Daily passenger air service is returning to Dubuque Regional Airport in November, with regional carrier Denver Air Connection offering midday flights to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The service to Chicago, slated to start Nov. 4, will be the first regularly scheduled flights out of Dubuque since low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines made its last flight in April.
The local airport has been without daily commercial service since American Airlines stopped its flights there in September 2022. “We have good news. We did it,” Mayor Brad Cavanagh said Tuesday at a press conference at Dubuque Regional Airport.
“We are so excited to partner with (Denver Air) on restoring daily service in this beautiful terminal.” Denver Air has interline ticketing and baggage transfer agreements with all three legacy carriers, meaning passengers arriving at O’Hare can seamlessly catch an American, United or Delta flight to points elsewhere around the nation and the world. Denver Air’s service will be provided on 50-seat ERJ145 aircraft from Embraer, a Brazilian manufacturer.
The planes have 18 rows with three seats per row, with an aisle between seats. The 170-mile flight east by southeast to O’Hare will take less than an hour. Officials picked the timing of the midday flights to help passengers make connections to and from the West Coast.
“Some days the taxi from the gate to the runway will be longer than the actual flight,” said Jon Coleman, a Denver Air vice president on hand for the press conference. Coleman himself is a licensed pilot and he said he planned to be back Nov. 4 for the inaugural flight to Chicago.
“We’re an airline run by pilots instead of an airline run by accountants.” The Denver Air Connection website has flights from Dubuque to Chicago starting Monday, Nov. 4, for $121 one-way.
As of Tuesday, connecting flights to major airlines are still being populated on airline websites as well as Expedia, though flights are up on the site aggregator CheapOAir. A sample flight to New York on American was posted for $437 round trip from Dubuque versus $290 for a midday roundtrip flight from Cedar Rapids. “It will be competitive with our other regional airports,” Airport Director Todd Dalsing told the Telegraph Herald.
Unlike airlines that fly directly under a brand umbrella of a legacy carrier such as American Eagle or United Express, Denver Air Connection has the freedom to link up to all three major carriers and determine its own rates for the routes it flies. “We set our own prices,” Coleman said. Denver Air Connection primarily serves small airports in the Essential Air Service program across six states, the closest in Ironwood, Mich.
Denver Air connects these small towns to hubs in Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Chicago. Dubuque will be the third city it links to O’Hare after Ironwood and Watertown, S.
D. Dubuque is ineligible for the Essential Air Service program. The connection has been made possible as part of extensive lobbying by local leaders and the approval of a $2 million Small Community Air Service Development grant from the U.
S. Department of Transportation. Denver Air Connection has access to that money to ensure its flights meet a minimum revenue guarantee.
“We’re seeing a resurgence of these independent regional carriers,” said Matt Skinner, a consultant from Global Flight Solutions who helped Dubuque land Denver Air. “The ball doesn’t stop here. We’re certainly out there trying to push for more.
” Funding for the grant is broken down to $1.5 million from the federal government and a $500,000 local and state match from public and private partners that includes $150,000 from the city of Dubuque; $100,000 from Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce; $50,000 each from Dubuque County, Greater Dubuque Development Corp. and Travel Dubuque; $40,000 from airport proceeds and $25,000 from Iowa Department of Transportation’s Aviation division.
“It’s one small step for Dubuque Regional Airport,” said Molly Grover, President and CEO of Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce. “It is one giant leap for our economic prosperity.” Coleman said his airline has escaped the pilot shortage by training many of its own.
The airline also specializes in limited-seating turboprop plane and cargo jets, which require fewer hours in the air. Pilots can acclimate themselves to the air learning these diverse aircraft until they accrue the required experience to fly a commercial jet. “It’s not just that we grow the pilots.
We grow really good pilots,” he said. In addition to local lobbying, the federal grant also had the support of U.S.
Rep. Ashley Hinson and Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst.
“I was pleased to strongly support efforts like the Small Community Air Service Development Grant Program to help attract a new air carrier to Dubuque,” Grassley said in a statement. “Northeast Iowa is sure to benefit as a result of this enhanced commercial air service.”.
