American Airlines is dropping flights to 15 U.S. cities including Sioux City in October, when a federal requirement to serve those communities expires.
Local officials say for now the move is only temporary starting on October 7th and travel could resume on November 3rd.
“It’s a very important component of business and business development and economic development and it is key to quality of life. And, it’s very, very important to have good air service in multiple directions. We just want to make sure we can offer to do that.”
The President of the Airport’s Board of Trustees, Dave Bernstein says he is discouraged about the announcement impacting the Sioux Gateway Airport.
“We had been hearing they were going to do this with a few markets, but we were surprised to fully suspend service here.”
Bernstein says Sioux City was in a similar situation when Delta pulled out of the market years ago, but work is already underway to help keep service to Chicago since the city is an essential air service market.
He has this advice for travelers.
“Sit tight for a couple of days, especially if you have flights booked for November and December to wait and see how things shake out.”
Bernstein says it’s important for travelers to contact federal lawmakers to voice their concerns.
American says it will consider other changes unless the government provides more money to the airline industry.
The decision appears designed to put pressure on Congress and the Trump administration to approve another $25 billion in relief for passenger airlines, which have seen traffic plummet during the coronavirus pandemic. American has already received $5.8 billion and has applied for an additional federal loan of $4.9 billion.
Meanwhile, Sioux City will have a route to the west when United Express starts service to Denver starting in the middle of October.
Iowa’s medical director says she was aware of widespread inaccuracies in the state’s coronavirus data when her agency used it to release flawed calculations that helped guide decisions on school openings and enrollment this month. Dr. Caitlin Pedati, the state epidemiologist, says she became aware in late July of a problem in Iowa’s disease surveillance reporting system that backdated thousands of new test results. Nonetheless, Gov. Kim Reynolds on Aug. 6 released 14-day county positivity rates on the state’s coronavirus website that she said would help school officials and parents decide how to proceed with the upcoming school year. The state announced Wednesday that because of the backdating problem, those positivity rates had been incorrect for two weeks.
Positive cases of COVID-19 are on the rise in one northwest Iowa County.
The two-week positivity rate for COVID-19 in Plymouth County exceeded 17% on Thursday. Anything above 15%
allows a school district in the county to apply for a state waiver to transition to virtual learning instead of in-person instruction.
A spokesperson for Floyd Valley Health says the positivity rate almost doubled in less than a week and there are 554 positive cases.
The Hinton Community School District still plans to do learning on-site when school starts on Monday because of a low amount of cases in the immediate area.
A letter from administration says public health officials attribute the increase to golf tournaments that took place in Remsen and Akron. They urge people to avoid large gatherings, stay home if sick and wear a face covering when out in public.
Iowa’s medical director says she was aware of widespread inaccuracies in the state’s coronavirus data when her agency used it to release flawed calculations that helped guide decisions on school openings and enrollment this month. Dr. Caitlin Pedati, the state epidemiologist, says she became aware in late July of a problem in Iowa’s disease surveillance reporting system that backdated thousands of new test results. Nonetheless, Gov. Kim Reynolds on Aug. 6 released 14-day county positivity rates on the state’s coronavirus website that she said would help school officials and parents decide how to proceed with the upcoming school year. The state announced Wednesday that because of the backdating problem, those positivity rates had been incorrect for two weeks.
