Local flight access vital to business

A local airport is crucial for busi-nesses in Southwest Montana and is key in attracting economic development.

By the Standard Staff

"I don’t think you can attract many companies to a town you can’t fly into," said Mike Kerschen of Advanced Silicon Materials Inc., who spoke on the subject at a recent high-tech economic development conference.

ASiMi, one of Butte-Silver Bow’s major private employers, regularly sends its salespeople all over the world to sell its products. Without air service, ASiMI would likely have to rethink where it stationed its salespeople.

Air transportation is one of the key elements businesses look for when scouting a town, said Evan Barrett of the Butte Local Development Corp.

"In any of those cases, air transportation is absolutely essential," Barrett said. "It’s one of the key elements we put forth when we try to recruit people."

NorthWestern Energy regularly flies its corporate jet in and out of Butte, leases aircraft and also puts employees on private planes to conduct business between Butte and its headquarters in South Dakota. Without air service, it would be difficult to conduct operations despite having telephones and e-mails to help facilitate business.

"It would be very detrimental to us (without air service). Flight connections are always necessary for business and ours is no exception," said NorthWestern’s Claudia Rapkoch. Many team members fly back and forth because their direct supervisors may be two states away and NorthWestern regularly schedules a flight every other week and then adds more when needed, she said.

Freedom Travel, Butte’s sole travel agency, says it has many people who fly from Butte, both leisure and business travelers. Canceled or discontinued flights, however, complicate the problem.

"When you have Delta canceling flights, it makes it tough for businesses," said Mike Flink Jr.

"We believe in keeping Butte businesses alive and hope more people will help keep Butte business alive," he added.

"The loss of a flights or a carrier can be very detrimental," Barrett said. He added that while service to the East is weak, the frequency in flights to Salt Lake has partially covered that problem.

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2003/05/26/newsbutte/hjjgjehdjcfgjg.txt