Taos Air (Taos) has cancelled its plans to open summer-season routes for 2019 and will, for now, focus only on its original raison d'être, scheduled winter-season flights for inbound ski tourists flocking to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Taos News has reported.
The virtual carrier, owned by Taos Ski Valley Inc., operates between Taos in New Mexico and both Dallas Love Field and Austin-Bergstrom International in Texas. It uses a single Do328-300 operated by Ultimate Jetcharters (Akron Regional). Services began in December 2018.
In April 2019, it obtained approval to begin summer services and was due to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing support from New Mexico local municipalities. The airline cited a lack of aircraft and pilots for what had been scheduled as three flights per week to each of the Texan airports and said it would refund tickets already paid for.
"It turned out that our operator [Ultimate Jetcharters] couldn't work out the service for the summer" due to the "availability of pilots and planes", Chris Stagg, vice president of Taos Ski Valley, told Taos News. "We decided the best thing was to not do it for the summer and focus on winter service."
Some municipalities across the region, known as the Enchanted Circle, had pledged over USD10,000 in funds to promote Taos Air for the summer, with the town of Taos itself approving USD650,000 for the airline. The town of Red River, which had been projected to make over USD45,000 in tourism spending from the summer services, had promised the carrier USD19,000.
