Contour Airlines takes flight to Nashville, growing travelers’ options

Published 5:14 pm Monday, June 1, 2026

QUINCY — After months of wrangling to lock down federal permission and to sort out scheduling details, Monday marks the door opening for direct connections between the Gem City and Music City.

Contour Airlines and Quincy Regional Airport hosted a public open house event Monday to mark the start of the new service. Round trip flights between Quincy and Nashville will be in the air five days a week, with connections between Quincy and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport still flying seven days a week.

“I’m from Nashville, so I love the city,” Susan Skees said Monday. Skees is the vice president of customer success for Contour Airlines. “It’s a great place to visit, and it’s a great place to connect to multiple hubs out of Nashville” for travelers going beyond Tennessee, Skees said.

Contour took over as the city’s Essential Air Service provider in November with flights in and out of Chicago. The previous providers also had connections to St. Louis, but they were using smaller aircraft, making better economic sense to make that shorter trip.

“We’re very honored and thrilled to be working with the city of Quincy,” Skees said. “The support that we’ve received from the mayor, from city council, from the aeronautics committee, and everyone here at the airport has been overwhelming. It’s a great partnership, and we are very excited to continue that partnership.”

In addition to the amount of options passing through Chicago, Nashville continues to grow as a major hub for Southwest Airlines flights, a carrier travelers in this region are familiar with due to the company’s presence in St. Louis.

There are still some scheduling questions that are being looked at to make times both out of and back into Quincy more accomodating for travelers.

“There have been challenges in Chicago because construction has (added to) their gate constraints,” Skees said. “They’ve asked the legacy carriers, the major carriers. to reduce their schedules, so that should help open up some slots, but that hasn’t occurred yet. We’re hoping with some of those changes, it’ll open up some gate space for Contour.”

On May 21, another new door was opened with Contour as the Great River Honor Flight was able to travel straight from Quincy to Washington, D.C. and back rather than roughly four hours round-trip in buses to St. Louis Lambert Airport.

Skees said Contour had worked hard to improve reliability that had previously been missing, leading to the change in EAS provider, though challenges at the Chicago Airport still cause some issues outside of the airline’s control. She noted that Contour’s road to success is paved with success for area residents.

“We really feel that in order for Quincy to grow economically, we need to bring people to Quincy on Contour, and make sure that we’re getting the enplanements that we need,” she said. “We want to get the word out that Quincy offers the service they need, so they need to come see the plane and feel comfortable with it.”

While nothing was set in stone yet, Skees said Contour is looking at options for events that can include the public in a more direct way.

“We’re hoping to come up with something, maybe at Christmas time, like a layover with Santa. Or maybe something at Halloween time, treats on the tarmac, something fun so that we can bring folks out here.”

For the moment, making sure people get where they want to go, when they want to go there, is the top priority, and with Monday’s launch of service to a second city, Contour feels they’re well on their way to that goal.