On the morning of Wednesday, May 6th, the City of Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, or CGI, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the start of new flight services to Pensacola, Florida. These flights will be offered on Wednesdays and Saturdays seasonally from May to September.
Flights to Pensacola alongside CGI’s flights to Chicago and Dallas/Fort Worth put CGI amongst a small group of regional airports that are able to offer three flight destinations. This follows the plans that were made between Cape Regional Airport and Contour Airlines when the US Department of Transportation awarded the airline company a new contract to continue their partnership with CGI. Ben Munson, the President of Contour Airlines, stated that “We’ve seen strong, steady growth at CGI over the past few years, and this is a direct response to that demand”.
During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Airport Manager Jojo Stuart spoke on CGI’s growth. He highlighted how, at this point in the year, the airport is about 1,500 enplanements above where they were at this point last year.
Contour Airlines Vice President of Operations Andrew Chevalier talked about the partnership between Cape Regional Airport and Contour, and explained what opportunities the airline offers to Southeast Missouri locals.
“Through our airline partnerships with Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, United Airlines, and JetBlue, passengers flying out of Cape Girardeau can seamlessly connect to a vast network of connections across the country and around the world.”
Finally, Cape Girardeau City Councilman Nate Thomas emphasized what he felt the opening of these flights meant for the local community.
“This new service to Pensacola is bigger than a single destination. It represents more. It represents opportunity for economic growth. It represents opportunity to strengthen tourism and attract new visitors to what has newly been crowned as what we already knew as the number five small college town in the United States of America". [sic]
The City of Cape Girardeau’s Fire Department marked the inaugural flight with a water cannon salute.
As impacts from the FAA’s air traffic reductions can still be seen in staffing and financial issues at large international airports and major airline companies continue, CGI still seems to be steadily growing in its ability to serve the people of Southeast Missouri.
