As of mid January, there’s a brand-new airline out at Knox County Airport flying the mail to the islands. With a six-month, emergency contract with U.S. Postal Service in one hand, the business of Federal Express in the other and fingers crossed for a pending application to UPS, Kevin Waters now operates a fledgling airline called Penobscot Island Air. Shuttling between temporary headquarters at Knox County Airport in Owls Head to airstrips on the islands of Vinalhaven, North Haven and Matinicus, Penobscot’s only aircraft at present is a Cessna 206 Stationair, leased from Telford Aviation. Together with Don Campbell, on-ground logistics, Jim Nichols at the front desk and Richard Wright in charge of training and logistics, all four of the employee/owners of Penobscot Island Air have agreed not to draw salaries. In the plus column, a first-year’s insurance premium of $13,000 has already been paid to the Aviation Insurance Agency of Bedford, Massachusetts. And any day now, the owners hope, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) will give the go-ahead for someone other than Waters, as a single-pilot operator, to make the daily mail run.
“I’ve got all sorts of guys who want to fly our planes, but first we need our general operations and training manuals approved by the Flight Standards District Office of the FAA down in South Portland,” explains Waters. “Hopefully that approval will come through soon.”
Prior to Penobscot Island Air, Maine Atlantic Aviation had been in the business of flying everything from huge sacks of mail to tiny packages of emergency medication, but the company suspended service last Dec. 13. According to Roland Lussier, Maine Atlantic’s president, the company had been losing roughly $100,000 a year on a business that not only flew freight, but also about 6,700 people on and off these islands, annually. At the request of Bob Hastings of the Rockland-Thomaston Area Chamber of Commerce and Peter Ralston of the Island Institute, Lussier agreed to a temporary, 90-day resumption of air service while interested stakeholders came together to resolve operation issues. Subsequently, in a series of meetings at the Island Institute, island representatives, state and federal officials and economic development interests met to help create long-term solutions to fundamental problems.
“My only interest in this whole thing is that it be done well and reasonably,” Lussier states flatly. “Without significant changes to the way island flying is done, the problems that are inherent to flying to the islands are not going to go away. For example, the North Haven Witherspoon strip remains 200 feet too short for landings during the busy summer season, the 1,700-foot air strip on Vinalhaven loses about 43 days a year to mud and there’s a sense of entitlement to daily air service that exists with the 20-odd people who live on Matinicus year round.”
At present, Roland Lussier plans to focus on building Maine Atlantic Aviation into a solid fixed-base operation, which currently includes sale of aviation fuel, aircraft maintenance and flight instruction.
Kevin Waters, meanwhile, is thriving on community spirit. “I said to my wife, ‘We don’t have a hanger, we don’t own an airplane, but we have the support of the people on the islands.’ ”
Apparently, while delivering the mail is a good underpinning for leaner months, it is not a cash cow. “You need to do freight, but you also need to fly passengers to keep an island airline in business,” explains Waters.
“Right now we’re buying our fuel from Maine Atlantic Aviation for $3.30 a gallon and that’s our largest consumable, so obviously if we could negotiate a better fuel contract this will affect our ticket pricing. Right now we’re targeting a passenger ticket price somewhere between $40 and $50 per head, from Owls Head to one of the islands, that’s contingent on negotiating our leases on Matinicus. The issue of maintaining the private airstrips of five islands [Matinicus, Vinalhaven, North Haven, Swans and Criehaven] continues to be a big expense we’re trying to mitigate.”
Last month, the people of Matinicus not only wrote letters of support for Waters, they raised substantial start-up capital for Penobscot Island Air. “Island residents like Eva Murray and Sari Bunker personally gave me more than $9,000 with no strings attached – we used this money to buy insurance, fuel, you name it.” (At a Jan. 19 news conference announcing his new service, Waters said support from Matinicus had risen to $17,000 – “no strings attached.”)
Asked about unresolved issues, including airstrip maintenance on some islands and possible long-term capital needs, Waters expressed confidence that island communities were “stepping up to the plate” to provide what he needed.
Bob Hastings of the Rockland-Thomaston Chamber of Commerce calls Penobscot Island Air a “glorified bush operator who definitely seems to have market support.”
The Island Institute’s Peter Ralston would agree: “Kevin Waters earned the respect of the islanders the hard way – by showing up and being part of the community.”
“What came out of all this,” continues Ralston, “Is that the islands were presented a clear and present danger to their lifeline. Roland Lussier is a long-time summer resident who underestimated the family nature of how business is conducted on these islands. There must be heart and spirit in safely and faithfully servicing these islands – and that pretty much defines Kevin.”