Without warning or explanation Yute Air shut down on Saturday, leaving passengers looking for flights and employees looking for work. The regional Bethel-based air carrier served about 1,000 passengers a week across more than 30 villages throughout the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. Now Yute’s assets have been sold, and the people who worked for Yute were among those surprised by the news.
“They called me in the morning and they said that we’re closing down. I asked them why. They didn’t say anything,” said Wassillie Brink who, up until this weekend, worked as Yute's Kasigluk agent for 12 years.
“There was no warning or anything. They just called and said they were shutting down,” said Annie Bright, who worked as the Goodnews Bay agent for eight years.
“My reaction was like wow! Really? Okay, um, what can I say? It’s all really a big surprise to us,” said Joe Bavilla, the Yute agent in Napaskiak for five years.
Fifty people got similar news this weekend. When they went to bed on Friday they had a job; when they woke up on Saturday they didn’t.
Bavilla in Napaskiak calls himself one of the lucky ones, along with Bright in Goodnews. That’s because the regional airline Ravn Alaska added those communities to its list this week, along with Platinum and Napakiak, to fill the holes that Yute’s closing left behind.
Bavilla says that Ravn has already contacted him about a job.
“If Ravn chooses me to be their agent, which I will, hopefully, then I’ll move on with Ravn,” he said.
But there are about 20 other communities with former Yute Air agents, like Wassillie Brink in Kasigluk, where Ravn already flies and has an agent. Communities where jobs are often too few and hard to find.
Ravn President Jim Hickerson says that the airline is inviting all former Yute employees to interview with his company, which purchased the entire Yute fleet and its hangar.
“Our station manager here in Bethel will be doing interviews with personnel such as the customer service agents and ramp personnel and rampers and dispatchers,” said Hickerson.
Interviews with Yute pilots and mechanics began on Sunday with a job fair that Ravn held in the Yute terminal. There are openings for both positions in Bethel and other hubs.
“There’s drug testing that needs to take place,” said Hickerson, “so I’m not sure if any offers have been made, because there’s more of a formal process when it comes to pilots and mechanics.”
Hickerson said that less competition from the loss of a regional airline should not affect customer prices.
“We don’t anticipate raising rates. The four villages that we started service to that Yute was serving, we didn’t change the rates, didn’t change the rates on any freight,” said Hickerson.
Ravn is accepting all Yute one-way yellow tickets through March, as well as all prepaid tickets.
Meanwhile, 50 people across the Delta are looking for jobs, with Ravn and elsewhere, like former Yute freight manger Matthew Cochrane.
“At this point,” said Cochrane, “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’ve applied for multiple places already. I’ve applied for TSA. I’ll apply for Alaska Airlines. I’ll just look for another job. I mean, you have to do what you have to do.”
All former Yute employees can contact Rachel O'Brien with the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development at 907-335-3001 to discuss job search and unemployment assistance.
