By Bill Raack, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Great Plains Airlines, the only commercial airline at Mid-America Airport, will stop flights to Chicago during January and February because one of its planes needs repairs.
But Great Plains Chief Operating Officer Mark Marudas says those Chicago flights might NOT resume.
"We are interested in resuming flights to Chicgao, as is Mid-America Airport," Marudas said. "But prior to making that decision, we're interseted in assessing the results of the Mead and Hunt study, in a sense that in addition to Chicago there may be some alternative routes or some additional routes that we may want to serve."
Mead and Hunt is a consultant currently evaluating passenger service at Mid-America.
Great Plains is also cutting one of its two round-trip flights to Washington Dulles Airport, as of Jan. 5.
Great Plains began service from MidAmerica in October. The airport, located in Mascoutah, Ill., had been without passenger service for nearly two years before Great Plains arrived.
The airline blamed the cutbacks on a shortage of engines for the jets the company flies.