United ramps up service
Daily flights from San Francisco
BY LAURA BELL
The friendly skies of United will become a little busier this winter in Bozeman.
Gallatin Field Airport and United Airlines recently announced United will begin seasonal daily nonstop service to United’s hub at San Francisco International Airport beginning Dec. 17th.
“Last summer’s and winter’s Saturday service to San Francisco was very popular with customers and its success was instrumental in United’s decision to make this winter’s service daily,” said Brian Sprenger, director of the Gallatin Field Airport.
It’s one of our target markets. We’ve been targeting it on a Saturday basis. We asked if they would be interested in expanding it to daily and they responded this year and said, ‘It looks like something we should do,’” Sprenger continued.
Typically when a carrier ventures into a new market or increases service the carrier will ask for a guarantee. In the past Big Sky Resort has put in funding when the airline did not meet its guarantee. According to Sprenger United did not ask for a guarantee on this daily fight.
“United has certainly been expanding in the market. They like Southwest Montana and have done pretty well and they are pretty confident about this,” he said.
Big Sky Resort General Manager, Taylor Middleton concurred, “This year’s enhanced winter marketing program supported by Resort Tax dollars has give us yet another tool to show the airlines that we can support more seats into Bozeman. The bottom line is that airlines don’t add seats into markets unless they know their partners like the Big Sky community are going to support them and they can operate profitably.”
“It is great that we have been able to secure more direct flight service for our winter season, especially from a qualified target market like San Francisco,” said Marne Hayes, Executive Director of the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce. Hayes applauds the efforts of the Resort and Sales and Marketing Director Meg O’Leary, hailing the direct service a “victory.”
Many destination skiers also come from Texas and while Sprenger says the airport is actively seeking flights from the Lone Star State, because no current carriers into Gallatin Filed have hubs in Texas, it makes this destination a little less desirable.
“San Francisco is a strength because United has a hub there. There are two main carriers that have hubs in Texas: American and Continental. Another problem is there is competition between here and Texas and that is Colorado,” Sprenger explained.
Gallatin Field Airport will become the only airport in Montana with daily non-stop service to San Francisco. The Bozeman-San Francisco service is conveniently timed to connect with United flights to and from cities throughout the western United States. United operates more than 235 flights a day linking San Francisco International Airport with cities throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico.
“Air lift into Bozeman is critical to our community’s success, and we continually work to improve it. United’s recent announcement of daily non-stop service from San Francisco is just one more big success in developing and improving markets. We now have not stop flights from nine major markets in nine major states covering four time zones,” said Middleton. “I cannot applaud Meg O’Leary, who leads our airline partner relationship program, enough for this success and all the other successes we’ve accomplished.”
Although schedules are subject to change, the daily Bozeman-San Francisco service will continue until March 27, 2010. Flights will be operated by United Express carrier SkyWest Airlines.
San Francisco to Bozeman
Depart: 8:48 a.m. Arrive: 12:02 p.m.
Bozeman to San Francisco Depart: 12:33 p.m. Arrive 2:04 p.m.