy it would have to pay the
airline. The DOT also said in its original order that it had no
information which would lead it to question RegionsAir’s ability to
operate in a reliable manner.

U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa.’s, Communications Director Chris
Tucker said while the congressman’s office is “not in the business
of picking winners or playing favorites, we are very interested in
doing whatever we can to create the conditions necessary to help
BRA provide quality, reliable air service at a reasonable
price.

“Every bit of evidence we’ve seen suggests Colgan is in a better
position to facilitate that arrangement than is RegionsAir and
we’re glad that DOT came to that conclusion as well.”

According to Burnett, the airline is “very committed” to
building a long-lasting relationship with Bradford.

“We want to make sure we maintain the consumer confidence. We
acknowledge the community has expressed a strong desire to change
the service to Washington, but in the meantime, we are committed to
doing the best possible job we can to Pittsburgh right now. There
will be no change in the service over the next few weeks.”

Both Burnett and Frungillo said officials from both sides will
be meeting in the next couple of weeks to begin planning the
direction which the airline will take. Burnett said Colgan
currently flies from Altoona to Washington, and from other markets
in West Virginia and Virginia.

Colgan does have a codesharing agreement with United
Airlines.

“There’s a wide variety of things we are going to be looking
at,” Burnett said. “We’re in the process of refreshing our numbers
a little bit on the Washington market.”

RegionsAir had seven days to execute contracts with both
Bradford and Jamestown and make its schedules available for sale,
but did not meet that criteria set forth by the DOT.