What's your flying pleasure: Ontario or Las Vegas?
That's going to be the big question as Great Lakes Aviation prepares to begin flights to Visalia by early September.
If you're flying from the Visalia Municipal Airport, for either business or pleasure, what are your druthers: heading to Ontario International Airport in San Bernardino County, with access to Southern California and the Inland Empire, or to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas? (see below)
Visalia has been without any passenger airline service since May 31, when the previous carrier, Air Midwest, ceased flights as part of a nationwide shutdown of the company.
It's looking like Great Lakes will start its service with flights to Ontario, where it believes it can be up and running sooner than in Las Vegas. Since October, Great Lakes has been wrangling over securing ground operations, counter space and ticketing issues at McCarran International.
Over the past couple of years -- since 2005, when SkyWest Airlines stopped flying to Los Angeles International Airport -- Visalians seem to have taken a shine to the Vegas flights. Problem is, Great Lakes will be the third airline coming into Visalia in three years, as companies have found it difficult to fly profitably even with subsidies from the federal government.
Great Lakes will also be serving Merced, where the airline picture is even more complicated.
As in Visalia, Great Lakes will be getting a subsidy of about $1.5 million a year for flights to either Ontario or Las Vegas. But in nearby Atwater, at the former Castle Air Force Base, Vision Air -- which bid unsuccessfully for the subsidized Visalia and Merced service last year -- plans on starting up service with flights to the smaller, unconnected North Las Vegas airport and to Reno.