The Lincoln community let out a collective sigh when news broke this week that Red Way, the Lincoln Airport’s brand new airline, would be ceasing operation at the end of August.
Many were disappointed as the prospect of expanded flight service for the city slipped out of grasp. Some confused – how could such a promising service fail?
Further, many were concerned with the sheer amount of tax dollars that went toward the project. “Unfortunately right now it looks like this project is a waste of ARPA dollars,” said County Commissioner Matt Schulte in a late night reaction email.
ARPA being federal tax dollars granted to
the city and county through the American Rescue Plan Act. In total, Red Way received $3 million from ARPA, $1.5M from the city of Lincoln and 1.5M from Lancaster County.
“So many county services could have done a lot of long-lasting good with $3 million,” Schulte continued.
LNK Airport officials took questions regarding Red Way for the first time on Thursdays episode of The Dan Parsons Show.
“We’re incredibly disappointed,” Executive Director for the Lincoln Airport Authority (LAA), David Haring opened up.
Red Way’s goal, in Haring’s eyes, was to bring enhanced air service and economic development to Lincoln. “Those were things we were so excited about…seeing passengers come into our community and utilize the services here locally…hopefully we have something that we can do in the future,” said Haring.
Dan asked Haring the question on everyone’s mind, how did this happen?
“The easiest answer to that: we had some markets that really significantly underperformed and didn’t meet projections… that obviously wasn’t something that we were led to believe was going to take place. We thought they were very solid, but several markets significantly underperformed and… just was unrecoverable,” said Haring.
As for the $3 million in ARPA funds, Airport Authority Board Member & State Senate Candidate Nicki Behmer Popp told Dan they’re exploring all options to recover any amount of these funds. She says that an audit can’t be completed until flights stop on August 31st.
“The first request for funds, received in July, was for $928,000. Just to cover the cost for flying in June. The second request came in at a little bit over a million dollars. While we are still waiting on the final figures, we know at least $2 million at this point has been utilized. The amount of the initial request raised some operational questions… But the amount of the second request triggered major concerns from the airport board in terms of the financial stability of Red Way entirely,” said Behmer Popp.
The LNK Airport wont be the only group sifting through Red Way’s finances.
“Today we received notice from State Auditor Mike Foley that they too will be conducting an audit on Red Way,” John Olsson, Chair of the Lincoln Airport Authority Board said in a Thursday statement.
“The audit will ensure transparency, compliance and efficiency in all aspects of Red Way’s departure from LNK,” said Olsson, “LAA looks forward to cooperating with the State Auditor, as well as our community partners – the Lancaster County Board and the Lincoln City Council – to coordinate all efforts to ensure a transparent audit process moving forward.”
While this situation has produced much grief, Haring offered a glass-half-full perspective on the Red Way experiment, “We had 19,000 passengers utilize this service over the three months of it’s operation. That’s massive for an operation that’s new. We also identified markets that were very consistent. The Orlando market was the highest performing one. We were already hitting average loads of about 75%… definitely shows some interest. You could see the excitement, and we’ll look to build on that.”
“Moving forward, we will be seeking fresh perspective,” Behmer Popp said with positive hope. “We still believe leisure air service can be successful in Lincoln… based off of this experience, we know that our efforts need to be focused on foundational markets that have proven to be more sustainable.”