PELLSTON — As Pellston Regional Airport continues to face issues with staffing shortages, a new tag-flight route is expected to begin this December, the third set of atypical schedule changes announced in recent months.

From December to February, the airport will be stopping in Alpena on flights to Detroit.

Each week, 12 round-trip flights will be offered in Pellston to Detroit.

Tag flights use the same plane to bring people from multiple locations, meaning the same number of tickets are available, but are offered for a larger variety of markets.

The flight starts in Detroit, stops in Pellston, and then in Alpena before making its way back to Detroit. The second flight, which will run every day except Tuesdays and Saturdays, starts in Detroit, then goes to Alpena, then Pellston before going back to Detroit.

More:Pellston Regional Airport to return to regular flight schedules in early October

Ryan Bachelor, director of the Pellston airport, said he isn’t concerned about issues with flights.

“Anytime you split flights and tag with another airport, you're sharing those enplanements, but we've already gotten over 20,000 enplanements this year, so I'm not really concerned at this time,” he said. “I'd like to have our direct service, but we’ll also need to understand the staffing shortage and working with SkyWest as a partner.”

From September to October, Pellston was operating on a tag-flight schedule that included airports in Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie and Alpena in the flights to and from Detroit. The schedule was expected to operate through the winter, though it later switched to operate on the schedule into early October.

Bachelor said the biggest different between the tag flights that ran from September to October is that instead of going to Escanaba and Minneapolis, the flight starts and ends in Detroit.

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SkyWest Airlines is the company that operates Delta Airlines out of Pellston.

“While there is nothing the airport or Emmet County can do to remedy the pilot shortage in the short term, we are working with SkyWest to make sure we are getting the best possible service,” Bachelor said in a statement. “The county has notified our state representatives and the Department of Transportation of the situation and strive to act in the best interest of the travelers who utilize the airport and the local businesses who depend on the economic impacts generated from travel. During this industry-wide staffing shortage, we ask our passengers to understand and recognize both the difficulty SkyWest faces and the quality service they have provided for years.”

— Contact education reporter Karly Graham at kgraham@petoskeynews.com or on Twitter at @KarlyGrahamJRN.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Pellston, Alpena airports offer tag-flight routes to Detroit