Membership airline considers flying into Lake Tahoe Airport
By Northern Nevada Business Weekly
A membership-based, all-you-fly airline hopes to add service to the Lake Tahoe market next year.
Surf Air, headquartered at Santa Monica, is signing up members for its first routes, which will link Palo Alto, Monterey, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
But expansion into the Lake Tahoe market is one of the company’s priorities, says Wade Eyerly, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who is Surf Air’s chief executive officer, says the carrier hopes to tap a market of Bay Area residents who want to avoid the hassles of driving to second homes at Lake Tahoe.
The company expects to add Lake Tahoe service by early 2013. It expects to launch its first service in California this summer, although it still needs approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Eyerly, who founded the company with his brother, David, a licensed commercial airline pilot, says Surf Air executives haven’t decided which airport in the Lake Tahoe area the company might use. Possibilities include the airports at South Lake Tahoe and Truckee.