Pellston, Sault Ste. Marie airports to be impacted by 'tag flights'

PELLSTON — Traveling to and from Northern Michigan just got harder — at least it will be in a few weeks.

SkyWest Airlines announced that “tag flights” will begin running through Northern Michigan airports starting Sept. 12. Pellston, Sault Ste. Marie and Alpena airports are all expected to experience the flight changes.

The flights will now stretch into Minneapolis, Minnesota, so more people from different areas will be competing for limited tickets on each plane.

Tag flights travel from location to location before reversing their flight.

For the Chippewa County International Airport in Sault Ste. Marie, direct flights to and from Detroit will still be offered, but they will not be nonstop as they once were, airport manager Tami Beseau said.

"From our side of it — we want to put passengers in the seats,” she said. “We could possibly lose some of those seats. Normally, we have a 50 passenger aircraft to book from. Now, we will be competing with Detroit, Alpena and then on the outbound flight Minneapolis and Alpena buying those seats.”

While the airline said the use of tag flights will only be offered through the winter to deal with pilot shortages, Beseau said she is concerned the advertised speeds will not be accurate. Each stop will take at least 30 minutes she said, but she’s worried during the winter months there will be more delays, including possibilities of having to de-ice the plane after it sits for half an hour.

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Not offering nonstop flight times can also make it more difficult for people trying to get to larger travel bureaus for connecting flights. Delays and stops could lead to more missed flights. The times they set down in bigger bureaus could change as well.

Despite this, Charlie MacInnis, Emmet County commissioner and member of the Pellston Regional Airport Committee, said he is confident SkyWest is operating in an economically sound fashion.

"SkyWest is a private company that serves our community, and they will make the best decisions based on what they need to do to balance all of their competing interests to be cost effective — and they have done terrific,” he said. “They have provided a terrific service for our community in the past and I am fully confident that they will continue to do that in the future.”

For political consultant Dennis Lennox II, the change will make it near impossible to keep his job and continue living in Northern Michigan, he said.

Lennox travels weekly for work, he said, but his concerns extend to issues that may be caused within the tourism industry, seniors traveling downstate for health care and others who have to travel for work.

“It probably sounds selfish, me complaining about this, because it certainly affects me more than any other people,” he said. “But I truly believe that this is not about me. … It will have a disastrous impact for Northern and Upper Michigan.”

He said that while he always appreciated the flexibility offered by having the options to go to the Alpena or Sault Ste. Marie airports if there were issues at Pellston, that’s been taken away under the new system.

“Now that flexibility will be taken away, because all those flights are going to become interdependent upon each other,” Lennox said.

In a statement to the Petoskey News-Review, SkyWest said, the company is “committed to connecting small and mid-size markets to the national transportation infrastructure.” It said that the changes this fall are being put in place in a collaboration with the Department of Transportation, airports and community leaders “to ensure we maintain the highest levels of service as we work through a crew imbalance that is affecting the aviation industry.”

“We understand that any change to flight schedules can create questions and any passengers affected by the change will be notified of any updates to their itineraries,” the statement said.

The Pellston airport director could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.

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

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Pellston, Sault Ste. Marie airports to be impacted by 'tag flights'