Gill discussed the bidding during Tuesday evening’s (May 16) regular commission meeting.

The federal Department of Transportation awarded the bid to Big Sky when its bid to service flights to Denver out of the Pierre

Regional Airport came in about $197,000 less than Great Lakes’ bid.

“A few years back,” said Gill, “we lost our air service to the west. With the help of the congressional delegation, we achieved essential air service status for subsidization. Great Lakes received federal subsidies to serve Pierre.

“However, every two years, the service goes to bid.”

This time around, Big Sky, which was seeking to expand its services, bid $379,000. Great Lakes bid $576,000.

The service each airline is offering Pierre is essentially identical—two round trips daily.

“We are guaranteed the same level of service,” said Mayor Dennis Eisnach. Although, Eisnach said that the city suggested to DOT officials that it would prefer keeping Great Lakes.

The differences between the two airlines may be minor, but there are differences, including a disparity between each’s financial health.

According to the Wikipedia.com Web site, Great Lakes has “had many financial troubles since Sept. 11, 2001. The state of Wyoming heavily subsidizes Great Lakes because it is the only airline serving six of the 10 commercial airports in Wyoming.”

Great Lakes currently serves North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona and Kansas.

Great Lakes began in 1977, but it wasn’t until 1981 that it started schedules services within Iowa. In 1994, the company went public, selling shares on NASDAQ.

Stock in the company is currently selling at $1.05, down a dime from yesterday. In the past year, the stock has seen a high of $1.30 and a low of 51-cents.

It currently has code sharing with Frontier Airlines and United Airlines. Code sharing is the term used when a flight on one airline is jointly marketed as a flight for one or more other airlines.

It currently has a fleet of 35 aircraft including six Embraer EMB 120 Brasilias and 29 Raytheon Beech 1900D Airliners. The Raytheons are the aircraft used by the airline to fly in and out of Pierre.

The Beechcraft 1900 is a twin-engine, civilian, turboprop airplane manufactured by Raytheon. It was developed from the Beech 99, which was derived from the Beechcraft King Air corporate turboprop series.

The Beechcraft 1900 is typically used in regional airline, corporate and freight operations. In typical airline configuration, the Beechcraft 1900 seats 19 passengers in the cabin, with a two-pilot crew in the cockpit.

On the other hand, Big Sky Airlines is wholly owned by Big Sky Transportation Company, which in turn is a subsidiary of MAIR Holdings, which started as Mesaba Holdings Inc., a holding company for Mesaba Aviation. Northwest Airlines is a major shareholder in MAIR, owning about 28 percent of its stock.

MAIR is currently trading at $5.59, up 30-cents from yesterday. In the past year, the stock has seen a high of $9.80 and a low of $4.50.

Currently, Big Sky serves Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Until early 2005, it also served North Dakota, but has since ceased operating there.

Big Sky has a fleet of 10 Beechcraft 1900Ds.

The airline was started in 1978. In 1998, Big Sky took over the essential air service routes of bankrupt Aspen Mountain Air.

Eisnach said that Big Sky has been given the contract by DOT.