Big Sky Airlines' two-year contract with the U.S. Department of Transportation was scheduled to begin service for the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport on June 1, but the airline is still in the hiring process.

According to Big Sky president Fred deLeeuw, if he hired all the pilots necessary tomorrow, it would still take 12 to 15 weeks for them to go through Federal Aviation Administration Certified Ground School and Flight Training School.

DeLeeuw said there's a shortage of qualified pilots throughout the industry because pilots are using regional airlines as stepping stones to ultimately fly bigger jets and not enough new pilots are replacing them.

"This is a service that we want to provide, but we have to match up the pilots with the airplanes," he said.

He anticipates Big Sky, based out of Billings, Mont., will be operating later this year as Delta Connection out of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and serving Cape Girardeau, Owensboro, Ky., and Jackson, Tenn.

Bruce Loy, manager of the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, said he is hoping for commercial air service to start back up by September, but it's taking longer than he expected.

Loy said he doesn't blame Big Sky for the delay because DOT just awarded the airline the contract -- with an annual subsidy of $3.25 million -- March 9. The incumbent airline normally stays on and continues to provide service until the new airline takes over.

For the time being, the Cape Girardeau airport is losing money with no airline rent coming in and fuel sales at a minimum as a result of the early March pilot-training discrepancy with RegionsAir, a Tennessee-based company.

"We've all gotten destroyed by this RegionsAir grounding. RegionsAir should still be here providing service," Loy said. "Just as soon as we get a green light, we're going to start marketing the heck out of the new airline. It's tough to do anything until there's an actual date in front of us."

Loy didn't have any figures to disclose, but Tim Bradshaw, the airport manager of the Owensboro, Ky., regional airport, said he's lost thousands without commercial flights. "Hopefully in six months we'll all look back and say, 'Thank God we got through that,'" he said.

Later this month, Big Sky will start getting new airplanes on a weekly basis. Big Sky is also expanding aviation operations in Boston, according to deLeeuw. He said that he has three new $3 million airplanes ordered to service Cape Girardeau.

Delta Connection will offer connecting opportunities to more than 400 daily departures to 122 worldwide destinations, including trans-Atlantic service to London, Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Rome plus the Caribbean.

DeLeeuw said eight to nine pilots are needed per aircraft.

tkrakowiak@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137