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Study could build case for new air route by Big Sky Airlines between Twin Falls, ID and Boise, ID

TWIN FALLS — Local leaders who are trying to recruit an airline to fly between Twin Falls and Boise will ask city officials to support the effort Tuesday.

A local business organization already pitched in.

By Virginia S. Hutchins
Times-News writer

At a cost of $6,000, Eugene, Ore.-based consulting firm Mead & Hunt proposes modeling the financial viability of Billings, Mont.-based Big Sky Airlines flying the Boise-Twin Falls route with its 19-seat Fairchild Metros.

That study would be "really the last piece of the analytic type of information" needed in Twin Falls’ effort to recruit Big Sky, Twin Falls Airport Manager Bill Carberry said. Mead & Hunt is the firm that, almost a year ago, concluded the Twin Falls-area market could support additional air service and recommended Big Sky flights to Boise as the top recruitment target.

Carberry asked a private-sector development campaign to split the $6,000 cost with the airport.

"It’s very important for the business community to embrace this recruitment effort," Carberry said. And if Twin Falls-Boise service materializes, business travelers will be key to the connection’s success.

Business Plus II’s leaders, overseen by the Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, recommended spending the money.

The chamber’s governing board put the final stamp of approval on the $3,000 expenditure, chamber executive Kent Just said.

The Business Plus II committee and the chamber board agreed that re-establishing Boise air service is important not only for new job growth in the area but for the Twin Falls business community in general, he said.

"There is a real need to get that established once again as quickly as possible," Just said.

On Tuesday, Carberry will update the City Council on the recruitment efforts and the partnership with the business community, and will ask for council members’ concurrence.

If the Mead & Hunt study gets a green light Tuesday, Carberry expects to have results in hand by roughly mid-March.

Times-News Business Editor Virginia S. Hutchins can be reached at 733-0931, Ext. 242, or at [email protected].

To hear more

Twin Falls’ City Council will meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the council chambers, 305 Third Ave. E., to consider the air service study. The public is welcome.

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