The Chicago flight at the Hays Regional Airport will end in March while additional seats will become available on the Denver flights.
As part of the federal Essential Air Service (EAS) program, SkyWest, under the United Express brand, has a contract with the U.S. Dept. of Transportation to provide 12 flights a week between Hays and Denver.
"So the Chicago flight was something they were doing at their own risk for nearly 18 months, and our community didn't really utilize that," says Toby Dougherty, Hays city manager.
"It's an extremely small portion of our emplanements. Most of them go to Denver. It's my understanding the Salina community really took to the Chicago flight and utilized it pretty heavily."
The Denver flight originates in Salina, stops in Hays for passengers and goes on to Denver International Airport. On the way through, it leaves Denver, stops in Hays and then terminates in Salina.
Airlines call it a "tag route." Hays and Salina are being decoupled by United Airlines, each to be served with a separate plane.
"The plane will come here from Denver, load and unload, and go back to Denver," Dougherty said, "sort of like it was before Hays was coupled with Salina."
As a result there will be more seats coming out of Hays, and Dougherty thinks that's a positive.
"Right now it is not uncommon to see a full plane leaving Hays. You have a plane with 25 passengers getting on in Salina, and that means there's 25 seats left in Hays. We think there's a potential on some of those flights for 30 to 40 passengers out of Hays, but there's only 25 available seats."
Flight times at the Hays Regional Airport will be changing. There will be two Denver flights Sunday through Friday. A Saturday flight will be added.
There were a record 12,032 enplanements at the Hays Regional Airport last year.
This year will set a new record. Through November, there were 13,279 enplanements, 23.26% ahead of 2018.