Hailey, Idaho (KMVT-TV) The Federal Aviation Administration is looking over an environmental assessment for Hailey's Friedman Memorial Airport, to decide whether or not the local airline will be able to upgrade the planes it uses here.

Blaine County Commissioner Larry Schoen says, "Skywest has proposed to fly Canada Air regional jets into Friedman Airport. Currently they use the Brasilia, which is a turboprop. So a regional jet for commercial air service would be a new type of service."

The airport's consultants are working on a study to possibly reconfigure the airport and improve the safety standards at Friedman Memorial.

Schoen says, "We should have a final draft of the consultants' study and scope of work at next week's Friedman Airport Authority meeting. And that will then become a 90-day study by the FAA."

The group "Fly Sun Valley Alliance" is also proposing for three local communities to levy a one percent local option tax to pay airlines when their planes aren't full of passengers. But voters in Sun Valley, Ketchum, and Hailey would have to decide whether or not to approve that.

Schoen says, "The money that would be raised, should the measures would be approved, would be used to support air service through a program called Minumum Revenue Guarantees, whereby you pay the airlines in case enough seats are not filled to make the route profitable."

The Friedman Memorial Airport Authority meeting will be held next Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at the Blaine County Courthouse.

August 2, 2012.