Charter Airline Arrives
MultiAero Will Fly Out Of MidAmerica St. Louis Airport
MidAmerica Airport, Illinois (February 22, 2002) -- MidAmerica St. Louis Airport will soon have a new tenant that will be flying four scheduled flights each week to Chicago's Midway Airport.
The charter airline, MultiAero, Inc., is based out Festus, Missouri and has operated out of Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield for 17 years. It offers cargo and passenger services throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean and will provide scheduled and unscheduled flights out of MidAmerica via its new ShareAFlight program.
MidAmerica spokesman Michael Conner expects the company to have four scheduled flights to Chicago each week.
Pan American Airways, which ended service at MidAmerica in December, offered flights to Sanford, Florida, near Orlando and Gary, Indiana near Chicago.
"It excites us because we think there will be more passengers going to Midway than were going to Gary," Conners said.
MultiAero will lease 325 square feet of office space for $19 per square foot and 179 square feet of counter space for $23 per square foot monthly.
This about $10,000 monthly rate will not take effect the first six months of the contract and will be charged at one half the rate until June 2003.
"We're very happy and excited that this particular company will locate at MidAmerica Airport," said Jim Nations, a member of the St. Clair County Public Building Commission. "It will save a lot of the congestion that we run into at Lambert."
St. Clair County Board Chairman John Baricevic said the company has a sound business plan and will fill a need in Southwestern Illinois.
"It is a niche that can't be fulfilled at Lambert. (It is) an alternative to a busy hub airport, an opportunity that would not be available but for MidAmerica."
The company currently offers scheduled flights throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States from Chesterfield. It provides these flights on planes such as Beech Jets and Lear Jets.
For a flight to West Palm Beach, Florida, a ticket costs more than $900 and a flight to New Jersey is listed at about $1,400. A flight from Chesterfield to Peoria was listed at almost $200.
Representatives for MultiAero could not be reached for comment and no prices for flights out of MidAmerica were available.
When it began flying out of MidAmerica in 2000, Pan Am charged $129 each way to Sanford and $59 each way to Gary.
The county will try to find ways to help market the company.
"Now we will sit down with them and find ways to assist them. We did the same thing for Pan Am," Baricevic said.
He imagines the county might help the company with billboards and television and radio advertisement as was done for Pan Am.
"A marketing effort by a company should be conducted by the company, not the government," Baricevic said. "We want to be there as a partner and assist them."
Information provided by the Belleville News-Democrat
Sue Britt Article © the Belleville News-Democrat
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