Airport board looks at ski baggage policies

By TOM LAVENTURE

tlaventure@yourdailyglobe.com

Ironwood — Air passengers reporting not being allowed to fly with their skis were a topic of the Gogebic-Iron County Airport meeting on Monday.

Airport board chair Joe Bonovetz said he has received calls from air passengers who complained they couldn’t bring skis on the plane as checked luggage or as a carry-on. The question of skis was part of the interview process with Boutique Air and other airline applicants during the Essential Airline Service interviews in 2019, he said.

Bonovetz said he was under the impression from the interviews that Boutique Air officials said skis could be placed on the cabin floor of the aircraft if they would not fit in storage.

“Had they said that at the get-go that they wouldn’t be doing this, that would have been cause for concern and things may have been a little different,” Bonovetz said. “But for them to say that they would do that, and now not do it, is very troubling.”

Tom Warren, vice president of business development for Boutique Air, said via email on Wednesday that the airline is aware of the concerns and inconvenience regarding skiers. Skis that fit in the luggage area are allowed, but Transportation Security Administration regulations do not currently allow skis in the cabin area.

“Some skis do fit in the luggage area,” Warren said. “For those that do not fit, we are in the process of working with the TSA to seek their approval for a plan to carry them in the cabin.”

A request of this type generally takes more than 30 days for a response, he said. Boutique is working on alternative solutions in the meantime such as accepting what is legally possible to carry in terms of size and weight.

“We have a liberal bag policy in general,” Warren said. “In fact, Boutique customers never have to pay for either the first, second or third bag.”

Boutique has similar policies in not charging for pets or to transport unaccompanied minors, he said. 

In the monthly arrival and departure reports, Bonovetz raised questions regarding the monthly cancellations. He said there were 24 canceled flights in December 2020, with the airport reporting six were caused by facilities, 14 due to weather, and four due to equipment problems. He wanted details on the airport’s responsibility versus the airline and distant airports of Chicago and Minneapolis.

Airport manager Michael Harma said there were weather issues in Ironwood, Chicago and Minneapolis. The Ironwood weather closures were due to black ice, he said.

Boutique Air, Inc., the essential Air Service provider for Ironwood since August, had a back up plane tied up in maintenance and so there was no plane available when the primary plane was sidelined with a maintenance issue, he said. 

In Warren’s email, he said Boutique operates more flights each week than is required by the EAS contract. Two EAS flights were canceled in December and the remaining 22 cancellations were extra flights without subsidy, he said,

Since Boutique assumed service in August 2020, the airport had 100% arrivals and departures for EAS flights in August, 98.79% in September and October, 100% in November and 98.79% in December.

“When you see a statistic such as 98.79% that basically means we are completing 99 out of every 100 flights per EAS requirements,” Warren said. 

Weather accounted for 20 of the 24 cancellations in December — mostly due to weather in Ironwood, he said. There were four non-weather cancellations — two each in Chicago and Minneapolis.

“Subtracting the extra flights we completed, we only had two non-weather related cancellations,” Warren said.

The all-weather aircraft are capable of operating in poor conditions but safety is the number one priority with airline operations, he said.

“We won’t hesitate to cancel a flight if safety is a concern for any reason,” Warren said.

Boutique tries to maintain a reserve aircraft for all routes in the event of a maintenance issue, he said. The airline is in the process of creating a maintenance base in Chicago that will help ensure a spare aircraft is available as backup for Ironwood.

The airport board held its annual organizational meeting prior to the regular meeting and re-elected Bonovetz, a Gogebic County commissioner, as chair for 2021. Iron County supervisors Patrick Hanson and Brandon Snyder, were re-elected vice president and recording secretary, respectively. The remaining board members include Gogebic County Commissioners Tom Laabs and James Lorenson.

The board approved a Jan. 18 special meeting for Harma and board members to interview two finalist candidates for a full time maintenance position to replace a retired employee. A temporary hire in December will perform maintenance duties until the new hire is trained.

“We have received quite a few applicants and in my opinion there are only two that have the maintenance background that we need,” Harma said.

Harma said the airport hangar location and design process continues with Mead & Hunt Inc., the engineering consulting firm for the airport. The work now is to identify a hangar location.

Bonovetz recommended that Mead & Hunt offer a proposal for the board to review plans and cost estimates. 

The board approved the 2021 regular meeting schedule for 10 a.m. on the second Monday of the month.