It's too soon to know what Wednesday's announcement that Big Sky Airlines will look for another airline to take over its Montana routes will mean for Helena air service, airport manager Ron Mercer said.

Billings-based Big Sky, a subsidiary of MAIR Holdings out of Minneapolis, announced it is dropping its operations on the East Coast, where it serves as a Delta Connection partner in a handful of cities, in early January. Big Sky cited bad weather, low revenue and high fuel costs as the reasons for dropping the routes.

In a press release, the carrier also announced it will "continue to operate in Montana while it works to transition its services to another carrier."

A MAIR spokesman had no additional details on the future of the airline's Montana routes.

Big Sky accounted for 3 percent of all airline boardings in Montana through the first 10 months of 2007, according to figures compiled by the Montana Aeronautics Division.

The airline boarded 2,558 passengers in Helena through October, or roughly 3.7 percent of local boardings.

"It wouldn't be a huge financial impact or market impact for us" if the routes were to go away, Mercer said. "It's more of an impact for the people in eastern Montana that are trying to get here."

Several cities in eastern Montana that are served by Big Sky are designated as Essential Air Service cities, where the federal government subsidizes air service. But Helena and Missoula don't have the EAS designation. It's possible that another carrier would take the EAS routes from Big Sky but not the routes in non-EAS cities.

One possibility to assume the routes might be Cheyenne, Wyo.-based Great Lakes Airlines, which serves a number of cities throughout the Great Plains and Southwest.

Great Lakes has bid on the EAS contracts in Montana in the past, including the two-year contract that was just awarded to Big Sky within the past several weeks.

"It would be a great opportunity for Great Lakes," said Monica Taylor, the airline's sales and marketing manager. Taylor said Great Lakes management was still digesting Wednesday's news.

"I can say with confidence we will be talking about it, and decide at that point whether it's something we want to get into or not."

Taylor said that Great Lakes' most recent bids for EAS routes in Montana did not include Helena and Missoula, but it's too soon to know whether the two cities would be part of a new deal to take over Big Sky's routes.

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com