Lewiston airport gets direct flights to Denver
Jun. 22—Lewiston's long wait for more air service ended Monday with an announcement that United will begin nonstop Denver flights starting in October.
A crowd of people gave a standing ovation after hearing about the expansion at a meeting of the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport authority board. Leaders of the business, civic and education sectors were in the audience.
Beginning Oct. 5, Lewiston will have a daily Denver departure at 6:15 a.m. and an arrival at 8:30 p.m. on 50-passenger CRJ200 Bombardier aircraft operated by SkyWest. Tickets are available now on United.com.
"With travel coming back with a vengence (as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes), this is like buying a bar right before Prohibition ends," said Gary Foss, a managing partner of the ArkStar Group, the Lewiston airport's air service consultant.
Ticket prices for Lewiston flights are expected to drop after rising when Alaska Airlines subsidiary Horizon Air left Lewiston in 2018, withdrawing its Seattle and Boise flights, Foss said.
United is adding Lewiston-Denver flights without a revenue guarantee, a tool frequently used by smaller towns to attract airlines. Such an agreement might be "forthcoming," but nothing is signed, Foss said.
"This is going to reestablish the historical position you saw of the Lewiston airport being the biggest in the region," he said.
With the Denver flights, he said, the total number of connections from Lewiston will be greater than when Horizon Air was in Lewiston.
Between Denver and the existing Delta/Skywest Salt Lake City flights, Lewiston passengers will be able to go to 197 destinations with a single stop, compared with 169 when Horizon Air was in Lewiston and 95 right now, Foss said.
New places that can be reached with one layover include Cancun and Tokyo.
One of the reasons for the high number of flights is the size of United and Delta, which, along with American Airlines, are the biggest airlines in the world. Most regional airports only have service from one of those carriers, Foss said.
United's decision to come to Lewiston follows more than a year of work by Lewiston's Airport Director Michael Isaacs, an air service committee, members of the airport board and officials from the city of Lewiston and Nez Perce County, which own the airport.
They studied the market, looking for a viable option that would meet the needs of the area, working through the "darkest days" of COVID-19, said Airport Board Chairman Gary Peters, who also heads the air service committee.
"You're not entitled to air service," Peters said. "Air service is not to be taken for granted, because you can lose it if you don't take care of it properly. We understand that. We know that. It will never happen again."
A number of factors convinced United to come to Lewiston, Foss said.
Right now about 48 percent of roughly 300 passengers a day buying tickets to go east from parts of north central Idaho and southeastern Washington are opting for flights that originate at the Spokane airport. Many of them will choose to board Denver flights in Lewiston, he said, partly because of the convenience.
An overnight cruise line that offers voyages from the Portland, Ore., area, to the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley on the Snake and Columbia rivers wrote a letter of support. The company stated it could run about 16,000 passengers through Lewiston with the expansion.
United may add even more capacity to the Lewiston market if it has a strong performance, Foss said.
"We can fill these planes," he said. "In fact, we've already had some discussions with United about upgrading the size of the planes even before they start."
The Lewiston-Denver flights are one of two important developments in air service in north central Idaho and southeastern Washington in less than a week.
Alaska Airlines announced Thursday it will provide nonstop flights to Boise from the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport five days a week starting Aug. 17. They will be supported by a revenue guarantee from the University of Idaho if the flights don't make at least a 10-percent profit. It ends after three years and won't exceed $500,000 annually.
The Pullman airport, which has nonstop flights to Seattle, will continue to pursue nonstop Denver flights through United, said its executive director, Tony Bean.
"It doesn't affect us at all," Bean said. "They are completely separate markets."
Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.
