That’s despite news Wednesday from Airport Manager Steve Smigelski that air service provider SkyWest Airlines will do away with an early morning flight that was paired with the Pellston airport and only averaged about five to seven passengers a day. The early afternoon flight on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays will be an hour earlier, departing Alpena at noon instead of 1 p.m.

A second flight on those days will arrive in Alpena at 5:17 p.m. from Detroit and depart at 6:10 p.m back to Detroit.

On Tuesdays and Saturdays, SkyWest will offer only a single flight, at 4:28 p.m. to Detroit.

Smigelski said the new schedule, which begins Oct. 1, is what SkyWest proposed to the U.S. Department of Transportation in its latest bid for the Alpena route. A new, two-year contract with SkyWest was approved earlier this year.

News Photo by Steve Schulwitz The Alpena County Regional Airport’s new passenger bridge, which allows passengers to walk from the terminal to the jet without having to go outdoors, is seen on Thursday. The bridge will be operational after the airport staff are trained to operate it.

“We really didn’t lose much by them taking the early flight from us,” Smigelski said. “It wasn’t being utilized. The afternoon flight is where the money is. This schedule also continues to allow people to have a lot of connecting flights in Detroit to choose from.”

In fact, Smigelski said, the airport could see a nice bump in passengers this winter, especially during the holidays. He said SkyWest has given the airport $15,000 to use for a digital ad campaign that could lure people to fly to or out of Alpena.

Last year, Smigelski said, SkyWest helped pay for the same type of advertising initiative and it paid dividends.

“It had a big impact last year,” he said. “We received over 100,000 impressions, or clicks, so that worked well. We will be doing the advertising from October through January, and I think it will help a lot.”

New technology added to the new terminal, which opened in March, will be utilized soon.

Smigelski said the airport just received a new body scanner that will allow security to detect anything not allowed on the plane. He said it will also reduce the number of people who will have to be screened a second time.

“Right now, with the metal detector we have, if someone has a hip replacement or something like that, they are taken into the secondary search room to get cleared,” Smolgelski said. “This will detect something like a medical condition and avoid having to have a second search.”

Smigelski said a new passenger bridge has also been installed and, once staff is trained, will allow passengers to enter the jet from the terminal without going outside. Currently, passengers have to go outdoors and climb steps to get into the plane.

Smigelski said it could be a spell until the bridge is used because training in the Upper Peninsula needed to be delayed.

“They were supposed to be trained in Sault Ste. Marie, but lightning hit its passenger bridge and it is in the process of being repaired,” he said.

Steve Schulwitz can be reached at 989-358-5689 at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ss_alpenanews.com.