Shakeup delays air service to Gallup

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Personnel changes at Westward Airways have pushed back the return of commercial air travel to Gallup by at least another month.

According to interim President Eldon Anthony, the Scottsbluff, Neb., company's board of directors removed President Kristi Feusner and Vice President John Warden from their posts last week. Anthony, a retired businessman and Westward investor, said we was chosen by a consortium of local business people to indefinitely fill in for Feusner Tuesday.

"My understanding from the investors is that it was because of poor management," he said of the board's reasons for removing Feusner and Warden, but declined to elaborate.

But as investors, he said, Feusner and Warden would remain on the company's board of directors.

It was under Feusner's leadership that Westward inked a $2.6 million deal with Gallup, Las Cruces and Taos in October to link them into a network of daily commercial passenger flights with Albuquerque and Phoenix. The three cities agreed to pay $200,000 each to qualify for a $600,000 matching grant from the New Mexico Air Service Assistance Program. Another $1.4 million is supposed to arrive from the federal government's Small Community Air Service Development Pilot Program.

Back in November, Feusner promised that Gallup flights would begin by late January. By the time mid January arrived, however, the plane's Gallup debut was pushed back to late February, after the agreement for the state grant got lost in the mail on its way to Gallup. City Attorney George Kozeliski ended up traveling to Santa Fe Jan. 19 to sign the document in person.

With that taken care of, Westward still had one problem to take care of before it could land a plane in Gallup: It had to find a plane.

The way Westward works, it doesn't actually own the planes it uses. One company makes the planes, another company buys them, and that company leases them to Westward. According to Anthony, Westward's investors unhappy with the company's management refused to lease a plane for the Gallup deal until some changes were made.

Now, with Feusner and Warden gone, Anthony said Westward could have its plane by Monday. And if all else goes smoothly, he said the plane could be in Gallup by March 28.

Considering that the deal has already suffered two delays, city officials are cautiously optimistic.

"I really hate to get my hopes up until there is a plane on the ground with Westward Air on it," said City Manager Eric Honeyfield, adding that he was "very skeptical" of the company's "last-minute contortions in trying to deliver on the contract."

"But the good news," he said, "is we have not paid a nickel and we're not going to until we see a plane on the ground."

Westward already has one plane flying in New Mexico, connecting Las Cruces and Taos through Albuquerque. But until Westward has a plane running through Gallup, Honeyfield said, the deal won't be complete. And if it takes too long for that to happen, he doesn't rule out the possibility of the state being one of the partners to the deal stepping in.

"Sooner or later it will come to that if all the routes are not developed as they were outlined in the contract," he said.

According to the plan worked out with Feusner, Gallup would be one corner in a triangle of daily flights with Las Cruces and Phoenix, with an emphasis on the Arizona capital. Both Las Cruces and Gallup would be served by two round-trip flights to Phoenix each day, once in the morning and again in the afternoon. Gallup would have only one round-trip flight on Saturdays, however. There would also be morning flights from Las Cruces to Gallup and a return trip in the evenings.

One-way tickets depending on the destination and how far in advance they were booked would run between $48 and $148.

Kozeliski expected the routes and prices to remain the same. Anthony said those were details he could not confirm any sooner than Monday.

As much as city officials are awaiting Westward's arrival, it won't be a first for Gallup. The city lost commercial passenger flights in 2002 after Mesa Airlines switched service from Phoenix to Albuquerque. The switch cost Mesa ticket sales, which cost it its federal subsidy, without which it couldn't afford to serve Gallup.

The city had been trying to restore commercial passenger flights since, and chose Westward for its second attempt.

"When I see (the plane) on first approach," said Kozeliski, who helped but the deal together, "I'll breath a sigh of relief."