Unalakleet and St. Paul Island leaders are urging federal transportation officials to award air service contracts to Aleutian Airways in a bid to restore reliable air service after months of uncertainty and missed flights in the wake of Ravn Alaska’s abrupt departure earlier this year.
The U.S. Department of Transportation sought airlines to serve the two remote communities under the federal Essential Air Service program. The program offers subsidies for air carriers to provide regularly scheduled service to places where doing business might not otherwise be profitable, to maintain crucial air links.
Ravn, once the biggest regional airline in Alaska, had dwindled in size in recent years. In 2024, the airline notified remaining communities it was planning to withdraw from the market, with flights ending in Unalakleet in April. Flights to St. Paul were supposed to stop in October, but Ravn pulled out early, ceasing service at the end of July.
Kenai Aviation, a small, Kenai-headquartered airline with roots serving Cook Inlet oilfield needs, stepped in to provide service to Unalakleet without subsidy.
Things didn’t go well: Starting almost immediately, the flights were on different, smaller aircraft than what had been promised, said Kelsi Ivanoff, a community member who has worked extensively on air service issues. Some flights from Anchorage took 2 1/2 hours, longer than residents were used to. Baggage — essential for people bringing groceries and supplies to the village — was limited to 50 pounds.
And then the flights started getting canceled. In a three-week timeframe starting in July, Kenai Aviation only completed 45% of their scheduled flights between Unalakleet and Anchorage. In August, the flights stopped completely, with Kenai grounding planes between Aug. 18 and 31.
The missed flights have continued into September.
A cascade of problems
In an Aug. 19 letter to the Department of Transportation posted publicly on the company’s Facebook page, Kenai Aviation said the July and August cancellations were the result of a “critical maintenance grounding.”
In an interview this week, Jacob Caldwell, one of Kenai Aviation’s owners, said the company had initially planned to start service in October, but had stepped in earlier because of Ravn’s abrupt departure.
A routine maintenance inspection unearthed issues that grounded the aircraft, Caldwell said. That triggered a cascade of problems caused by having an “aircraft out of service that we intended to have all summer,” he said.
In a letter, the airline apologized to Unalakleet directly, saying the cancellations “made daily life harder in a place where air service is not a luxury, but a lifeline,” the company wrote. “We don’t take that lightly. We regret the impact it has had, and we are committed to making sure it does not happen again.”
On Sept. 3, Unalakleet community leaders asked the federal Department of Transportation to continue the Essential Air Service bidding process, saying many of Kenai Aviation’s claims about their service record were misleading, including in-flight safety issues.
In a letter, the community offered a point-by-point response to Kenai’s claims.
“The letter from Kenai Aviation undermines the experiences of the community,” the letter said.
Ivanoff said the dearth of dependable flights has profoundly disrupted life in Unalakleet and for surrounding villages such as Stebbins and St. Michael, snarling everything from people’s cancer treatment in Anchorage to summer construction projects.
An alternate route through Nome on regional carrier Bering Air is also often booked out for weeks, and the timing of flights sometimes necessitates an expensive overnight stay at a Nome hotel to catch the next jet to Anchorage. Ivanoff had been trying to help out by scheduling charter flights, which are expensive and uncertain.
Sterling Airways’ proposal, backed by Unalakleet leadership, would be for flights on a Saab 2000 multiple times a week. The Sterling proposal asks for a $3 million annual subsidy for three round-trip flights per week. Ticket prices would be around $215 each way, Ivanoff said — far more affordable than the nearly $500 each way people have been paying.
Emergency in St. Paul
Meanwhile in early August, leaders of the island community of St. Paul declared an “economic and social emergency” due to its own loss of regularly scheduled air service.
Kenai Aviation was the only airline to initially respond to a request for proposals to operate subsidized air service to the island, proposing to run a Beechcraft Super King Air 9-passenger twin engine aircraft to the island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea about 260 miles off Alaska’s mainland. The total subsidy over two years for the route proposed would be about $5.4 million.
In mid-August, St. Paul leaders withdrew support for Kenai’s proposal, saying the smaller aircraft wouldn’t meet the needs or level of service the island had previously received with its past carrier: three weekly round-trip flights between St. Paul and Anchorage in a 25- or 30-seat de Havilland Dash-8 plane.
“We need to find a more acceptable and sustainable solution,” the letter said.
St. Paul leaders backed their own Aleutian Airways proposal, which would start with 60 to 90 days of service using contracted charter flights before shifting to a 30-seat Saab 2000 with flights three days a week.
Aleutian Airways, which is operated by Sterling Airways, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sterling has indicated it would get a needed overwater FAA approval to fly the route, according to documents included in the regulatory process. The flights would cost $399 each way.
St. Paul city manager Phillip Zavadil declined an interview request.
Is smaller the future?
Caldwell, the Kenai Aviation owner, said there’s a fundamental change afoot in Alaska rural air operations.
Communities are used to service with larger airplanes, but many of those aircraft — such as the de Havilland Dash-8s used by Ravn — are at the end of their service lifetimes, he said.
Small airlines such as Kenai operate under Part 135 federal aviation standards, which limit them to no more than nine passengers, Caldwell said. Larger companies operate under Part 121, a different set of regulations that apply to airlines all the way up to jetliners.
“It’s a much heavier set of regulations, the cost for compliance with that is astronomical,” he said.
Clearly, communities would prefer larger airplanes, Caldwell said. The question is whether the business is sustainable.
“Right now, for as long as Part 135 limits us to nine seats, I think we’re going to see a lot better success in the state for long-term service with more frequent flights (on smaller aircraft),” he said.
The federal Department of Transportation has been receiving comments from community members about the air carrier proposals. Many of those comments emphasize how crucial an affordable air link to Anchorage is — and how challenging life in the communities has been in recent months without one.
The department could make a final decision about the proposals by the end of October. In the interim, people in St. Paul and Unalakleet have been relying on charter flights to Anchorage.