Contour Airlines will be suspending operations at the Santa Barbara Airport at the end of the month as the coronavirus pandemic takes a huge toll on commercial air traffic throughout the world.
The small regional airline flies between Santa Barbara and Oakland, Sacramento and Las Vegas, using 30-seat Embraer-135 regional jets.
“As a smaller, regional air carrier, they cannot afford to fly nearly empty planes,” Deanna Zachrisson, the airports Business Development Manager, told Noozhawk. “The loss of business to Las Vegas is particularly hard-hitting.”
Contour canceled its Wednesday flight to Las Vegas because there were no passengers, Zachrisson said.
The airline’s website shows the last available flights on Sunday, March 29.
It hopes to return service at Santa Barbara Airport on July 1, she added.
The only other scheduling change announced thus far at the Santa Barbara Airport is United Airlines dropping its early morning flight to San Francisco, which is largely used by business travelers, Zachrisson said.
That change is expected to take effect in April.
The remaining flights continue to operate on schedule, Zachrisson said, but passenger loads are way down.
“Up until the day before yesterday, they were at 40-to-50-percent capacity,” she said. “Now it’s got to be down to around 20 percent.”
Alaska Airlines’ flight from Seattle — a hot spot of coronavirus cases — came in Wednesday with only 13 passengers on board, Zachrisson said, and departed with 40 passengers.
The Boeing 737 aircraft Alaska uses on that route holds about 120 passengers.
However, United’s flight to Denver left with about 70 passengers on an aircraft that seats about 115, she said.
“It varies widely based on carrier and destination,” Zachrisson said.
Delta canceled its midday flight to Salt Lake City, Utah, on Wednesday, but that was due to the shutdown of that city’s airport following an earthquake Wednesday morning.
Santa Barbara also is served by American Airlines, with service to Phoenix, Arizona, and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.
Other airport operations remained unchanged as of Wednesday, Zachrisson said. The terminal restaurant, which is exempted from closure orders, remains open.
“There’s not many passengers, so you don’t really need to worry much about social distancing,” she noted.
United canceled its three flights to Denver on Thursday, due to a major snowstorm hitting the Denver area.
Alaska canceled its Thursday flight to Seattle, but the reasons were not immediately clear.
The TSA security checkpoint was operating normally.
Click here for flight schedules at the Santa Barbara Airport.
Contour is also stopping service at the San Luis Obispo Airport, where it offered flights to Las Vegas, the San Luis Obispo Tribune reported Wednesday.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.