By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Consultants working to restore commercial air service to Del Rio told city council members Tuesday they believe progress has been made, but also warned many challenges remain.
Del Rio International Airport lost commercial air service in 2022 and in March 2023 hired Volaire Aviation Consulting to work with the city in re-establishing that service.
Mike Mooney and Tim Sieber of Volaire gave an update on their efforts to council on Tuesday.
Mooney began with an overview of where the airline industry currently stands. He said he would also brief the council on efforts his company has made to restore commercial air service to and from Del Rio International Airport, present a timeline of his company’s activities and “finding a viable solution.”
Mooney told the council, “Some (air) carriers are having financial challenges. You may have noticed that Spirit Airlines filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy about a month ago. Boeing and Airbus continue to have delivery delays, getting new jets to some of the airlines that are buying new jets.”
Mooney said among the issues facing the commercial aviation industry are an ongoing shortage of qualified pilots, and although he said that shortage has been temporarily abated, “it’s not over with.”
Other challenges include a decrease in pilot productivity and increases in pilot labor costs, as well as increases in airport costs and the cost of fuel.
Mooney said in the U.S. as a whole, commercial air traffic was up 7 percent in December 2024 over December 2023, based on figures released by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Mooney also told the council, “Leisure travel has more than recovered (from) pre-Covid (levels); business travel has not recovered to 2019 levels. For the big three airlines – American, Delta, United – the average fare in the third quarter of 2024 was about 1 percent less than in the third quarter of 2023, believe it or not.”
Mooney said, “Our goal is re-establish air service with global network connectivity. That is an important nuance here. One can chase down nine-seat airplanes that fly to Austin, but that’s not global network connectivity, and that’s what we’re trying to achieve, restoration of something similar to the American Eagle service that was lost.
“The challenge in finding the solution is that for all for all practical purposes, there are only two connecting hubs within a reasonable range of Del Rio. One is Dallas, and the other is Houston. There is no interest on the part of American Airlines to re-establish DFW (Dallas/Ft. Worth) service at this time. United, in Houston, is only willing to support a regional partner carrier of theirs, providing Houston service. However, the terms of the franchising that United would do are at this time unfavorable,” Mooney said.
He added, “We are working on that. It’s a very complex issue, attempting to get more favorable terms for the carrier that might provide service to Houston. . . There are a limited number of independent regional carriers that fit the needed criteria for global network connectivity.
“First of all, the carrier would need a passenger and bag connection agreement with American at Dallas or United at Houston. Not all carriers have those. The carrier in the case of Del Rio, absolutely essential, would have to have Department of Defense approval to carry military passengers. Not all airlines have that approval. It’s an extra step that carriers have to take with the DoD,” Mooney said.
Another issue is gate access at the airports in Dallas/Ft. Worth and in Houston, noting space for aircraft is extremely limited at both airports.
Mooney said another consideration is aircraft type, adding, “What we feel is appropriate at this time for Del Rio is a 50-seat regional jet, and from a point of economics of operation and the ability of the carrier to provide a proposal for Del Rio which is economically viable, it’s going to be important for the carrier to already be at DFW or Houston and not have to start services there strictly for Del Rio.
“So these are the various challenges and limiting factors. We’ve evaluated 10 airlines. We’ve contacted six about Del Rio service. Presentations have been made to two airlines, and phone conversations with four others,” Mooney said.
Mooney also went over with the council the timeline of his company’s work on Del Rio’s behalf.
He reminded the council his company began working on developing air service for Del Rio in March 2023, with a visit to the community the following month.
“We’re very impressed with your city. Given the isolation factors from San Antonio, the size of the economy on both sides of the river, the air force base, we believe there is a viable opportunity. We just have to put something together.
“We assisted Del Rio in applying for a Small Community Air Service Development (SCASD) grant. Right away, that was awarded in August of 2023 by the (U.S.) Department of Transportation. Various community data captures have taken place and analyses with the (area) manufacturers and the air force base,” Mooney said.
He noted a business case document was completed in September 2023, and presentations of that document were made to two independent regional airlines in October 2023.
“We’ve had follow-up conversations with one of those carriers that continue to today. Phone conversations are ongoing with two other independent regional airlines,” Mooney said.
Mooney ended his presentation by telling the council that the easing of the national pilot shortage “has made conversations with potential carriers substantially easier.”
“Tim and I and our firm work all over the country, 70-plus clients at any given time in the United States, so we’re talking to all the airlines, all the time. In 2023, the conversations would start with, ‘Well, we don’t have any pilots. What are you thinking about?’ At least they don’t open with that sentence anymore,” Mooney said.
“We do need to identify a financially viable regional carrier, network carrier, relationship model and a qualified regional carrier capable of initiating that model, with network carrier at Houston or Dallas. That’s a complicated, long sentence there, but basically, we’re working on what we call a hybrid model of the proration of revenue for the regional airline and the network carrier, American or United,” he added.
Mooney told the council the federal Essential Air Service (EAS) program’s ongoing bid cycles “may create the foundation for an independent carrier to consider Del Rio service.”
“In other words, there are cities north of Dallas where a new airline may become the EAS carrier in 2025-2026 and would establish service to Dallas from the Essential Air Service markets, and then they may be able to create an economically viable model for Del Rio using SCASD support,” he said.
“Right now, most of the independent regional carriers are finding EAS markets more attractive than SCASD grant markets for the allocation of their resources, and the reason is right now EAS subsidy payments are, like, $6 million a year per city and obviously, we don’t have that kind of money and no other SCASD grant market does either,” Mooney added.
Mooney also told the council the new Trump administration may play a role.
“As you see with the new (U.S.) administration over the past couple of days, with the freezing of grant awards and things, the EAS program may be a target of the new administration budget-cutting and while that’s bad news for EAS, it actually may level the playing field in terms of the viability of options for airlines to consider with SCASD grant markets such as Del Rio,” Mooney said.
Mooney then asked council members if there were any questions or comments from the council.
There were none, but City Manager Shawna Burkhart said she, Assistant City Manager Manuel Chavez and Airport Manager Juan Onofre meet with Volaire every month by phone.
She said she wanted to bring the council “up to speed on where we are” regarding work to restore commercial air service prior to the council’s advocacy trip to Washington, D.C., in early March.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
