Seaport discontinues service in CA and KS

flyasaab said:
Chico was not an EAS route, just an at risk city like Modesto. Another reason why SkyWest left CIC during the Brasilia drawdown was that the city closed the airport fire station. Every time we flew in they had to send fire fighters from another station in the city. The fire chief was very vocal in saying that when he traveled he always drove to Sacramento for cheaper fares.
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Ah very interesting, thank you for the insight. I knew the flights were "at risk", but in training in SLC, the instructor told us the at risk flights which required special paperwork from the CS agents in green envelopes were EAS routes. Maybe MOST of them were, but not all I suppose. Still, I like how MCE which is reasonably close to FAT/SCK/MOD all with airline service is an EAS city but Chico isn't. Still, I took about a dozen trips up to CIC when friends were going to CSU Chico and most of the students seemed to favor flying Skywest to SFO. It wasn't very expensive, I found airfare to be between $130-200 r/t to SFO and most connections friends needed to make(SoCal, Arizona, Oregon, ect) were on par with flying out of SMF. Especially since SMF-SFO on UA/Skywest is what many ended up booked on anyway and with ATC delays, the company would try to keep CIC running since it had relatively few frequencies(2-3 daily) and SMF along with MRY and MOD were always the first to cancel. You might sit in the Chico terminal for 2 hours waiting for your plane, but at least you would get there eventually. Makes me feel nostalgic, so many times I would be fighting acid reflux still recuperating from the night before dry heaving in the airport bathroom waiting for my brasilia to show up after an epic adventure. I got to know the agents on a first name basis, and they knew I always ran late. More than once I woke up with everyone in the house too drunk to drive me to the airport, caught a cab 20 minutes before departure, called the counter, and had the TSA waiting for me with my boarding pass in had with the rest of the pax on board getting in on the first flight to get 6 hours of sleep or so at home then work a night shift. My friend who throws the concerts there was my enrolled friend the 4 years I worked at SkyWest while he was in school. I'm very glad this flight was around as he repaid the favor and in my early 20s I was on the guest-list to any event in San Francisco. Ah, Chico. :)

Didn't know that about the crash rescue situation. Again, interesting considering Chico has had airline service at least since STOL Air(predecessor to WestAir who did the United Express flying on the West Coast until Skywest took over in 98) in the late 70s/early 80s and Pacific Express was based in Chico in the 80s flying 737-200s and Bac 1-11s. You would think they would have ARFF on site considering that the airport used to be about as busy as MRY is today. Speaking of Pacific Express, check out this 1983 routemap. By then, the airline was on it's last legs and CIC just had a tag-on to SMF. At one point, they served a couple cities from there. Imagine Bac 1-11 and 737-200 service on these routes today. Different times.
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At the risk of sounding naive, they could put an autopilot on the airplane and pay one pilot a pretty good wage instead of two pilots crappy wages and still come out ahead. Why any EAS airline runs 2 crew when they could run single pilot is a little bit beyond me in a market that's so financially constrained.
 
mshunter said:
You can look at it however you want. The way you explain it is free handouts to help business expand. I see it as no different than poor decision making. Certain places absolutely require EAS. Alaska comes to mind right off the bat. But Johnny Farmer in the Midwest, not so much. They already work in such a heavily subsidized industry.

But as @PositionAndHold already pointed out, drive. There are bus services for those who don't have transportation. A ton of them operate into LAX on a daily basis.
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I agree, the way EAS is designed now, having put together an EAS proposal, is entirely wrapped around legacy EAS markets and political grandstanding over "handouts" which is hilarious considering the amount spent on other ridiculous nonsense in the name of economic development. Solid EAS policy would allow guidelines to drop current markets while allocating funds to those markets where it works.

Instead we're stuck with legislators screaming about EAS handouts and crippling DOT policy.

So while I agree some of EAS markets are ridiculous, it is only so because people are using it as a political tool and soundbite.

The logical extension of your earlier statement of "fact" would be because someone comes up with a smart business idea in a barn, on a dirt road somewhere in Kansas the Eisenhower interstate highway system should be torn up unless it serves only Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Business thrives in spite of it and maintaining off ramps in Abilene KS. Is a handout.

I am merely suggesting providing on ramps to the national air transportation system is in all of our interests and is sound public policy.
 
gotWXdagain said:
At the risk of sounding naive, they could put an autopilot on the airplane and pay one pilot a pretty good wage instead of two pilots crappy wages and still come out ahead. Why any EAS airline runs 2 crew when they could run single pilot is a little bit beyond me in a market that's so financially constrained.
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Completely agree.
 
EAS is EAS. Hard to make it work unless there is some overriding geographical consideration like being on an island or being WAY out to heck and gone.

Otherwise people just drive. An hour on the interstate from a reasonable city with service not a good candidate. 3-4 hours away on back roads, and you might have a fair prospect. Being on a island helps a lot.

And no jets. Money loser for sure. Hell, Navajos would be a better bet.

Remember that for every old timer airport manager that pines for the good ole days of the mainline rolling up in the Convair, there was a healthy subsidy, of some kind, attached to it courtesy of the CAB. It could be that the monopoly or duopoly the CAB provided between BigCity and LargeCity allowed fares high enough to cover 3 daily roundtrips to North Central Municipal.

You want to crank up the aviation equivalent of the TVA, that's all cool and all, but the money HAS to come from somewhere. Remember, that phone line you have in your cabin on Lake Woeisme was probably run there courtesy of the monopoly known as American Telephone and Telegraph, because the government told them that everyone who wants a phone gets one. They were good with that as long as they got to nick everyone else max coin for that rotary Princess (comes in white, black, and NEW for 1963 beige!). Chances that happening today? HAH! Want DSL in the cabin? Call up Bob's Farm Implement and Phone Company, who purchased the local service rights from whatever Baby Bell was in the area, and ask what it will cost run a landline out there. The answer you get won't be below 5 digits left of the decimal.

Richman
 
Richman said:
They were good with that as long as they got to nick everyone else max coin for that rotary Princess (comes in white, black, and NEW for 1963 beige!).
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Grandfather was a muckity muck at Southern Bell. It turns out that one's daughter could have a Princess in a shade of sky blue which almost matched the wallpaper, if one were, you know, part of the Gang. I'm not sure what the analogue for this is in the EAS system, but I feel fairly sure that there is one.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Grandfather was a muckity muck at Southern Bell. It turns out that one's daughter could have a Princess in a shade of sky blue which almost matched the wallpaper, if one were, you know, part of the Gang. I'm not sure what the analogue for this is in the EAS system, but I feel fairly sure that there is one.
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Order your Pilatus or Caravan in Princess blue.
 
Boris Badenov said:
Grandfather was a muckity muck at Southern Bell. It turns out that one's daughter could have a Princess in a shade of sky blue which almost matched the wallpaper, if one were, you know, part of the Gang. I'm not sure what the analogue for this is in the EAS system, but I feel fairly sure that there is one.
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The "original" AT&T was an interesting study, to be sure. From what I read, there was a healthy amount of interchange going on between the Feds and them to set up the system just so. The interesting thing is that AT&T was pretty well run for a monopoly, and had some startlingly good business practices, albeit somewhat staid and monolithic from the customer perspective. Lets not forget Bell Labs and the few minor things that they did...like the transistor and the laser.

Ever visit a downtown area and see a squat, fat building with a bunch of antennas on the top and looked like the walls were 12 feet thick? Chances are it was an AT&T building. They were constructed VERY well, with encouragement from the Feds, to harden the communications system.

All in all, not a bad example of a monopoly run correctly in the interests of the nation and customers, where price WASN'T the primary consideration.

Richman
 
z987k said:
Isn't cape air, who flies almost all EAS routes expanding? How hard are they up for pilots?
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First, I wouldn't say Cape Air is flying "almost all EAS routes." It's probably around 40-50% of their routes, and, I would guess, less than half of the actual flying. I don't think any of the Caribbean is EAS, most of the northeast is not EAS.

Second, they're struggling with pilots as well. Canceled flights for lack of pilots
 
Richman said:
The "original" AT&T was an interesting study, to be sure. From what I read, there was a healthy amount of interchange going on between the Feds and them to set up the system just so. The interesting thing is that AT&T was pretty well run for a monopoly, and had some startlingly good business practices, albeit somewhat staid and monolithic from the customer perspective. Lets not forget Bell Labs and the few minor things that they did...like the transistor and the laser.
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And UNIX.


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The EAS routes that I flew could have easily been supported by a 402 95% of the time. A Queenair or Be99 would have been overkill, but would have pushed that number to %99.9.

But the EAS contract specified pressurized turbine equipment.

Richman
 
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Cazadores said:
The logical extension of your earlier statement of "fact" would be because someone comes up with a smart business idea in a barn, on a dirt road somewhere in Kansas the Eisenhower interstate highway system should be torn up unless it serves only Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. Business thrives in spite of it and maintaining off ramps in Abilene KS. Is a handout.
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IMO, that's an illogical extension, having a highway system that everyone uses. So by your account, they are being subsidized twice. Eisenhower built our current freeway system not just for the free flow of commerce, but to allow our military to also travel expeditiously from one side of the country to the other, hence the name "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways." Back when it was designed and envisioned, there was no way to get from one side of the country to the other quickly.

Point being, the rest of the nation shouldn't be on the book for a guy in Chico, or Fresno, or Booney, so he can further his business. There are plenty of pop up charter operations now that are using small airplanes, on the cheap, like a Cirrus. In many cases, time wise, and dollar wise, you can do it just as well, and avoid the major airports all together.
 
Richman said:
The EAS routes that I flew could have easily been supported by a 402 95% of the time. A Queenair or Be99 would have been overkill, but would have pushed that number to %99.9.

But the EAS contract specified pressurized turbine equipment.

Richman
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The problem today is the 402s, 99s, and queen airs are so old they're becoming unsustainable to run. There's no aircraft in production other than the caravan that's a good fit for small EAS markets, and though a caravan is a good airplane it's got limitations especially for say the Rockies.
 
As others have said, it's sickening that they blame these closures on a pilot shortage. I can't tell you how many people have told me that their friends have tried to get on with SeaPort and couldn't get a call or response from anybody there. There are plenty of low time pilots that would be lining up to work there and build their time. When they mistreat so many guys for so long, it appears it's finally started to catch up to them. I'm sorry for the CSA's losing their jobs and the communities who have suffered from SeaPort's broken promises. Looks like karma is finally catching up to them. You can only abuse pilots for so long before you get burned.

I do find it strange that @av8tr1 isn't here trying to defend the company.
 
Roger Roger said:
The problem today is the 402s, 99s, and queen airs are so old they're becoming unsustainable to run. There's no aircraft in production other than the caravan that's a good fit for small EAS markets, and though a caravan is a good airplane it's got limitations especially for say the Rockies.
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Roger Squared is nearly right.

There are, however, three (and a half) to keep an eye on. (1.) The Pilatus PC-12 would work out well. Pressurized retractable, but initial cost is pretty high. Seaport leased some, until they were repossessed. Think Lexus vs Toyota / Caravan. Single PT-6 variant turboprop. (2.) Viking Air of Canada bought the rights and tooling for the Twotter from Bombardier and now makes the 400 series with partial composites, glass cockpit, etc. STOL capability, non-retracting gear (can get floats or skiis !) and tough as a tank. Two PT-6 series turbos. Cost is similar to the PC-12, I think. (3.) The Spanish are still building a version of the CASA 212, definitely in the running for the ugly airplane list, two Garrett turboprops. I'd look carefully at the accident list - seems like a lot of bent metal.

(The half, as in half-built) A very interesting aircraft to watch is the Italian-designed & (still being) built Tecnam P2012 Traveller. Cape Air has partnered with Tecnam on the design, and has ordered a hundred to replace their aging 402s. Not vapor-ware; this will happen. High wing twin, piston engines which will run on damn near anything that'll burn, not pressurized, fixed gear, glass cockpit and lots of composites. It even looks Italian (No CASA 212 here!). First flight later this year. Take a peek: www.tecnam.com/aircraft/p2012-traveller Maybe you can build time on a Vespa for it? Time will tell if it gets a significantly larger market than just Cape Air, but I'm betting on it.

I think you can order a new variant of the B-N Islander from companies in Belgium and Romania (who bought the rights and tooling after several bankruptcies), should you be so inclined. But no Trislander.

None of these are exact replacements for the Caravan, which is probably why Cessna will still sell you a new one. The market is a group of specialized needs, including freight, executive transport , parachuters, smaller EAS, various military roles, search & rescue and medevac, etc. What there is no replacement for, is the Beech 1900 (actually, could use a Twotter or Casa - maybe. Capacity is about the same), except for something in the Soviet Union (or whatever it's being called this week). They'd love to export it for you, but parts might be a problem.
 
M20B_pilot said:
As others have said, it's sickening that they blame these closures on a pilot shortage. I can't tell you how many people have told me that their friends have tried to get on with SeaPort and couldn't get a call or response from anybody there. There are plenty of low time pilots that would be lining up to work there and build their time. When they mistreat so many guys for so long, it appears it's finally started to catch up to them. I'm sorry for the CSA's losing their jobs and the communities who have suffered from SeaPort's broken promises. Looks like karma is finally catching up to them. You can only abuse pilots for so long before you get burned.

I do find it strange that @av8tr1 isn't here trying to defend the company.
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Yeah he kinda disappeared didn't he...
 
Inverted said:
It happens all the time. Everyone joins these types of companies bright eyed and unknowing. Then when the reality sets in, people's tunes change or they disappear from the cheerleading posts on various forums. Not sure how anyone could defend Seaport, but ok lol.
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I know I did. For the first six months or so I was perfectly happy with my job. That all started to change around the time Athens went away. Morale was dropping, per diem started lagging, pay checks started getting light. Then the disciplinary letters and the nasty PRIA remarks started coming out and I lost my hooah.
 
I'm on a cross country trip and having to work off my cell. Was waiting till I got home to respond.

I've never said SeaPort was perfect. We've made some decisions that didn't pan out like we hoped. So we are resetting and trying a different tack. We've got some great people working hard for SeaPort and its customers. Things arent over yet for SeaPort. But 89 people lost their jobs last week. How about you stop dancing on their graves.
 
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