MOSINEE, WI (WSAU) — It came as a bit of a welcome surprise to the Administration team at the Central Wisconsin Airport.
Director Brian Grefe says they’ve made several requests to American Airlines for additional flights to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and last week they discovered those requests have been fulfilled. “The airlines make their scheduling decisions on their own in the best interest of their company,” said Grefe. “They don’t have to inform the airport as long as we have the capacity and they have a lease, both of which are true. So they just put [the extra flight] in, and we discovered it not that long ago.”
American had been operating two flights a day from CWA to ORD. That number grows to three by July 5th. Grefe says one flight may not seem like a lot, but it will make a difference. “Yes, it’s one flight- but it’s 50% more seats. We will be able to serve that many more passengers. With these additional seats, we could see prices come down as well.
“We have a tremendous amount of demand from Chicago to the Northwoods,” he added.
Air traffic at CWA has been down since United Airlines discontinued service from the facility in January. Delta Airlines also discontinued its route between Mosinee and Detroit last winter. That left CWA with only two round-trip passenger destinations; Chicago and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Grefe is still hopeful that will change later this year.
The facility received a small community air services development grant from the US Department of Transportation. They’ve been using that to lure in a budget carrier that could offer service to vacation destinations in Florida and Arizona. “We have a number of interested airlines. We don’t have [an announcement] date yet, but there’s strong interest in it and that’s because of the demand.
“I anticipate that it’s only a matter of time. That’ll be a new airline, new service, and they’ll have a big announcement on it. Certainly we’ll do our share of promoting it if and when that happens,” added Grefe.
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