Aerodynamics, Inc. (ADI), will continue to provide commercial air service to the Pierre Regional Airport.
City commissioner Blake Barringer says the US Dept. of Transportation has renewed ADI’s contract to provide Essential Air Service to Pierre through July 2020.
Mayor Steve Harding says USDOT also approved ADI’s bid to provide service to Watertown.
People flying out of Pierre and Watertown who want to go beyond Denver will have to purchase two tickets until ADI works out details to reestablish reservation and baggage handling services.
Commissioner Vona Johnson says she recently priced flights and says it was worth the effort to do some checking.
Pierre Regional Airport manager Mike Isaacs says ADI’s interline agreement is not expected to be in place this year. Tickets from Pierre to Denver are available at www.flygreatlakes.com or by calling 800-554-5111 or 605-224-2949. He says, in the short term, many travel agents around the country will not be able to find tickets from Denver to Pierre unless they go directly to the www.flygreatlakes.com website.
Service from the Pierre and Watertown airports includes twelve round trips to Denver each week. Ticket prices will remain the same with round trip ticket prices to Denver averaging about $200 and round trip flights between Pierre and Watertown averaging $98.
The number of people using Pierre’s scheduled commercial air service has nearly doubled since 2016. In August of 2016, ADI took over the federal contract to provide air service to Pierre.
USDOT EAS contracts subsidize air carriers to ensure rural communities, like Pierre, have access to commercial air service. The USDOT leads the contracting process by calling for proposals from airlines interested in the contracts and ultimately choosing the winning proposal.
