Pierre and Watertown have a new airline carrier that begins offering flights later this summer. The change fills a need for air service to the state capital.
Pierre and Watertown struggled to maintain reliable air service after changes in federal regulation impacted small airlines.
Laurie Gillis the Mayor of Pierre. She says the company Aerodynamics is partnering with Pierre’s current airline, Great Lakes, to start providing flights August 15th.
“Aerodynamics is a company that is new to the commercial side of air service. They have worked for decades providing charter service around the nation. But as they are getting into commercial service, they will need to partner with Great Lakes for ground operations and for the reservation system,” says Gill.
Aerodynamics is offering flights from Watertown to Pierre and then nonstop to Denver on a 50 passenger jet. Gill says the airline could expand to other locations in the future.
“Our hope is that as the commercial air serve starts up with a new company and we get our ridership back, that we can work with ADI to see what other routes make sense, particularly Minneapolis. So that is not off the table- we hope to be able to go east as well sometime in the future, but right now our focus is getting the service in place to Denver to get people to a major hub because really from Denver people can fly anywhere in the nation,” says Gill.
Gill says tickets can already be purchased starting at around $66 dollars from Pierre to Denver. The airline plans to offer 12 flights a week.