BURLINGTON - A single prop, blue-and white, fixed-wing aircraft with the name SOUTHERN emblazened across its body sat in the large hangar at Southeast Iowa Regional Airport Tuesday morning.
The new aircraft represents the recent signing of Southern Airways Express as the Essential Air Services provider out of the airport in Burlington.
About 30 dignitaries and media gathered in the hangar for the announcement that Southern will start offering flights on April. 1.
"No joke," said Mark Cestari, Chief Commercial Officer, to a laugh from the crowd in the hangar.
But the remark rang loud with the crowd, most of whom have been involved in economics of a regional airport. Southeast Iowa Regional Airport has had three different carriers in the last 18 months and sustainability is critical to the area.
Rumors of canceled flights and stranded passengers under the Cape Air brand has hurt the image of the airport.
SIRA manager Sara Sandburg said it’s been a rough past 18 months.
“This will be the third in the last year and a half. We had Air Choice last February and switched to Cape Air,” Sandburg said.
“Air Choice One has these same planes. In fact (Southern) bought Air Choice One when they left here. The other part is the single-engine vs. twin-engine. Part of what happened with Cape Air was Delta and Jet Blue were plucking their pilots because they were twin engine and they could fly the bigger planes.”
She said there is more room in the Southern planes than the Cape Air aircraft, which is also better for travelers.
Cestari said Southern will be more sustainable for Burlington because they have plenty of pilots. The Southern fleet in the central area is single-engine planes so their pilots aren’t being absorbed by larger air carriers who need twin-engine training and certification.
He said those dynamics were limiting Cape Air’s capabilities and Southern won’t have those constraints with more than 300 pilots in their system.
“I couldn’t even fly in today from St. Louis on Cape Air because they only had one flight,” Cestari said. “I had to drive in and that’s a long drive.
“We have the best reliability. Our fares are lower, which stimulates the market and we have these partnerships with United, American, Alaska, Hawai’an where people can hop on us, and then hop on them and go anywhere in the world.
“We’re not perfect, but our regular reliability rate for completion in 2021 and most of 2022 was 99.3%,” he said.
The prices are also going to very comparable to Air Choice and Cape Air, the other two airlines that have serviced Burlington in the last three years.
“No one will ever pay triple digits for our flights to Chicago or St. Louis,” Cistari said.
Prices will be $39 for trips to Chicago or St. Louis with 14-days advance purchase, $69 for a 7-day advance purchase, and an $89 walk-up rate.
Southern will fly 24 round-trip flights per week, 2 daily trips to Chicago and 10 weekly trips to St. Louis, once a day and twice on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Cestari's also a full-time resource to community partners with sponsorships of events, flight donations, and other support.
“It’s really the teamwork that makes everything great,” he said.
The company website www.iflysouthern.com is also a one-stop booking site and Cestari said their customer service is also better than what you’d get with the larger carriers.
“We’re on it and we’re aware we have a lot of work to do to rebuild confidence. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I told the manager now that the spring is here and summer vacation ramping up, I think we’re going to do great.”
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