By Jennifer Edwards
The Cincinnati Enquirer

EAST END - Flamingo Air Inc. has applied to the city for a permit to offer commuter service at Lunken Airport.

Flamingo Air now operates a six-to-10 seat turboprop aircraft from Lunken Airport and provides charter an` scenic tour service. The company wants to offer scheduled commuter service for 10 to 30 passengers.

Such service is permitted under Lunken's Federal Aviation Administration certification, noted David MacDonald, Flamingo's president. He doesn't see how the city can deny the application.

MacDonald is negotiating with a number of charter companies he declined to name. He said he hopes to announce a partnership soon that would provide small scheduled passenger commercial service from Lunken to Chicago and then perhaps Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis and Pittsburgh.

"We could be a couple phone calls away from either making it or breaking it," MacDonald said in a phone interview as he returned from vacation in Key West, Fla. "It's a perfect niche market for a small operator. You are talking 30 seats or under. We are not talking anything major here.

"Frankly, it might not even work out but we'll get the silliness out of the way first, the paperwork. We want to make sure the ducks are in line."

Cincinnati Councilman John Cranley objects, saying he is concerned the permit, filed last week, may be granted and "grandfathered in" before the airport's FAA certification changes June 9.

When it changes, Lunken's certification no longer will permit scheduled passenger commercial service at 30 seats and less.

Cranley is calling for the rest of City Council to vote May 12 to accept the new Class IV certification and ban the service.

Citing federal funding and safety requirement concerns, Lunken's manager, Dan Dickten, recently told the Lunken Airport Oversight Advisory Board the city shouldn't accept the Class IV certification.

Instead, he says, the city should go after Class II certification, which would permit small commercial scheduled passenger service.

In recent weeks, two councilmen, Cranley and David Crowley, have suggested compromises to end a dispute over Lunken's future. Airport users are looking to expand; many neighbors fear greater use.

Crowley said Flamingo Air has the right to seek the permit.

"They have been talking about it for at least a year or more, so I am not surprised," he said. "I don't know what changed in their planning to make it possible to do now. I think that we have to look at that in the context of where we are at this point and make sure they get due consideration."

Later this year, Council is expected to decide whether Lunken should expand runways and its corporate plane weight limit.

The Lunken Airport Oversight Advisory Board will meet Tuesday at 3 p.m. at HC Nutting Company, 611 Lunken Park Dr., near the airport off Wilmer Avenue.

E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com