ALEUT COMMUNITY OF ST. PAUL ISLAND

How the Pribilof community fought for centuries for their freedom.

Aleutian Airways flew its first scheduled Saab 2000 flight to St. Paul on Monday, restoring regularly scheduled passenger service to Anchorage nearly nine months after Ravn Alaska ended its route to the Bering Sea community. Since then, residents have relied on expensive charter flights. Now, after months of delays and uncertainty, residents can finally book a regular commercial flight again.

St. Paul, Unalakleet and St. Mary’s all lost their main air carriers this year.

Some communities are turning to gardens and greenhouses to protect against shortages.

Residents of St. Paul haven’t had commercial air service since mid summer. The main airline that served the island in the middle of the Bering Sea, Ravn Alaska, stopped operations statewide in August. And now – as of Oct. 1 – a change in the Essential Air Service program means the city of over 400 people have no regularly scheduled commercial flights.

Residents are paying $1,300 one-way to fly to Anchorage after the Bering Sea island community lost its carrier in August.

Residents say the island’s only store is now stocked with milk, eggs and bread.

The Bering Sea community has been without staples like milk and eggs for more than a month.

As more people leave the island, one organizer said the game was important “to make sure our kids and future generations know what happened.”

No airlines have applied to serve the isolated Pribilof community, who will lose its only commercial air service to Anchorage in the fall.