A two-year effort has landed legislation into law to\nincrease the number of direct flights between Oklahoma airports and premiere\ndestination cities. Senate Bill 1461, by Sen. Paul Rosino, R-Oklahoma City, and\nRepresentative Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City created the Oklahoma Air Service\nDevelopment Grant Program (OASDGP), which will be administered by the Oklahoma\nAeronautics Commission (OAC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senator Rosino along with OAC and the Department of Commerce\nhave been propelling this initiative since the fall of 2019 when a group of\naviation industry leaders met to explore a state partnership with commercial\nairports and communities to attract new direct routes, which would bolster\neconomic development efforts for communities and the entire state. From there, several bills were introduced, and\nan interim study was held in the summer of 2020 before the final language\nagreed upon by numerous industry stakeholders was passed in SB 1461.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a great program for Oklahoma. Many businesses won\u2019t\neven consider relocating or expanding to a community without having a direct\nflight to the city where they\u2019re headquartered. Having a statewide program\nproviding grant funding to our commercial headquarters can give them an\nimportant edge when competing with other states for those critical direct\nroutes,\u201d Rosino said. \u201cI\u2019m grateful for the work of my House principal author,\nMajority Leader Jon Echols, the great support of our fellow members, and to\nGovernor Kevin Stitt for signing this measure into law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe establishment of the Oklahoma Air Service Development\nGrant Program will be a shot in the arm for economic development in our state,\u201d\nEchols said. \u201cOklahoma is no longer a flyover state, we are a fly-to state, and\nprograms like this will help attract more people to come and see what our\nbeautiful state has to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Signifying a need for the legislation to help our commercial\nairports, in March of this year, United Airlines canceled two routes out of\nWill Rogers World Airport. The airlines announced they will no longer provide\ndirect flights from Oklahoma City to Washington (Dulles) or Newark. Airport\nofficials in the state reported that this is just one example of the larger\nchallenge that communities with airports the size of Oklahoma City and Tulsa have\nwhen it comes to attracting and retaining commercial flights. Regional carriers that serve all of the\nlegacy airlines are parking aircraft because they don\u2019t have the crew to\noperate them. Routes served by regional carriers are struggling the most given\nthat mainline carriers are bringing up pilots, flight attendants, and other\ncrew faster than the regional airlines can replace them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs the commercial air service market is recovering from\nCOVID-19 the competition for new direct routes is at an all-time high. An\nairline may have six to seven cities that are of similar size to choose from\nwhere they know the routes will likely be successful, but they can only pick\ntwo to three new routes to operate,\u201d said State Director of Aeronautics Grayson\nArdies. \u201cPrograms like the one the\nlegislature has implemented this session will hopefully place Oklahoma\u2019s\ncommercial airports in the winner\u2019s seat when those new direct flights are\nselected,\u201d Ardies continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under SB 1461, grant funding can be used for commercial air\nservice development projects to support the introduction of new routes in the\nstate. Eligible entities must demonstrate the ability to provide a minimum of\n20 percent of project funds through local sources and submit an application and\nbusiness plan to be considered. Due to\ncertain Federal Aviation Administration restrictions and other requirements for\ninteractions with airlines, grants must be offered to entities beyond the\ncommercial airports themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A two-year effort has landed legislation into law to increase the number of direct flights between Oklahoma airports and premiere destination cities. Senate Bill 1461, by Sen. Paul Rosino, R-Oklahoma City, and Representative Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City created the Oklahoma Air Service Development Grant Program (OASDGP), which will be administered by the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oklahoma"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Will-Rogers-World-Airport-Oklahoma-City-2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22076,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22074\/revisions\/22076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}