QUINCY, Ill. — Quincy Regional Airport has a problem that’s too big for even a travel agency to solve: an unreliable airline.
“They get complaints from their clients,” said Quincy Mayor Mike Troup of the frustrations travel agents have shared with him. “‘Hey, I had a flight. It was delayed — delayed. I missed my connecting flight in Chicago or St. Louis.’ Then you [have] to rebook everything, reschedule everything.”
It’s gotten so bad that some passengers have opted to drive 2 ½ hours to St. Louis Lambert International Airport rather than risk flying out from Quincy and missing their connecting flight.
Officials and passengers across the region place the blame on the airport’s sole provider, Southern Airways Express. They cite nearly two years of inadequate service and unfulfilled promises, including addressing the airport’s struggling passenger count.
Troup said Southern Airways Express sold the community on the idea that it could bring in 20,000 passengers annually. However, the airline has yet to meet the airport's pre-coronavirus passenger levels of roughly 11,000.
"They actually will be lucky to hit 4,000 passengers this year," Troup said.
One recent afternoon, Quincy Regional Airport saw only a handful of passengers, including 19-year-old Genesis Dixon. She had just landed in the Gem City from Chicago.
“This is my first time being here,” Dixon said. “I didn’t know this was an airport.”
Dixon was the only passenger in the lobby waiting for the last flight out that day to St. Louis. It was her first time flying with Southern Airways Express and in a nine-passenger plane.
“When they put me on the small one, I got a little shaky,” she said. “I was like, ‘I don’t know about this.’ But I was like, ‘I got this.’”
The contract
Quincy has requested that the U.S. Department of Transportation remove Southern Airways Express as the airport’s Essential Air Service provider. The EAS is a federal program that prevents smaller community airports from falling by the wayside as major airlines prioritize larger cities.
“This program is supposed to provide a baseline level of connectivity from the community to a larger hub,” said Austin Drukker, an economist at the Federal Trade Commission who researches the effectiveness of the EAS program. “So people [who] live in Quincy, according to the law, they are entitled to have basic service from Quincy to some other airport to help them connect to wherever they need to go.”
Quincy Regional Airport is one of 107 airports in the continental U.S. that has an EAS provider. The federal program was birthed in response to the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act.
There are two types of airlines that serve EAS communities. There are traditional airlines like American, United and Delta. Then there’s smaller ones such as Contour Airlines, Cape Air and Southern Airways Express, which use eight- or nine-passenger seat planes.
Southern Airways signed a four-year contract with the department to provide Quincy Essential Air Service until Nov. 30, 2026. Quincy’s previous EAS provider, Cape Air, terminated its contract in 2022, citing the ongoing pilot shortage.
According to the contract, Southern Airways was obligated to provide Quincy with 36 round-trip flights per week split evenly between Chicago O’Hare International Airport and St. Louis Lambert International Airport. In exchange, Southern Airways would get more than $4 million in annual federal subsidies.
Instead, the city and passengers say they have been saddled with a laundry list of problems including malfunctioning wheels and brakes, repeated delays and sudden schedule changes. Flight cancellations left some passengers stranded without notice. The city shared its concerns with airline management.
Southern Airways Express asked for six months to address the issues.
“I said, ‘Look, you've had two years,'” Troup said. “We're talking days and weeks to see some improvements. We’re not looking at months.”
Enough is enough
Troup laid out his concerns about the airline’s service in a letter on June 20 to the Department of Transportation’s Office of Aviation Analysis. But, he said the problems persisted.
Quincy hit its breaking point with the airline when a now-former employee accused Southern Airways of knowingly jeopardizing the safety of its passengers at a different airport by fudging its weight numbers — allowing several overweight planes to take off. Southern Airways Express has denied these allegations.
The airline declined to do an interview with St. Louis Public Radio, but Chief of Staff Keith Sisson provided the following statement.
“Our number one job at Southern Airways is to keep our passengers safe, and our number two job is to get them where they’re going,” Sisson wrote. “From August to September, we have already increased completed flights to and from Quincy by more than 20%, and to date we have had zero safety events on any of our Quincy flights. We will continue to improve our operations at Quincy until they’re something we and the town can be proud of.”
On Aug. 21, Troup sent a letter formally asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to cut ties with the airline mid-contract. The department conditionally agreed to swap out the provider if a replacement is found. Until then, Quincy is stuck with Southern Airways Express.
In its own letter the following month, Southern Airways objected to Quincy’s request to end the contract. “Such drastic action would lead to a globally unsustainable (and damaging) precedent for the EAS program and the airlines which serve its needs," said Sisson.
It’s not common to switch airlines mid-contract, but it’s not impossible, said Drukker, the economist.
“One of the things that the DOT must consider is the views of the community,” he said. “The airline is supposed to have reliable service, a proven record of reliable service, and take into account the subsidy amount.”
The Essential Air Service was originally intended to be a temporary solution. But Drukker found the program is not functioning the way it was designed. It’s morphed into something that some communities use to help boost local tourism. A two-hour drive to an airport shouldn’t be a big deal, he said.
“Why should a community be entitled to have government subsidies come stimulate their local economy?” Drukker said, adding that the nation's large interstate highway system should have made the EAS unnecessary for some communities.
A new beginning
But Quincy’s woes don’t mean other EAS airports are struggling. Take the Waynesville-St. Robert Regional Airport in Fort Leonard Wood. In January, the airport surpassed 10,000 passengers with its carrier Contour Airlines.
In January, Waynesville Mayor Sean Wilson said it was a record.
“How we're growing right now, I think everyone sees more so of the importance of them being here long term,” Wilson said. “It's a very valuable asset and a great partnership.”
Completely forfeiting the federal program is not an option for Quincy because it’s the largest community within 100 miles. Too many people in smaller surrounding communities rely on the Quincy Regional Airport, Troup added.
“We've got a huge investment here at the airport,” Troup said. “To go dark, meaning there's no commercial service, I don't think that's acceptable. That's not what this market expects. It's not what we deserve.”
Troup is hopeful. He said the city has been in contact with four regional airlines and its previous EAS provider Cape Air. Airlines have until Nov. 14 to submit proposals to the Department of Transportation.
Bottom line, Troup wants an airline that will do right by Quincy.
“I don't care how new your equipment is,” Troup said. “I don't care how friendly your staff is. Safety and reliability. This is your schedule. You take off on time. You land on time. You deliver the people their luggage. All of those are the factors that are going to make successful, happy passengers."
