The Boston Herald Wednesday, March 28, 2001

Airline encounters turbulence
by Greg Gatlin

Shuttle America Inc. has slashed the number of flights between Bedford's Hanscom Field and New York's La Guardia Airport, citing aircraft maintenance needs, even as the regional carrier has fallen behind on rent payments at its Trenton, N.J., hub.

Until recently, the Windsor Locks, Conn., airline was flying six daily round-trip flights between Hanscom and La Guardia and planned to add a seventh.

But that number has been cut on weekdays to two, and just one on Saturday and Sunday for the rest of this week. Starting next week, Shuttle America will fly its 50-seat Dash 8 turboprop planes just once a day to La Guardia, six days a week. That will reduce the carrier's weekday Hanscom round-trip flights to 12 from 17.

Barry Lutin, Shuttle America's president, said two of its leased aircraft have been pulled out of service for heavy maintenance. The servicing is required by the Federal Aviation Administration after every 5,000 hours of flight time for Dash 8 planes. ``It's a temporary capacity issue,'' Lutin said.

Meanwhile, Shuttle America is more than $144,000 behind in rent owed to New Jersey's Mercer County, which hosts the airline's Trenton Mercer Airport operations.

``They've told us they have a cash-flow problem,'' said county spokesman Tom Rubino. He said Shuttle America has a plan to pay its overdue rent, and had paid more than $24,000 in February and $6,000 last week.

``We did slip behind a little bit,'' Lutin said. ``Unfortunately, in the Northeast, when you have winters like we've had, it's not difficult to run into minor crunches during that period.''

The airline is also said to have reduced service out of Trenton.

Shuttle America is current on rent, landing fees and other payments to the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Hanscom, spokesman Richard Walsh said.

Federal laws require U.S. airlines to perform comprehensive aircraft maintenance, known as a C-check, at regular intervals. ``C-checks are when (aircraft) are taken out of service and pretty much overhauled in terms of repair and maintenance,'' said FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto.

Lutin said a C-check can typically take five to seven weeks.

``We had hoped to bring on two additional aircraft during this period of time, but weren't successful in doing that,'' Lutin said. ``They simply weren't available.''

He said the airline opted not to shift planes from other routes because they are ``substantially stronger'' than Hanscom-La Guardia, and Shuttle America didn't want to reduce its capacity.

Lutin said he couldn't answer whether the airline was concerned about its ability to fill flights between La Guardia and Hanscom. He said the airline plans to be ``back in full swing'' at Hanscom by mid-May.

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