When a new operator took over the daily flights between Cody and Denver last spring, Yellowstone Regional Airport officials predicted the switch would lead to more flights being completed and on-time.

So far, that’s held true — since taking over the route in June, SkyWest Airlines has cut down on the number of canceled flights. However, YRA officials have also heard complaints of passengers being bumped from their flights by last-minute changes in the weather.

Board member Shawn Warner was on a late September flight in which a half-dozen passengers were removed — and he overheard their frustrations.

“I can tell you from personal experience the conversations are, ‘I will never fly out of YRA again,’” Warner reported at the board’s Oct. 10 meeting.

The comments came from locals as much as tourists, Warner said, and he expressed worries about long-term damage to the airport’s reputation.

“We are leaking customers to Billings and it’s an issue,” added board member John Hollander. “And it’s going to become a major problem to this community and this airport if we don’t get in front of it.”

However, YRA Manager Aaron Buck said SkyWest is “very aware” of the issue and is working on short- and long-term solutions.

“SkyWest is doing what they can,” Buck told the Tribune in October.

In an interview earlier this month, a SkyWest representative said the airline monitors the weather and constantly works to minimize disruptions.

“Adjusting a customer’s flight plans is always our last resort,” said company spokeswoman Marissa Snow.

Not enough power

The trouble, Buck said, stems from Cody’s windy conditions and the CRJ-200 jets currently being used by SkyWest.

When stiff breezes blow into the airport from the southwest, pilots must use YRA’s 22 runway, Buck said, and there isn’t enough room for the lower-performing CRJ-200s to safely clear Carter Mountain with a full load of passengers.

As Snow put it, “If there are unforecast changes in wind or weather, it can change the number of passengers that can actually be on board to safely take off.”

It’s expected to be a temporary headache: One of the airport’s consultants, Bill Tomcich of Global Flights Aviation Consulting, predicted this month that SkyWest will switch away from the CRJ-200s and to more powerful jets in “no more than a year or two.”

The expected replacement, the CRJ-550, offers more leg space and first-class seating, Buck said, but is also higher-performing and better suited for mountain flying.

“That will eventually solve the problem,” he said.

How big is the problem?

Exactly how many passengers are being bumped and how often is unclear, as the accounts shared with the board have been anecdotal. For example, at September’s meeting, Hertz Manager Cory Field estimated that around 18 people had been kicked off flights on one particular day, which overwhelmed the car rental business.

However, Buck said the winds were “abnormally strong” during an unseasonably warm September, leading to “quite a few flights that couldn’t be taken with a full load.” Snow similarly told the Tribune that the shifting winds “were just unprecedented and unforecast.”

The breezes present more problems in the summer months, Buck said, but “it doesn’t mean that they’ll disappear in the winter.” At this month’s meeting, YRA Board Chair Heidi Rasmussen said she’d heard about passengers being bumped in October and early November.

Both she and Warner also suggested the airport work with SkyWest to get some hard data on how many people are being bumped.

As complaints come in, it would be helpful to be able to tell a passenger that they just happened to hit a bad day, Rasmussen said, “but without actual data, we can’t hypothesize as to how often it’s happening.”

On top of that, Buck and Matt Skinner of Global Flights said having hard numbers related to the removed passengers could bolster YRA’s case for an aircraft upgrade.

“All these pieces of the puzzle do help us push that conversation forward,” Skinner said at the Dec. 11 meeting.

SkyWest didn’t provide the Tribune with specific data on the number of bumped passengers, but Snow said that “it is certainly not a common occurrence.”

Working on
communication

During the October meeting, board members also said SkyWest staff could improve their communications with the passengers being removed.

Rather than offering an apology and explaining that an abrupt change in the wind forced their hand, “the message is, ‘Five of you are out,’” Rasmussen said. “And the crowd has no idea whether that was a 45-minute-ago change, a four-minute-ago change, or ‘you jerks knew this three hours ago and didn’t tell us.’ And then the hate is on.”

Warner added that, on his flight, the airline spent so much time trying to get six passengers to voluntarily give up their seats that many others missed connections in Denver. It turned into a “loss-loss-loss-loss,” he said.

Buck told the Tribune in October that he had relayed the concerns to local SkyWest personnel.

Snow said the staff in Cody work to accommodate and rebook affected passengers as quickly as possible, adding that it’s “never easy” to share the news about a weight restriction.

“... I don’t think anybody wants to hear, ‘Sorry, we don’t have your seat any longer,’” Snow said, noting the inconvenience for passengers.

Moving forward

Buck said SkyWest had worked proactively to minimize disruptions. For example, on historically windy days, Buck said the airline intentionally held back some seats until seeing whether the forecast was favorable. Additionally, on four breezy days in September, SkyWest happened to have more powerful E-175s available and preemptively flew those bigger aircraft to YRA instead of the CRJ-200s to avoid bumping passengers.

“SkyWest is doing a really good job of trying to resolve the issue in-house,” Buck said.

He also made a point of noting that SkyWest is getting more flights to their destination than the prior carrier, CommuteAir.

Since taking over the route in June, Snow said that SkyWest has completed 99.9% of its Cody flights, with the remainder due to weather; in five months before SkyWest took over, she said the prior carrier canceled 6% of its flights, “not including weather.”

Before the switch to SkyWest, “we weren’t sure we were gonna even get the flight,” Buck said at the September meeting. “And so that’s the biggest difference.”

(Editor's note: After publication, SkyWest reached out to clarify that they had completed 99.9% of their flights to Cody since, rather than 99.1%. The story has been updated to reflect the company's updated figure.)