Originally Posted by
VibeGuy
QX did not go to the community and say "Hey, we're losing our shirts here, we need some revenue guarantees". They just up and left. My fervent hope, when the Q200 retirement was announced, was that the "wallet" function meant a return to the prepaid ticket books on QX routes and we could have mounted a campaign to save the business - landing fees and airport rents *could* have been waived, frequency could have been reduced to two Q400s /day instead of 4 200s, etc. I always thought that a service like the PDX-RDD-ACV-LAX would have made sense SEA-OTH-ACV/STS-LAX.
All of the campaign ideas are great, but temporary. No community is going to guaranty revenue or waive landing fees forever. At some point, when the piggy bank is empty, the airline will pack up and leave. Look at what's happened with DL service in several small communities in the west.
Plus, moving to 2 Q400s from 4 Q200s would depress demand further and could actually require a larger airport staff.