(Radio Iowa) – Regional air carrier SkyWest has announced they are planning to pull their commercial service out of Sioux City, Mason City, and Fort Dodge. Assistant city manager Mike Collett oversees the Sioux Gateway Airport and says this SkyWest also gave a 90-day notice they were ending service during the height of the pandemic. “The good thing for Sioux City is that we’re part of the essential air service program, so as soon as they file this notice — it triggers a process with the federal D-O-T to start the 90-day — which they’ll go out and take bids from other airlines so we don’t have an absence in service,” according to Collet.

SkyWest cites the ongoing pilot staffing shortages as the reason for ending service. Collett is confident another airline will step up to provide flights:  “We’ll reach out to our airline contacts and foster those relationships we’ve had with them through the years. We’ll have other interest, we had three last time and I think we’ve had two to three bidders each time we’ve gone through this bidding process for essential air service,” he says.

Collett is also hopeful SkyWest will extend their service past the next 90 days: He says when American filed to leave in August of 2020 and were in the market into the following April and he expects SkyWest to be in the market for a smooth transition like American did.

SkyWest had recently suspended one of its three daily flights from Sioux Gateway Airport to Denver, and Sioux City officials last month announced they were extending their service agreement with the air carrier.