Cheyenne reflects on MAX Air’s departure

CHEYENNE – MAX Air has forsaken the friendly skies of Wyoming, New Mexico and much of Colorado, but Cheyenne airport manager Jerry Olson says MAX Air’s decision shouldn’t reflect poorly on either the commuter airline or the communities it sought to serve.”I’m not blaming the airline, I’m not blaming our community – it just wasn’t a good match,” Olson said in looking back on the Colorado Springs-based airline’s decision to pull the plug at the end of June because of low passenger volume.
Mountain Air Express, the commuter arm of discount airline Western Pacific, launched service in April between Colorado Springs and Cheyenne, Casper, Fort Collins/Loveland, Grand Junction and Santa Fe. It pulled out of Fort Collins/Loveland first and dropped the others on June 29, except for once-a-day service to Montrose and Grand Junction.
It was simply a numbers game. Low ridership couldn’t begin to pay the costs of operating MAX’s fleet of sleek European-built Dornier jet turboprops. The company needed its planes 50 percent to 60 percent full to make a profit, and Olson noted that when the airline discontinued service, it had sold only 307 of its 3,730 seats available in July.
Cheyenne airport officials had vigorously courted MAX, welcomed the airline with open arms and even helped paint one of its aircraft to promote Cheyenne Frontier Days. But Olson warned from the start that residents of the five new MAX Air communities would have to use the new service or lose it.
“It was like holding a party for three months and nobody came,” Olson said. “But I don’t think our market was permanently damaged. I still have faith in our market. We did as well or better than those other markets.”
Olson attributes the failure to several factors, primary among them the fact that MAX Air and Western Pacific couldn’t offer enough timely connections for travelers.
“They tried five markets, and none of them worked, because they just didn’t have a large enough hub to connect to,” he said. “You’ve got to have a hub that’s large enough. We don’t have anybody flying between Cheyenne and Denver – they’re going to L.A. or someplace, so you have to have connections.”
Meanwhile, Cheyenne is vigorously wooing SkyWest, the commuter link to Delta’s hub in Salt Lake City.