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Boise Business leaders lament change to San Francisco flights

Local business leaders like the new mix of destinations that can be reached from Boise
Airport but are up in arms about one change.

IdahoStatesman

When United Airlines changed its three daily non-stop round-trip 737 flights to San Francisco
in February, business leaders said they severed a needed first-class service to one of the
world´s most important airport hubs and perhaps hamstrung Boise´s economic development
efforts.

“I don´t think they´ve thought through the implications,” said Ray Smelek, chairman of
Extended Systems and a former vice president and general manager at Hewlett-Packard Co.

San Francisco is the major terminal for Silicon Valley air traffic and the West´s major hub for
overseas travel, especially the Pacific Rim and Europe.

In place of the defunct flights, United Express, a regional subsidiary of United Airlines, has
started flying four round-trip non-stop daily flights using 50-seat regional jets.

The result is a 40 percent decrease in United´s seat availability on San Francisco-Boise
flights.

Horizon Airlines, a regional subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, has also started two daily flights in
the wake of United´s absence.

Without the gate-to-gate service to the airport once provided by United´s 737s, Boise´s
high-tech companies and other corporations headquartered here might think twice about
expanding operations in the Treasure Valley.

“When I came to Boise with HP in 1973, one of the main reasons we came to Boise was the
good air connections between Boise and San Francisco,” Smelek said. “That´s why a lot of
people are writing letters saying, ´Hey, this doesn´t make sense.´ I feel like I´ve been stabbed
in the back. If the service then was like it is today, I would not have chosen Boise.”

Smelek said Boise has been loyal to United´s San Francisco routes, and he feels the airline´s
decision to eliminate gate-to-gate non-stop 737 service is an affront to the Treasure Valley´s
importance as a high-tech center.

Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce officials and local travel agents say all three of the old
round-trip flights were largely full. United spokesman Joe Hopkins wouldn´t share seat
occupancy numbers for those flights.

But United — hit hard by Sept. 11´s blow to traveler confidence, the economic downturn, and
increased security expenses in the attacks´ aftermath — said the changes weren´t about
shunning the Boise market, but were about larger belt-tightening strategies.

Hopkins said demand for the Boise-San Francisco flight probably wasn´t profitable enough,
and that the airline was shifting resources from San Francisco to its Denver hub to cut costs.

Smelek´s argument that the change could affect the city´s future economic development has
caught the attention of the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce.

The group is lobbying United for the return of one early morning flight to San Francisco with a
return in the late evening — the most important business flights.

“Our business travelers focused on that first flight of the day from Boise to San Francisco and
the last flight from San Francisco to Boise,” said the Chamber´s Ray Stark. “We were told
they were always full.”

Hewlett-Packard spokesman Mark Falconer said the company would like United to go back to
its old schedule.

Although the changes made room for a new non-stop Horizon flight to Sacramento, where an
HP plant is located, Falconer said San Francisco international connections are an invaluable
asset.

The new system, Falconer said, forces Boise travelers to trek via bus from a commuter
terminal at San Francisco International to make connections, which can add up to a half-hour
to flight transfers.

And smaller airlines often don´t have the resources to handle last-minute itinerary changes or
the other little things that make a trip a little easier.

Cindy Michalski, vice president of Global Travel in Boise, agreed with Smelek and Falconer
that the use of smaller jets might make connections a little more hectic for passengers, but
said the new situation offers many more choices.

For example, American Eagle´s new daily flight to Dallas from Boise not only provides
non-stop access to a new major business destination, but opens up connections to the
Caribbean and Latin America.

Both Smelek and Chamber officials agreed with Michalski, saying they like the new
opportunities opened up by the trend toward the regional jets, but that the loss of the San
Francisco service is too big of a price to pay.

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