Smx problems ***

Look people, we have to get real about SMX. First of all, it’s not a “farm track”. Look at airnav. Santa Maria is the largest city in Santa Barbara County CA. There is over 100000 city residents and some of them may just need to go to LAX for a connection or something like that. So why do I only get 7 passengers on an ATR that takes only 51 minutes? I don’t want to get a big jet because you got it marked as a “farm track” which it is not. In all actuality, SMX has more patrons than you think. SMX is a regional airport which can easily serve LAX, SFO, SAN, LAS, PHX, BFD, SBA, in fact, they do have weekly and daily non-stop flights to LAS and LAX. Please change the designation for this airport so I can fly the planes I use.

The runway thing is weird. But on the demand side, SBA is definitely bigger than SMX for good reason. Larger population base (not just the city of SB), tourism, etc.

The only commercial flight I could find for SMX was a less than once daily frequency to LAS.

SMX has got two bars of demand, this is usually enough to fill multiple flights of ATRs per day. And that would be more than actual traffic is today (four flights per week).

And while “farm track” sounds a bit harsh, the airport size classification has nothing to do with the demand. There is even a slight advantage over the two next larger categories - shorter turnaround times for your aircraft.