Bids open for flights to seven roadless Alaska communities

The U.S. Department of Transportation has reopened Essential Air Service contracts covering Ekwok, Angoon, Elfin Cove, Pelican, Tenakee and Lake Minchumina over the past month, and asked King Cove residents to comment on their own service. Essential Air Service pays carriers to maintain scheduled flights to places too small or remote to support commercial service alone. The department subsidizes 65 communities in Alaska as of fall 2024 and 112 elsewhere, plus Little Diomede under a related program.

Ekwok, on the Nushagak River in Bristol Bay, has the later of two bid deadlines. An order posted September 3 requested proposals for service beginning March 1, 2027, due by October 7. In February 2025 the department selected Grant Aviation to serve Ekwok for two years, three weekly round trips to Dillingham on six-seat Cessna 207 aircraft, with a subsidy of $252,517 in year one and about $276,000 in year two.

An order posted September 1 requested proposals for Angoon, Elfin Cove, Pelican and Tenakee, singly or combined, for a term beginning February 1, 2027, due by October 1. The incumbent, Kalinin Aviation, doing business as Alaska Seaplanes, was selected in December 2022 to serve all four communities from Juneau under a four-year term expiring January 31, 2027. Subsidy amounts for those routes are not stated in the docket records reviewed.

Lake Minchumina is further along: the department issued its request for proposals August 1, and on September 3 two carriers, Wright Air and Tatonduk Outfitters (doing business as Everts Air Alaska), filed bids. Community comments were requested the same day. King Cove sits at the earliest stage, with a request for community comments dated June 2 and posted August 31, addressing who flies there and on what terms, separate from the community's effort to build a road to Cold Bay. Closing dates for the Lake Minchumina and King Cove comment periods are not stated in the dockets reviewed.

The dockets also carry notices from October and November 2025 about a funding lapse affecting the Essential Air Service and Alternate Essential Air Service programs, followed by amended funding notices. A cap on the average subsidy per passenger tightens to $850 on October 1, 2026, down from $1,000. It is set by statute, 49 U.S.C. 41731, which adds a $650 tier near hub airports. Subsection (c) exempts Alaska and Hawaii from that test, from a floor of 10 passengers a day, and from a requirement that the community had service in 2010 or 2011.

The orders sit in DOT dockets on regulations.gov. The accounts here come from published order abstracts and docket records, not full order text. The records do not say how many people fly these routes, what fares they pay, or whether any incumbent intends to bid again.