Business View Magazine | April 2019

72 BARKLEY REGIONAL AIRPORT of 1978, which freed carriers to adjust their routes without the need of regulatory approval. In 2009, when Delta merged with Northwest, flights from Memphis to Paducah were termi- nated, and the Airport risked losing commer- cial air service, altogether. The saving grace for Barkley came in the form of a Department of Transportation (DOT) pro- gram, called the Essential Air Service Program (EAS), created to make sure small communi- ties were still able to have commercial air- line service by subsidizing a single airline to schedule up to 14 flights per week between a small community and a medium or large size hub. The DOT publishes a request for bids from airlines wishing to provide this subsidized ser- vice to a qualifying small community, and the winning, and only, bid for Paducah came from SkyWest Airlines, DBA United Express, which inaugurated flights in 2010 to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in 50-seat, Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ)- 200s. “We just began our third daily, weekday flight to O’Hare on January 7th (plus two on weekends), which we are thrilled to have been able to achieve,” Roof exults. Over the last several years, SkyWest has still been the only airline to bid for Barkley, and it has been re-awarded each time, due in large part to the growth the service has seen. In 2017 the airline carried 41,895, passengers, a three percent increase over 2016. “Num- ber-wise, this year, we should have between 42,000 and 44,000 passengers arriving and departing,” Roof proffers. “Aircraft operations, in