The Muskegon County Airport is flirting with jet service again.

Midwest Connect, the airline that provides daily service between Muskegon and Milwaukee, has indicated that it's close to replacing its fleet of turboprop planes with small regional jets, said Dianne Hoofman, the air travel marketing consultant for the county airport.

Hoofman hopes that means the airline will start using 32-seat jets for its Muskegon flights, in place of the 19-seat turboprop planes, within the next year or two.

She hopes that will help the county airport attract more local passengers who currently go out of their way to use the Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids.

But Mike Brophy, spokesman for Wisconsin-based Midwest Connect, said the airline is not making any commitments right now.

"We have announced that we will be retiring (the turboprops)," Brophy said. "But I can't be definitive on a time frame or whether we will have jet service out of Muskegon."

Not everyone is convinced that the lack of jet service is the county airport's main handicap.

"If everything else is equal, yes," said Bob Hilleary, a local frequent flier, when asked if passengers prefer jets to turboprop planes. "The major reason why (he flies Grand Rapids) is the fares are not consistently competitive. I get tired of checking. It seems like every time I try, Muskegon always costs 25 to 30 percent more than Grand Rapids."

A 2002 market study indicated that only about a quarter of local commercial airline customers use the county airport, while the majority go to Grand Rapids.

Five years later, county airport manager Marty Piette said that statistic remains fairly accurate. And the passenger numbers over the past few years reflect that.

In 2001, for example, the airport served roughly 81,000 passengers, mostly through commercial airlines. By 2006 that total had dropped to 67,119.

Flights out of the airport are averaging around 70 percent capacity -- an acceptable rate for any airport, Piette said. A lack of flights and available seats are at least as problematic as the rate of ticket sales, he said.

But more passengers would clearly help the airport's financial bottom line.

The airport, which gets $4 for every airline ticket sold, has required a subsidy from the county's general fund of at least $1 million for the past six years. Some county officials have suggested that the airport needs to become self-supporting to survive in the long run.

Clearly there are good reasons to fly Muskegon -- comparable and occasionally lower fares than neighboring airports, much less driving time, cheap parking, a quick walk to the terminal and small lines at the checkpoints.

But may local customers obviously prefer flying out of Grand Rapids. Reasons given include more available seats, easier connections to popular destinations, lower ticket prices and the flexibility offered by the large number of flights.

And the turboprop issue always crops up.

"I think it's a perception that jets are faster and more efficient," said Brophy, the Midwest Connect spokesman.

Some say there's a general fear of smaller planes with louder engines and propellors, as opposed to the quiet, more comforting hum of a jet engine.

"I think it's just a general fear of flying," said Piette, the airport manager. "People call them puddle jumpers, and it adds to the irrational fear. It makes it worse for some people."

While some raw statistics provided to The Chronicle by the National Transpiration Safety Board suggest that there have been more recent "accidents/incidents" involving turboprop planes than jets, the issue is far from cut and dried.

Piette said he considers turboprops and jets equally trustworthy.

"I go back to the maintenance standards of the airlines," Piette said. "Regardless of the type of plane, they are all required to meet certain standards. I have no problem with either type of craft."

Local officials have long sought to bring jet service back to the airport, where it hasn't been offered on a regular basis since the early 1980s.

In 2002 the county offered financial incentives to United Airlines to bring daily Muskegon-Chicago jet service to the airport. United passed on the offer.

In 2004 the county got a brief taste of jet service from Northwest Airlines, which accepted a six-figure federal grant to experiment with a single daily flight between Muskegon and Detroit.

Officials say ridership was good, but apparently not good enough to convince Northwest to continue the service beyond six months.

County airport officials have heard for several years that all airlines will eventually replace their turboprop planes with small regional jets. Piette said he will believe it when it materializes.

"We've been saying that since I got here in 2003," Piette said. "We kind of keep waiting."

George Gasahl, co-owner of Airline Tour and Travel in Muskegon, said turboprops are less of an issue than flying time.

He said flying out of Muskegon means an automatic layover in Detroit or Milwaukee, then sometimes a second layover somewhere, before arriving at a destination. At larger airports, there is typically one layover, and direct flights are often available, he said.

"If I have to fly from Muskegon to Hawaii, where there's already a layover in Minneapolis, you have to add another layover in Detroit," Gasahl said. "Suddenly you turn a 10-hour trip into 14 hours due to having to sit at airports."

Another problem with the county airport is the lack of available seats, particularly for large groups going on cruises or other outings, Gasahl said.

Merritt Archer, owner of American Royal Travel in Muskegon, said the lack of backup airline service at the county airport is a very big problem, if a flight is cancelled or delayed.

"They might tell you to drive to Grand Rapids and they will try to get you on a flight there, at your own expense.," Archer said. "In Grand Rapids (or other airports) they have other airlines to back them up. United can get you there, U.S. Air, Delta or Northwest can get you there."

Hoofman said many of those criticisms are unfounded.

She said most connections out of Muskegon have one stop, in Detroit or Milwaukee, then will proceed on a direct flight to the final destination. She also said the county airport has a very low flight cancellation rate, and if a passenger has to be transfered to Grand Rapids, the airport will pay for cab service.