The financially-troubled Stephenville Airport may have been dealt another blow.
The town has bailed out the airport a few times, but now the MHA for the area says one of the airlines which uses that airport is pulling out. Tony Wakeham, the PC MHA for Stephenville-Port au Port, says PAL Airlines will be leaving.
The airport, which employs about 40 people, was already struggling to survive with PAL in the mix. PAL is the anchor tenant.
Wakeham is calling on government to wake up and realize the economic and tourism impact of both interprovincial and intraprovincial air travel. He says it appears that the minister is washing his hands of the matter.
He is concerned as Stephenville provides air ambulance access to other health care centres in the province.
He says the airport is too valuable of a commodity to lose. He says there are 150 air ambulance flights that use the airport and there is no other option as other airports are too far away. To Him, closing the airport is not an option.
PAL Airlines say they did everything possible to try to make the flights out of Stephenville work, but it seems that most—even those from the southwest—prefer to go through Deer Lake.
The airline met with the airport authority, the town council and the chamber of commerce this week to notify them of their intention to pull out of Stephenville early in the new year.
PAL spokesman Stephen Dinn says they once offered flights five days a week but that has been reduced to two flights per week. He says they have experimented with the schedule several times and tried everything they could think of to attract customers, but they’re losing money.
At best, the flight to St. John’s and Deer Lake would have a handful of passengers. Dinn says they noticed a sharp decline beginning about five years ago.
