TRI-LAKES AREA — Hot Springs area residents will soon have a faster and easier way to take business trips to Dallas or to see a Cowboys game.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has approved a request by SeaPort Airlines to begin operation of flights from Memorial Field Airport in Hot Springs to Love Field in Dallas.
The airline and airport officials confirm that the new route should begin operation in mid-July, but no exact date has been set for the inaugural flight.
George Downie, director of the Hot Springs airport, said the new route should help increase the number of passengers using the terminal.
“Dallas will be very popular,” he said. “Memphis has not been the top destination for the flying public here over the years.”
Few people are using the HotSprings-to-Memphis service, which is a 40-minute f light. Downie said the average passenger count in May was less than one person per flight.
Downie said the Hot Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau advertises heavily in the Dallas area and the advertising attracts to Hot Springs visitors to Hot Springs who could use the convenient 70-minute flight to the airport.
In a letter to the DOT, Hot Springs Mayor Mike Bush and City Manager Lance Hudnell wrote that “service to Dallas has always been in demand from our public, and it will be a welcome addition by all using air service out of Hot Springs Memorial.”
SeaPort Airlines started serving Memorial Field in October 2009 after the city had beenwithout air service since June 2008.
Downie said the airline meets all the criteria Hot Springs needed.
“They don’t fly out of Little Rock; that would be too close, and it will not take business from other regional airports, which was important,” he said. “SeaPort does a good job. Their on-time rate is in the high 90 percent range, and they have very few cancellations.”
The flights will be on the nine-passenger, single-engine turbo prop Pilatus PC-12. Sea-Port makes 18 flights a week, three per day Monday through Friday, two on Sunday and one on Saturday. The flights nowgo between Memphis and Hot Springs.
“One of the Memphis flights will come in, and instead of returning, it will go on to Dallas,” Downie said.
SeaPort is headquartered in Portland, Ore., and operates in the Northwest and Alaska, as well as from its mid-South hub in Memphis, which also offers flights to Harrison, El Dorado and Jonesboro in Arkansas, and to Kansas City.
- wbryan@ arkansasonline.com
Tri-Lakes, Pages 131 on 06/27/2010