It’s been a busy week for Grant Aviation on the central Kenai Peninsula, between picking up passengers left scrambling after the abrupt closure of another airline, to reducing flights to comply with federal guidance.
Dan Knesek is the airline’s vice president of commercial operations. He says the company is committed to offering consistent service for Kenai flyers, but the double-whammy comes as Grant already has less aircraft to work with than usual.
“We've had to pivot a lot of our extra aircraft or spare aircraft throughout our route system to the recovery efforts in western Alaska for Typhoon Halong,” he said. “We've had multiple – several aircraft dedicated to those efforts daily, and which has kind of stretched us systemwide.”
Knesek said they didn’t quite see an influx of bookings after rival airline Kenai Aviation closed its doors last Monday. In Kenai, he says most people book flights less than 72 hours before the plane takes off. He says that means it’s probably a good idea for people planning holiday travel to start booking seats now.
On average, they fly three planes between Kenai and Anchorage every day during the off season, which he says starts around this time of year. But Knesek says they’re holding off on adding more daily flights.
“We had a decent amount of open seats still available on our existing flights, and we wanted to ensure that those filled up to the best that we could,” he said.
But Knesek says the strongest headwind the company’s facing right now is mandated cuts to flight service amid the longest-ever federal government shutdown. Last week, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy ordered 40 airports to reduce air traffic by 10%. Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is on the list.
Knesek says Grant initially thought its Kenai to Anchorage route wouldn’t be impacted, because the company operates under a different set of federal rules than major air carriers like Alaska Airlines. But the FAA order covers both airline sizes.
“What I immediately did is started working with our congressional delegation in DC, because what I was hoping was to be able to convince the FAA that the reduction that the Kenai that route saw due to this cessation of operations of Kenai Aviation could be used in lieu of us having to cut 10% of our flights,” he said. “And I was unsuccessful.”
Knesek says including smaller airlines in the emergency order will have an outsized impact in Alaska, where there are a lot of small operations serving small communities. To stay compliant, Grant Aviation plans to cut two daily roundtrip flights between Kenai and Anchorage, or four flights total.
Knesek says he understands why the cuts to service are necessary amid a shortage of workers. But he says he’s also never seen the federal government direct airlines to reduce service like this.
“An air traffic controller by itself can only operate so many flights per hour, and if the number of controllers in one facility gets reduced, I understand,” he said. “I just didn't want the community of Kenai to be, basically, in a sense, to be hit twice in such a short amount of time.”
Although the Congress has voted to reopen the government, Knesek says it could still take some time for flight schedules to return to their previous level of operation. That’s because the FAA will still need to ensure adequate coverage. He’s expecting a phased reopen. But in the meantime, he’s asking flyers to be patient.
