Sedgwick County commissioners on Wednesday will consider a transportation service agreement with the City of Wichita that involves subsidies to AirTran and Frontier.
In August, commissioners approved a new contract with AirTran, granting a one-year subsidy of up to $6.5 million for the airline. The state covered $5 million of that through a grant, with the county and city splitting the difference.
In addition, the county has a revenue guarantee with Frontier to pay up to $500,000 a year.
A local match of $1.67 million is required to secure state funding, county chief financial officer Chris Chronis says in a memo to commissioners. However, he said, $2 million in local funding commitment is necessary (on top of the $5 million from the state) to cover contract obligations for AirTran and Frontier for the 12 months ending June 30, 2009.
The proposed city-county contract that commissioners will review Wednesday would provide up to $1 million of city funding to partially offset the county’s $2 million obligation.
Chronis has recommended that commissioners approve the contract. The county can reject the city-county agreement, but the county’s obligations to AirTran and Frontier would stick.
3 Comments
Let’s not kid ourselves; the subsidy will be necessary as far into the future as I can see in order for there to be any vestige of “affordable air travel” in Wichita and the surrounding area. So, County and City officials, hows about doing some long-term thinking and planning here, without the annual drama over agreements, etc.?
I looked at flights to Denver and Frontier was more expensive than any of the other carriers out of Wichita…
How long will this subsidy for AirTran continue? For ever and ever and ever? It would be nice if Airtran would provide service to the West and make ICT it’s Hub. But that probably makes to much sense.