The U.S. air transportation system lost one more source of “essential” service last month when Big Sky Airlines officially went out of business. Billings, Mont.-based Big Sky flew its last Beech 1900 service on March 8, leaving another seven communities isolated from the nation’s scheduled airline network. The airline chosen to assume control of those Essential Air Service routes– Cheyenne, Wyo.-based Great Lakes Aviation–has indicated that it might not secure and ready the airplanes it needs to fly the eastern Montana service until July.
The routes served the Montana towns of Glasgow, Glendive, Havre, Lewistown, Miles City, Sidney and Wolf Point. Meanwhile, the EAS-supported communities of Cape Girardeau, Mo.; Jackson, Tenn.; and Owensboro, Ky., have once again lost all scheduled service with Big Sky’s demise, and they too await word from Great Lakes on when it hopes to secure the airplanes it needs to reattach those towns’ air transportation lifelines. Other non-EAS cities formerly served by Big Sky, including Helena and Missoula, Mont., have lost service to Billings, although other airlines such as Horizon and Northwest fly to those places from Seattle and Minneapolis, for example.
