Apr. 19—The Owensboro-Daviess County Regional Airport board voted Tuesday to spend $25,000 on a marketing campaign for its next essential air service.
In January, the airport board recommended Contour Airlines as its new EAS carrier, which will offer flights to Charlotte, North Carolina. Under the proposed agreement, there will be two flights daily, six days a week.
Since then, the airport board has been awaiting approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation for Contour Airlines to become its new EAS carrier.
Tristan Durbin, airport director, told the board during Tuesday's meeting that he was "confident that within a few weeks we will have an official decision."
In the meantime, Doug Hoyt, airport board president, said he and Durbin discussed the idea of coming up with a marketing campaign for the next EAS carrier.
"We need to make sure this is successful, and to that end, Tristan is proposing we ... hire somebody to help us develop a nice marketing campaign for the launch of the EAS," Hoyt said. "I think there is some wisdom in that."
Durbin said the plan would be to solicit proposals from four local marketing firms.
The firms would then submit proposals around a $25,000 marketing budget.
"Initially, I think, for the next few months of rolling this out, this is enough money," Durbin said. "I think what we'll do is allow the marketing firms to propose to us what they think is the best fit for the use of those funds."
Board member Madison Silvert suggested that the questions "What's an optimal ad campaign look like?" and "What does it cost?" be asked to the firms.
"We got one chance for people to really understand the opportunity we're about to get," Silvert said.
The board voted unanimously to allow Durbin to solicit marketing proposals. Three board members — Mickey Bowman, Michael King and Silvert — volunteered to be the review committee for the proposals.
If approved by the DOT, Contour will replace Cape Air, which had the EAS contract.
Cape Air offers daily flights to St. Louis and Nashville. However, Cape Air had given notice last year that it was withdrawing as a provider with EAS to multiple stations, including Owensboro. It cited inflation demands as the cause.
Cape Air did rebid to return as the EAS carrier but with fewer flight options. In its new proposal, Cape Air gave two options — three times daily to St. Louis or two times to Nashville and one time to St. Louis daily.
The airport board, however, decided to go with a different carrier.
Cape Air will remain the EAS carrier until the new one is operational.
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