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Even a last-minute surge of holiday travelers probably won't provide Victoria's airport with enough enplanements to keep it from losing almost $1 million.

"That money is very useful to us," Larry Blackwell, manager of the Victoria Regional Airport, said Thursday. "I hate that we're going to drop out of the program."

The airport must have 10,000 enplanements each year to qualify for a $1 million federal grant that can be used on improvements to the airport. Enplanements are the number of passengers arriving at and departing from the airport on the Continental Connection/Colgan Air flights and on charter flights.

"I estimate we're going to be between 1,000 and 1,500 short of 10,000 this year," Blackwell told the airport commission.

The airport will then be forced to apply to the Texas Department of Transportation for a $150,000 grant, resulting in a net loss of $850,000.

Victoria has no guarantee that it will get the grant because it must compete with airports across the state. But it has a better chance than some airports because Victoria has commercial air service, Blackwell said.

Enplanements fell short of the 10,000 mark two years ago, and the airport lost the $1 million grant.

When enplanements appeared they wouldn't hit the mark last year, the Victoria County Commissioners Court took a $100,000 gamble. That's how much it agreed to pay Southern Skyways to help the airline cover its costs for providing free airport awareness flights to the public.

Those were labeled as "flights to nowhere" by critics, but they helped push the enplanement count to about 10,100 last year, and the airport got its $1 million.

Airport Commissioner Milton Greeson asked why the county couldn't do that again this year.

"Why would you not spend $100,000 to get $850,000?" he asked. "It's just economics."

Chairman S.F. "Trey" Ruschhaupt said there was so much public criticism that the county decided not to do it again.

County Commission Kevin Janak, who opposed the flights last year, said another problem is there is no guarantee the flights would boost enplanements above 10,000. Bad weather could cause flight cancellations and that could keep the airport from reaching its goal after the county spent the money.