(The Center Square) — SkyWest Airlines set up its 13th maintenance base in Caddo Parish and the Caddo Parish Commission is providing an incentive of $250,000 in taxpayer funds to the company.
A vote was taken on Thursday to adopt Ordinances 6545 and 6546. While not all commissioners were on board, 11 voted in favor of both ordinances. Commissioner Chris Kracman voted against them and did not comment on his vote.
Ordinance 6545 was introduced two weeks ago and proposed a budget amendment for estimated revenues and expenditures for the Oil and Gas Fund and Economic Development Fund. Now that the ordinance has passed, the commission will appropriate $250,000 from the fund to SkyWest Airlines.
The news of the airline coming to Shreveport sparked excitement among city officials. As many as 525 jobs could come to the northwest area of Louisiana from the latest project in Shreveport. Of the 525 jobs, 150 will be direct jobs with average annual salaries of $70,000.
SkyWest also operates maintenance bases in Boise, Idaho; Chicago (O’Hare Airport); Colorado Springs; Detroit; Fresno, Calif.; Milwaukee; Nashville; Oklahoma City; Palm Springs, Calif.; Salt Lake City; South Bend, Ind. and Tucson, Ariz.
DataUSA reported that in 2023, the median household income for Caddo Parish was around $50,000 with 95,184 of the population being employed. A recent ALICE report showed that 22% of Caddo Parish households are in poverty with 31% in Caddo being considered Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed households.
Caddo Parish Commission President Stormy Gage-Watts spoke during the meeting about the incentive, requesting support on the ordinance.
“This is to support the largest regional airline carrier in the U.S. that has already opened at the Shreveport Regional Airport,” said Gage-Watts. “It is a state of the art maintenance facility providing over 500 jobs at this point. And the facility will service SkyWest fleet of 500 commercial and aircraft operating partnerships with major airlines including Delta, United, Alaska and American Airlines.”
According to its website, SkyWest Airlines operates 488 aircraft and services partnerships with United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines and carried more than 42 million passengers in 2024. The company’s headquarters is in St. George, Utah.