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Show Sun Valley-Key Says No o Service m Officials of Sun Valley Val-ley Key Airlines this w eek announced that they would not begin service to Moab on their certificate cer-tificate issued earlier this summer by the Public Pub-lic Service Commission of Utah. Robert A. Soltys, director dir-ector of marketing for the firm, stated Wed-nesday Wed-nesday that the company had planned to begin service ser-vice here on July 15, however, they learned early in July that Frontier Fron-tier Airlines would again serve Moab, as soon as runway repairs were completed. It was after talking with legal counsel coun-sel and operations personnel, per-sonnel, Mr. Soltys said, that the company decided to ask the Public Service Commission to hold in abeyance their certificate certif-icate for route authority author-ity into Moab until such time as Frontier Airlines Air-lines pulls out of this city. Mr. Soltys pointed out that at the time of the Public Service Commission Commis-sion hearing, the airline indicated that they would not be willing to serve Moab if Frontier was to resume service here. The Salt Lake City market mar-ket is limited, Mr. Soltys said, and Sun Valley Key would have to depend on tourist traffic from both the East and West coasts in order to make the route profitable. He indicated in-dicated that the company felt that Frontier's presence in Moab would take more traffic from Sun Valley Key than the third level carrier would take from Frontier. Local traffic, he concluded, con-cluded, is not enough to support the use of the planes on this route. West Air Walter Hall, head of Western Air Stages, which has been serving Moab since Frontier suspended service last July, this week stated that he was sorry to hear that Sun Valley Key had decided to ask for the abeyance in their route authority. Hall said that his company, which also applied to the PSC for route authority from Moab to Salt Lake City, had spent nearly $5,000 in their fight to gain this authority. Hall indicated that although al-though the Moab run from Grand Junction has continually lost money during the past year, it was felt by West Air that the addition of the Salt Lake route would make the operation profitable. pro-fitable. It was felt, he said, that the additional traffic on which the company com-pany could draw would give them a good profit potential. This would also have given West Air the possibility of flights from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City for additional ad-ditional passenger revenue. rev-enue. Drop Moab The present situation, which continues to be a losing one, Hall said, has made it necessary for us to consider dropping the Moab schedule altogether. al-together. "If we can't find help from someplace," some-place," he stated, "we will have to drop the Moab run." It is anticipated, antic-ipated, he continued that the service to Moab will be dropped around August 1. No Service This loss of commuter air service to Moab would leave this city without commercial air service for about 45 days, until Frontier resumes re-sumes flights around September 15. A third airline, Sky West Aviation, the fixed bese operator at Can-yonlands Can-yonlands Field was also involved in that PSC hearing earlier this year that awarded route authority auth-ority to Sun Valley Key. |