Western Railroad Discussion > OT-Great Lakes Airlines Ceased Operations March 2018

OFF TOPIC-Great Lakes Airlines Beech 1900D were stored April 5, 2018 at Cheyenne Regional Airport. Great Lakes Aviation ceased operations March 26, 2018. Aviation company was headquartered at Cheyenne, WY.

Great Lakes Airlines, was an American regional airline operating domestic scheduled and charter services. Corporate headquarters were in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with a hub at Denver International Airport. (Info courtesy Wikipedia)
Headquarters: Cheyenne, WY
Stock price: GLUX (OTCMKTS) $0.15 0.00 (-0.66%)
Apr 5, 4:00 PM EDT
Ceased operations: March 26, 2018
Parent company: Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd
Founded: 1977

Sad day for Cheyenne employees that have struggled to keep this regional airline flying. The end is here...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/18 07:51 by cozephyr.

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Forwarding info-Great Lakes Airlines, a once-robust regional carrier providing passenger service between Denver International Airport and airports across the West and Midwest, suspended all of its scheduled flights as of Tuesday, March 26, 2018.

The shutdown left passengers at DIA holding useless tickets to Cheyenne and Salina, Kansas, and stranded some travelers in Telluride, which has no other commercial carrier. Great Lakes also connected Los Angeles International Airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to the Arizona cities of Prescott and Page.

“Although we are ceasing flight operations, it is important to note that the company has not entered bankruptcy and will continue to operate certain segments of the business,” the airline said on its website.

Great Lakes Jet Express — the airline’s partnership with Aerodynamics Inc. — will continue to fly, carrying passengers between Denver and the South Dakota cities of Pierre and Watertown.

The news marks a steep fall for the Cheyenne-based airline that once had 1,600 employees, more than 60 aircraft and dozens of destinations across the U.S.

Construction of a new Cheyenne Airport terminal facility is underway (2018) and cost effective means of insuring the long-term sustainability of passenger service at the Cheyenne Regional Airport. However, Great Lakes Airline was the ONLY airline serving Cheyenne.

Meanwhile, Amtrak was also making changes...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/18 08:53 by cozephyr.

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OFF TOPIC-Cheyenne's new $18.1 million airport terminal construction is moving ahead and related improvements at the Cheyenne Regional Airport expected to be completed in 2018.

The building also will feature a holding area for up to 200 people waiting to board aircraft after passing through security, areas for baggage claim and retrieval, as well as space for screening by employees from the Transportation Security Administration. There also will be space for a restaurant and other retail space.

The construction project is scheduled to be finished in August or September of 2018, said Jim Schell, the airport’s deputy director of aviation.

“The civil work is about 98 percent done,” he said. Knife River Corp. is handling all of the civil projects that do not involve construction of the terminal.

The company built new roads to reach the terminal, along with a parking lot and an aviation apron with room enough for one 737 airliner and two regional jets.


Now they only need an airline to fly into Cheyenne, Wyoming...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/18 09:16 by cozephyr.

Despite its name, they covered a lot of small towns in the west that were far from the Great Lakes. I flew them to places like Sheridan, WY, Pueblo, CO and North Platte, NE.

They apparently won't be missed. Here are a couple of comments from some pilots:

Unfortunate for the people employed there who will have to find new jobs, on that I can agree. Other than that, I'm not seeing the unfortunate part. Bear in mind that Great Lakes was the kind of operator who removed all but 9 seats from a 19 seat airplane, for no other reason than so they could operate scheduled service under part 135 instread of part 121, and thus hire 250 hour pilots at their (lowest in the industry) poverty wages instead of increasing their pay scale to attract 1500 hour pilots. Great Lakes was the lowest of the bottom feeders, and went to great lengths to maintain that position.

From a slightly different perspective, Great Lakes existed pretty much exclusively to feed on "Essential Air Services " contracts, in which they are paid to fly route's which don't have the demand to have air service. Just the fact that they were apparently able to serve the needs of the destinations with a 9 seat airplane should tell you about the real need for 7 day a week scheduled air service. We aren't talking about isolated, road-less communities where the is no other practical means means of transportation. The Great Lakes destination were generally connected to good roads which allowed driving to a larger city with scheduled air service. I have more than once been present at Glasgow MT when their EAS predecessor, Big Sky arrived, with an empty metroliner, the F/O went into the station with paperwork, returned, presumably with different paperwork, and they departed, for the next stop, again, empty. No doubt there will be someone to take their place, and the EAS subsidy will live on, but I see no reason to lament the demise of the operator with the industry wide worst terms of employment, which existed solely to collect an unnecessary government subsidy.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Great Lakes used to be dubbed as "Great Mistakes" by many who flew there. They were beyond terrible. And in the late 90's when major airlines were hiring like gangbusters, they operated a scheme where every captain upgrade trainee would fail the first checkride before they are eventually passed. This was by design to taint the trainee's record and created a roadblock when it came time for them to apply to the major airlines. This was how they retained pilots.

Glad I never worked there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/18 11:49 by CA_Sou_MA_Agent.

With the numbers of baby boomer pilots who are retiring every day, the employees of this airline should have been picked up quickly by existing carriers.

Sounds like an awful place to work.

Posted from Android

What the article fails to mention that Great Lakes was down to one flight a week into Cheyenne. They can not compete with the shuttle out of here to DIA in price. Only advantage is the travel time and not having to redo TSA in Denver on arrival. When they had 3 scheduled flights a day it depended on how many passengers had reservations and if not enough they would cancel a flight. How's that for customer service. So far they still have their maintenance hanger at the Cheyenne Airport.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

You will notice that their planes are painted in the older United colors. Once they lost their franchise with United, they tried to compete as a feeder for Frontier. but that didn't work well because of the fare structure. The airline industry needs mechanics and pilots. So those willing to relocate and start over in seniority shouldn't have ]difficulty finding work.

BB

I used to fly Great Lakes out of Alamosa when Iowa Pacific Holdings had me roaming around as System DSLE.

Corporate always wanted me to fly out of Colorado Springs as the ALA-DIA flight added $150 to the trip. I pointed out they were saving $$$ by not paying my mileage to CS as well as overnight and meals in CS.

It never did sink into their pointed little heads.

Now I guess flying into ALA is a no-go.

My last trip to ALA for a managers meeting had me fly GL into ALA. 20 minutes before departure, they cancelled the flight, as there were no more flights that night, I had to rent a car and drive to ALA. One way rentals to Alamosa were expensive.

Despite numerous phone calls to GL requesting a refund, no one ever returned my call. Corporate paid my expense report with the canceled flight and car rental included, so I dropped the whole thing.

Good Riddance....

That's unfortunate, Cheyenne is a State Capitol so you wonder what modern travel options there are. My company did fly into Cheyenne and a few other mid-west towns using Great Lakes, however not that many would make the flight twice. The lack of schedule options made the I-25 challenge about equal in travel time. There may have been as many skiers going to Jackson than anywhere else.

It would be curious what the cost issues were, whether it was simply more cost than passengers or what. There's plenty of Military and civilian travel into Cheyenne as well, kinda wonder if that is all by car.

With a pilot with 250 hours flying through the Rockies or summer thunderstorm season, odds aren't great of making it in one piece

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/18 12:42 by darkcloud.

If the places it flew could not support a doodlebug with mail traffic why would you think a plane could do it?

I well remember some hair-raising flights on the puddle-jumpers between Omaha, North Platte, Scott’s Bluff, Cheyenne, Laramie and Denver back in the 80s. I don’t think it was Great Lakes then. I remember flying on the last jet aircraft from North Platte before the service went to the turbo props. UP photographer Doug Walton and I were on one trying to get back to Omaha by having to go the long way through Denver . We took off from North Platte just as the tornado sirens went off. The sky looked terrible. That was one of the roughest airplane rides I ever had with lightning flashing around us as horiffic winds tossed our aircraft around. After we landed at Scott’s Bluff one woman deserted the plane and kissed the ground as soon as she stepped on the tarmac!

Oh and then there was a flight in a blizzard on a small two engine prop job from Laramie to Denver. It wasn’t as frightening as the tornado flight but it’ s safe to say I was plenty nervous but happy to be on my way home.

After that I traveled to Cheyenne by flying to Denver and renting a car to drive up to Cheyenne. On trips to North Platte I either drove or rode trains.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/18 13:21 by Copy19.

darkcloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
And why on
> earth would anyone headed to Jackson Hole fly into
> Cheyenne when Salt Lake is 150 miles closer and
> has direct flights?


Lots of bad weather and folks re-booking that weekend. Probably used his cell phone to find an 'amazing great route'.

Copy19 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I well remember some hair-raising flights on the
> puddle-jumpers between Omaha, North Platte,
> Scott’s Bluff, Cheyenne, Laramie and Denver back
> in the 80s. I don’t think it was Great Lakes
> then. I remember flying on the last jet aircraft
> from North Platte before the service went to the
> turbo props. UP photographer Doug Walton and I
> were on one trying to get back to Omaha by having
> to go the long way through Denver . We took off
> from North Platte just as the tornado sirens went
> off. The sky looked terrible. That was one of the
> roughest airplane rides I ever had with lightning
> flashing around us as horiffic winds tossed our
> aircraft around. After we landed at Scott’s
> Bluff one woman deserted the plane and kissed the
> ground as soon as she stepped on the tarmac!
>
> Oh and then there was a flight on a small two
> engine prop job from Laramie to Denver. It
> wasn’t as frightening as the tornado flight but
> it’ s safe to say I was plenty nervous but happy
> to be on my way home.
>
> After that I traveled to Cheyenne by flying to
> Denver and renting a car to drive up to Cheyenne.
> On trips to North Platte I either drove or rode
> trains.

Rocky Mountain Airways? or Rocky Mountain Scareways as some called it. Was owned by the owner of Ringsby Truck Lines

Next Cheyenne should build a brand-new passenger train terminal for the rail carrier that is not there either!

The problem with the air carrier between Cheyenne and DIA is as stated, it's too short of a flight to make any money. You take off from Cheyenne and get up to altitude around Greeley, then in a flash you are above Brighton on the approach to DIA, just not enough time or miles.

...And "Great Lakes"? Being a kid who moved with his family from Traverse City, MI to Cheyenne, WY, I find that hilarious. A catchier name would have been "Great Plains", notice the play on words? === === = === JLH



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/06/18 14:43 by highgreengraphics.

Ringsby owned Aspen Airways or whatever they were, had a nice postcard of them, the family i think involved in RINO area now.
>
> Rocky Mountain Airways? or Rocky Mountain
> Scareways as some called it. Was owned by the
> owner of Ringsby Truck Lines

Cheyenne's population is actually a bit over 60,000. And believe it or not we are the "Field pf Dreams" mode as they are now building a new Terminal building to the east over by the NOAA center. "Build it and they will come!" That's too funny.
Last time they tried they got American Airlines to come in with a large incentive stipend. They were here 6 months, long enough to collect the bonus, and then pulled out.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

planes land there waiting for DIA sometimes