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Show Deserves Our Support! The handwriting is on the wall. Cedar City and the southern Utah area can take a good look at what is happening in Moab in the southeasten part of Utah and see with a clear eye a trend that is developing that is destined (o extend to this area of the state with a similar problem and possible similar results. Moab, the center of a 15,000 population area, has depended on Frontier Airlines to provide air service ser-vice at the Canyonlands Airport near that city. Now officials have been notified by Frontier Airlines its intention to file an application for complete com-plete suspension of all service at Canyonlands Airport. In a summary submitted to the state and to our congressional delegation, regarding this proposed withdrawal of service, citizens of the area point out several factors that have contributed to the request. Officials of the area point out that the canyonland field is tlie only airport with scheduled airline service serv-ice in southeastern Utah. If Frontier's proposed application ap-plication to suspend service is approved, the area will be divorced from the rest of the world with the -only mode of transportation being the private automobile. auto-mobile. Frontier's acton comes as no surprise to residents of the area. Since 1968 Frontier's inadequate schedules, sched-ules, unreliable service and lack of advertising and promotion lend to the asumption that Frontier was deliberately attempting to eliminate Moab as a terminal. ter-minal. Prior to this time passengers enplaning had reached an average of 10.6 per day and was steadily rising each year. Frontier now claims that this ave-erage ave-erage has deteriorated to 6.5 per day. Frontier has suggested that Moab might better be served by a third level carrier, with which residents resi-dents of the area disagree. So the battle is on and Moab residents are re-Questing re-Questing that the Civil Aeronautics Board reject the request for termination and insist that Frontier restore re-store scehedules and service to a level comparable to pre-1968. The pattern is a familiar one to residents of this , area. Similar situations have developed with Air West. In both instances the airlines have sought out our communities in an effort to establish an airline service ser-vice to feed major trunk line carriers. Growth then has developed to a point where the carrier' W turn has visions of grandeur as a trunk line carrier which results in an effort to discontinue service to the small communities that helped them establish their position. posi-tion. We in this area should do all that we can to support sup-port Moab in its effort to fight this discontinuation move on the part of Frontier. Such a case could es-" es-" ;ablish a precedent that could, in the long run, come )ack to haunt us in connection with current prob-ems prob-ems with Air West. Frontier and Air West have an obligation to serve our areas. We need to fight to see that they do and what appears to be efforts to deliberately attempt to eliminate service should be shown for what they are. We support Moab in its efforts. We may need its support in the future. Air service is a vital transportation cog in this day and age and neither southeastern Utah or southwestern south-western Utah can afford to take that step backwards py eliminating this vital service. |