Council punts again on United flights

Ambiguity continues to surround the future of United Airlines’ direct commercial passenger Lewiston-Denver flights.

The Lewiston City Council on Monday discussed for more than an hour the possibility of supporting the flights with $500,000, but didn’t vote on the issue.

The money would have matched $500,000 the Nez Perce County Commission approved last week, contingent upon the city of Lewiston providing the same amount.

United Airlines has requested a minimum revenue guarantee of $4.9 million for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 to help the route become profitable, according to airport officials.

The money is being sought from the city and county because they are the joint owners of the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport.

Providing a portion of United’s request as soon as possible would give the community more time to devise a long-term strategy to back the flights, according to airport officials.

They note that Lewiston airfares have dropped across the board since the flights were introduced, saving regional travelers millions annually.

United and Delta have direct Lewiston flights. The Delta flights go to Salt Lake City and Seattle.

What happens next is not clear.

Airport officials today will tell United what happened at Monday’s council meeting and “wait to see what they say,” said Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport Director Michael Isaacs in a text after the meeting.

United would like to remain in Lewiston, building its service, and airport officials are committed to working hard to find revenue to help, said Gary Peters, airport authority board.

Isaacs and Peters both spoke at Monday’s meeting and answered questions from Lewiston’s elected officials who had a variety of views on the issue.

“It’s money that sounds like it’s going to go on for many years, not just this year, and we have nothing to look at,” said Councilor Kathy Schroeder. “This is like a ghost. I mean, we have no idea how this works or anything else other than like you tell us, but that’s all magic.”

A key reason more information isn’t available is because United is a private business and has to be careful about not revealing proprietary parts of its business model to its competitors, Peters said.

The city doesn’t have the money to contribute because of how much that would drain its reserves, said Councilor John Spickelmire.

The money for the minimum revenue guarantee would have to come from the city’s general fund reserves, said Lewiston Mayor Dan Johnson, quoting a report from Aimee Gordon, the city’s treasurer and finance director.

At the end of the present 2025 fiscal year that started Oct. 1, the city anticipates having about 90 days of cash on hand, compared with 164 days of cash on hand at the end of fiscal year 2023, Johnson said.

If the city used reserves to help support the United flights, according to Gordon’s report, it would put the city in jeopardy of falling below the 90 days of cash on hand threshold the city utilizes as a best practice, Johnson said.

“If something happens, we’re done,” Spickelmire said. “To me, it’s not need to dig deeper. I mean we’ve dug deep enough. I mean if this was your checkbook, you wouldn’t be spending the rest.”

One of the challenges is that the council hasn’t seen anything in writing from United, which makes it hard to make a decision, said Councilor Hannah Liedkie.

“What I’d like United to take from this meeting is that we are interested in keeping them,” Liedkie said. “I would like us to at least express that we have the understanding that we need to keep an airport as viable as we can.”

Johnson said he sent a letter to the board of directors at United about two months ago thanking the airline for being in Lewiston. It covered the successes and challenges while noting the city has marketed the airport, he said.

A number of possibilities to explore surfaced in the discussion such as talking with the Port of Lewiston, the city of Clarkston and Asotin County as well as looking at the possibility of state or federal programs.

The United Denver flights have been subsidized with government money since they debuted in 2021.

In the first three years, they were backed by $4 million of Nez Perce County’s $7.8 million allocation from the federal American Rescue Plan Act.

United has billed the city of Lewiston just more than $4 million for a yearlong minimum revenue guarantee that ended Sept. 30.

Delta’s Lewiston service is not subsidized. The Seattle flights started last year. The Salt Lake service debuted in 2005 and initially was backed with a revenue guarantee agreement.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.