Pan Am Interested in MidAmerica Airport
Next Step Could Be MidAmerica Airport To Gary Indiana Service
BELLEVILLE, IL (October 27, 1999) -- A very little airline with a very big name is interested in flying out of MidAmerica Airport precisely because no one else is using it.
Pan Am, a new start-up airline that bought the rights to the name of the former international carrier, on October 7 began flying one flight a day from its headquarters at the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Orlando, Florida, and back. Next month, it adds service at Gary, Indiana.
And the next step could be service between MidAmerica Airport and Gary, said Dan Fortnam, vice president of marketing. "We're still looking several months down the road before we start negotiating contracts," Fortnam said.
Last week, Pan Am flew its first flight from Portsmouth to the little used Gary-Chicago Airport.
Regular scheduled service to Gary is planned to begin November 17, using two of the company's refurbished Boeing 727s, Fortnam said.
Six days a week, one plane will fly from Portsmouth to Orlando to Gary to Portsmouth, while the other will fly a reverse route.
Depending on how well those routes do, the company's next step may be to schedule a third plane to fly between Gary and MidAmerica Airport, Fortnam said.
"It is our intention to fly out of MidAmerica Airport, and the first city would be Gary," he said. "It is on the horizon, but how close that is, I can't narrow that down yet. It's very hard to pin down - I may feel it's better to put another plane on the Portsmouth-to-Florida run."
Last week, in a story about the preview flight into Gary, the Chicago Sun-Times quoted Pan Am president Dave Fink as saying the airline would be flying into MidAmerica Airport soon.
But on Tuesday, Fortnam said Fink has no intention of overextending the fledgling airline. "He likes to say, 'We're just gonna bite a little bit of the cookie so we don't get indigestion,' " Fortnam said.
The new Pan Am bought the rights to the name of the former airline after it went bankrupt. Currently, the start-up airline has seven 727s: one flying the scheduled route, one as backup, three still being upgraded, and two flying charters, Fortnam said.
"We got the brand, we got the legacy. But we're a pretty small company right now," he said.
Pan Am's strategy is to provic upscale passenger service using older, less expensive but refurbished planes and flying from airports where there is little competition for takeoff spots.
"We're always No. 1 for departure," Fortnam said. "And the cost of operating at these airports is not prohibitive." MidAmerica Airport to Gary would make sense because business travelers could reach the Loop faster than they could flying into Chicago's O'Hare Airport without the parking and delays common at O'Hare and Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Fortnam said.
St. Clair County Board Chairman John Baricevic said the county has had several meetings with Pan Am.
"There have been a number of communications," he said. "We are very well aware of them and their business plan and their financial strengths and weaknesses. We continue to talk to them, but there's no contract been signed or even proposed.
"We'd be very happy to see Pan Am flying from MidAmerica Airport."
Information provided by the Belleville News-Democrat
Rod Hafemeister Article
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