Letter to Leadville

Levi,

I appreciated receiving your email. Yes, it was a disappointing situation, made even more so by the following:

1. We have been coordinating this group fly-in with you and other Leadville businesses since late last year.
2. I confirmed our group arrival with you again on August 25th.
3. We discussed the situation with your staff on Friday and agreed that we could work together to coordinate our group arrival with your construction activities.
4. We were told by your staff Monday at 9:45 am that we could land after 11:30 am, as any runway obstructions would be clear at that time.

Add to that, it was clear as we were circling over the airport that the tank had not yet been loaded on the truck, the runway was clear at the time, and it seemed that we could have made our landings and been out of the way prior to the truck needing access to the runway.

Parkwest Air Tours caters to visitors from all of the country and the world.  On this trip, we have visitors from 10 different states, plus 4 foreign countries.  They were eager to visit Leadville as a unique tourist destination.

Had we been told on Monday morning that we could not use the runway, we would have made alternate arrangements and, while disappointed, we could have planned accordingly.  Having been assured that we could land, we carried on with our planned Leadville logistics and suffered accordingly.  While I'd like to say that we will hope for better communications next time, I'm afraid there probably will not be a next time.

   - Collin Fay
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