{"id":23978,"date":"2025-01-15T23:31:33","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T06:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/commercial-flights-return-to-farmingtons-four-corners-regional-airport-in-may\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:46:08","slug":"commercial-flights-return-to-farmingtons-four-corners-regional-airport-in-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/commercial-flights-return-to-farmingtons-four-corners-regional-airport-in-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Commercial flights return to Farmington\u2019s Four Corners Regional Airport in May"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The newly paved Runway 5 at Farmington's Four Corners Regional Airport with tower and terminal in the background. (Debra Mayeux\/Tri-City Record)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Commercial air service will return in May to the Four Corners Regional Airport.<\/p>\n

The Farmington City Council on Jan. 14 unanimously ratified a two-year risk-sharing agreement with SkyWest Airlines to provide once-a-day air service to and from Denver on United Express Airlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir proposal is to start out with one flight per day, which will be an early morning departure, later evening arrival,\u201d Airport Manager Mike Lewis said, adding that is \u201cthe best timing we could have.\u201d<\/p>\n

This will allow passengers to \u201cmake all connections to flights in Denver and all connections coming back,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cOr if you are just going to do business in Denver, leave in the morning and come back the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Nate Duckett wants to be on the first flight in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait,\u201d he said during the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, I want to be on that first flight. I want to park at an airport, where I don\u2019t have to pay for parking,\u201d Duckett said. \u201cThat sounds pretty awesome to me, and I don\u2019t have to worry about making any late-night trips back and forth to Durango or Albuquerque.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duckett added that this is a two-year opportunity to prove the citizens of Farmington want air service.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that, if we use this service \u2013 that is the key \u2013 we have to use this service, so we don\u2019t lose this service,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Under the risk-sharing agreement the city agrees to pay the airline up to $6.9 million over a two-year period.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not subsidizing the airline; we are sharing the risk with them,\u201d Lewis told the council. \u201cThey\u2019re asking us to use the funding that we have to only break even, if the revenue from a flight falls below their cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis said the potential cost could work out to be a \u201creally good deal,\u201d as it is less than other airports in the region are paying for air service.<\/p>\n

In addition to this, the city has one federal-funded grant and a possible state-funded grant to offset the cost.<\/p>\n

The city received $850,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation\u2019s Small Community Air Service Development Program, and officials are applying for the New Mexico Department of Transportation\u2019s Rural Air Service Enhancement Grant, which provides $2.75 million to rural airports that don\u2019t have air service.<\/p>\n

Should the city receive the state grant, the total cost over the two years would be just under $1.5 million, according to Lewis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are expecting that this will be successful, and the amount of money that we have to reimburse the carrier will be very minimal,\u201d Lewis said, adding SkyWest hopes that too, \u201cso we are both in the same mindset when it comes to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

SkyWest stated in its proposal that \u201cif passenger revenue is greater than costs no subsidy is owed for the quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, if the airline\u2019s costs are more than passenger revenue, \u201cthe difference will be paid to SkyWest as its subsidy for the quarter,\u201d the proposal states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will look at us for shortfalls at a quarter,\u201d Lewis said, adding the city will make its first reimbursement payment to the airlines in August 2025.<\/p>\n

However, the city will be informed of the airline\u2019s revenue on a monthly basis.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, SkyWest officials stated they will \u201cactively coordinate\u201d with Lewis to be ready for business in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis includes the necessary hiring\/training of local staff for the operation, preparing the airport space for the implementation of the United Airlines brand, and securing all the requisite equipment to service passengers\/aircraft,\u201d the proposal states.<\/p>\n

This agreement was the result of five years of negotiations between city officials and SkyWest as well as having improvements made to the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been dedicated to bringing jet service back,\u201d Duckett said. \u201cThat runway up there was not approved for jet service.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city received $25 million from the FAA to \u201clengthen the runway to make it safe to bring in jet service,\u201d Duckett said.<\/p>\n

The United Express-branded Bombardier CRJ-200<\/a> aircraft will be utilized for the service, according to SkyWest\u2019s proposal. It has 50 seats, two jet engines and a cruise speed of 530 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese aircraft can accommodate wheelchair passengers, have a private lavatory and are serviced by a professional flight attendant,\u201d the proposal states.<\/p>\n

Area residents who want to use the air service will be able to begin booking flights on Jan. 23 through United Airlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a momentous time for our community,\u201d City Councilor Janis Jakino said, with \u201cthe potential to open the door for us in many ways, and I\u2019m very proud to be here, at this time, serving our constituents.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmington Council ratifies two-year risk-sharing plan with SkyWest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78345,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23978\/revisions\/78345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23978"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}