The Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport will lose two of its remaining seven weekly Salt Lake City flights in May as SkyWest adjusts to a dramatic decline in passengers.
The airline will discontinue its Tuesday and Saturday round trips between Lewiston and Salt Lake City starting May 1, said Airport Director Michael Isaacs. It will still have the flights on the other days of the week.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Lewiston-Salt Lake City flights were running about 70 percent full. Now some of them have as few as four passengers.
“Not many people are flying right now unless they have to,” Isaacs said.
The Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport is in a similar situation. Its only commercial passenger carrier, Alaska Airlines’ Horizon Air, is making a single round trip each day between Pullman and Seattle.
On May 3, that flight will begin stopping in Walla Walla on its way to Pullman, said Executive Director Tony Bean.
A similar change might happen in Lewiston.
SkyWest officials have told the roughly 200 airports they serve that they may begin pairing airports to help fill planes.
That means that the Salt Lake City flights could stop in one or more Northwest communities as they head to or from Lewiston.
That could help the Lewiston airport meet a goal of having flights to places other than Salt Lake City, Isaacs said.
Lewiston airport leaders have told SkyWest they are open to SkyWest making Seattle or Denver the destination on one or more of the five days it has Lewiston flights.
They’re also open to discontinuing the Salt Lake flights altogether in favor of Seattle or Denver flights or both, Isaacs said.
“It’s really up to SkyWest to make those decisions,” he said.
Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.
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