Members of the Bradford Regional Airport Authority Wednesday heard a report that arrivals and departures from the Lafayette Township facility broke into the 400 levels during October.

Ryan Dach, Bradford station manager and director of stations for Southern Airways Express, the low-fare airline that provides service to Bradford Regional Airport, said records show 423 passengers flying out and 400 arriving in the last monthly period. Meanwhile, 93 percent of the scheduled departing flights operated, while the arriving flights registered a 94 completion rate. “That’s a great increase over last month,” Dach said, as he credited the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford for promoting the local flights. Dach called it “a move in the right direction,” pointing to the increased number of flights and high flight completion rates due in part to additional pilots being hired.

Recently, SAE, faced with a temporary shortage of qualified pilots as it expanded into new markets, used an accelerated process to fill the need. According to airport manager Alicia Dankesreiter, of the three pilots based in Bradford, two are local residents and one lives out of town. Dankesreiter and authority Chairman Cliff Lane shared Dach’s comments on the pilot hirings, adding, “The pilot situation is well on the way to being solved.”  

While October’s average daily passenger counts at Bradford increased to 15.53, this exceeds the minimum number of ten, which satisfies one of the two requirements airports must meet to remain eligible for inclusion in the Essential Air Service. EAS is the U.S. Department of Transportation’s program that provides subsidies to airlines that provide commercial air service to small communities.

“For us to meet the EAS’s second requirement of reducing our rate of per passenger subsidy to $200, the daily passenger rate must go to 16,” Dankereiter said.

Every two years, the USDOT reviews data from airports to determine if they remain eligible for  the EAS. A data entry error showed that Bradford’s average passenger counts were 8.7 and under the EAS minimum and the per passenger subsidy was above $200, resulting in the airport receiving a tentative notice from the USDOT.

In an Oct. 20, 2017, letter to USDOT, Dankesreiter, on behalf of the airport authority, submitted objections to the department’s findings and requested a waiver from the $200 subsidy cap and ten enplanement rule.

The enplanement reporting error was discovered and reported to Southern Airways Express and the DOT. The airline has since modified and verified the data and provided the corrections via the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The revised information, Dankesreiter noted, show 4,170 passenger enplanements for fiscal year 2016 for an average of 13.3 per day. “While this puts Bradford above the ten passenger rule, it is not quite enough to keep us under the $200 per passenger subsidy cap. Our average subsidy for 2016 was $249.69. This is a marked improvement over FY 2015s subsidy of $290 and FY 2014 at $639 per passenger.”

Bradford Regional Airport is part of a close-knit group of EAS communities with service to Pittsburgh, known as the PIT Connector program. “We will continue to work with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Pittsburgh International Airport and Southern Airways Express to implement a comprehensive public-private partnership for marketing in our community,” Dankesreiter said. “Combined with Southern’s operational improvements, we feel our proposal going forward will improve our passenger numbers, demonstrating that the passenger numbers in FY 2016 were just the beginning of growth for Bradford.”

U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., and U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., are backing the airport’s efforts to keep the subsidy in Bradford.

The USDOT has not yet announced which communities are to stay in the subsidy program.

Dankesreiter announced that Avis Car Rental is leaving the airport, effective Nov. 23 after almost a year. In addition, the company is also pulling out of Blair County.

“We are actively soliciting a nationwide car rental company,” Dankesreiter said.

Zook Motors of Kane will continue to rent cars at the airport.

In other news, the engineer’s report showed notice has been given for proceeding with rehabilitating Runway 14-32 and replacing the wind cone. GAI, the airport’s engineering firm, and the contractor anticipate restarting this work in the spring during good weather.

Facilities manager David Thomas reported that the painting on Runway 14-32 has been finished, however the crack sealing will be revisited in the spring.

Work has also commenced on the red brick hangar.

Dankesreiter said that Ben Franklin CNP applied for a United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Business Development grant to install videoconferencing equipment at seven sites. “Sherri Geary, director of McKean County Economic Development, submitted an application for the airport and we were successful in being chosen as one of the sites. We’re very grateful for her effort on securing this equipment for the airport and community,” she said. “I expect the equipment to be installed by the end of the year. It will be available for use to other public agencies and businesses.”