Alaska Airlines has landed a one-year, $1.6 million federal subsidy to provide jet service from Anchorage to Adak.
The Seattle-based airline on Jan.3 was awarded the subsidy, the most costly in the nation under the U.S. Department of Transportation's Essential Air Service program.
Alaska Airlines received unanimous endorsement from community, business and Alaska Native leaders to provide service to the Aleutian Island community of about 100 to 200 people, hard hit by its 1997 U.S. Navy base closure.
Peninsula Airways Inc., Evergreen International Inc., LLM Inc. (Jetstream) and Scenic Airlines Inc. also bid on the subsidy. Bids ranged from $400,000 to $2.7 million, depending on frequency of flights, level of service and type of aircraft.
Kevin Adams, a DOT spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the subsidy will require two-round trip flights a week using a Boeing 737-200 airplane.
Jack Walsh, Alaska Airlines spokesman in Seattle, said the cost for a round-trip ticket has not been set.
According to Adams, the selection of Alaska Airlines was largely based on community support of a jet for the 1,200-mile one-way flight to Adak, located in a region notorious for its severe weather.
The City of Adak, Adak Reuse Corp., Aleutians East Borough, Aleut Enterprises, Aleut Corp., Icicle Seafoods Corp. and others formally supported large jet aircraft with large cargo capacity, critical to the region's seafood industry.
The Department of Transportation opened bids for the subsidy July 8, after canceling Evergreen's $1.5 million annual contract when the airline failed to provide promised jet service for passengers and cargo with a Boeing 727-100 airplane.
PenAir, based in Anchorage, has been critical of Alaska Airlines' and Evergreen's proposals, saying freight and passenger levels do not warrant jet aircraft.
According to DOT's written order awarding the subsidy, the contract will be reviewed in a year.
"Given the very substantial level of subsidy required to support this service, if traffic does not respond or the level of subsidy support needed does not decline, we will review the issue towards the end of the one-year contract period."
Alaska Airlines is slated to begin the service by early March. Until then, Evergreen and PenAir will continue with their current interim co-contracts to the community, the only such arrangement in the history of the Essential Air Service Program, established in 1978 to ensure small communities retain a link to the national air transportation system.
Under the EAS program, some 33 communities in Alaska and 86 nationwide receive a subsidy from the federal government at a cost of about $50 million annually.
