A Village's Life Impulse: Where Dreams Grow...They're Not Dreams Elsewhere...Just Another Desperate Move Here...

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
Editor-In-Chief

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Resident and aspiring politician Ezequiel "Zeke" Silva went for the jugular. "Let them lose their own money," he said, succinctly, without laughing. Others would have their own say during a Wednesday night Town Hall meeting called by Mayor Pat Ahumada on the eve of the city's decision to fund a commuter airline that would transport passengers to and from a few of Mexico's most dangerous cities.

Fly Frontera, the airline in question, has never attempted such a  flight. But it wants to. And it wants to use something like $1.5 million it hopes to get from the City of Brownsville, including $500,00 as "start-up" money, presumably to lease a local office, hire a receptionist and custodian and look into leasing aircraft and foreign landing fees. It's a dream, yes.

But what is it about dusty Brownsville and dreams?

It has a habit of acting out of desperation, of wanting to belong so badly that weird stuff is considered seriously at City Hall. This is what City Commssioner Charlie Atkinson, perhaps the biggest dreamer at City Hall, had to say about this would-be airline, suddenly the darling of local skies: "Fly Frontera could definitely be the Southwest Airlines of the latino world and Brownsville will be the hub. I hope cooler heads prevail and see the bigger picture."

Cooler heads are hard to find in hot, humid Brownsville, even during the Christmas Season. Politicians and local celebrities take to the streets after a few tall beers and the next thing you know some of their alcoholed faces are in the newspaper in write-ups that speak not of dreams for the community but of a clear and sure desire to drink the local boredom away. Mr. Atkinson has found himself in such a situation, if area cops are to be believed. So has the mayor. And so has a local blogger somewhat behind this particular airline deal.

This, too, clould be interpreted as another in a long line of stabs at wanting to belong to something better, to belong to a region that, wth the single exception of Harlingen up the road, appears to be progressing rather nicely. McAllen and Pharr to the west are doing gangbusters business on a variety of fronts. That international airport in McAllen is perhaps the best one south of San Antonio. By all rights, it ought to be the hub for flights into Mexico.

But there is a drug war going on in northern Mexico. The city of Monterrey is on its knees thanks to the drug cartels. Mayors are kidnapped and beheaded for business reasons in and around that city. An airline to serve Monterrey during all this? There must be a reason why no airline serving McAllen, which, truth be told, gets the lion's share of visitors from warring Mexico, has ventured into this Fly Frontera idea. Could it be that there just isn't the market for such flights. You'd think the majors - American Airlines, Continental and Delta - which serve it would have studied the possibility of such a route and jumped on it if it indeed offered the promise of quick profits.

Fly Frontera, reportedly based in Dallas with connections in Pennsylvania, brings a dream to Brownsville, and little Brownsville, shorn of any attention by the better retail brands of the land, hops aboard for what may be one of those endless, frustrating "milk runs" Texas International and People Airlines were famous for a few years back.

The particulars in this ascending idea aren't even the important aspects of this taxpayer deal. Fly Frontera's backers are largely unknown in the area, but it seems to include a gent with a questionable background. Something to do with a felony conviction. Yes, of course, the citizenry is quick to forgive and everybody deserves a second chance, even Army Lt. William Calley of My Lai massacre fame and Richard Nixon of the infamous "I am not a crook" assertion.

Still, it could be interesting.

Perhaps local passengers will see these flights as something of a wild, roller-coaster ride of the sort that one takes just for the hell of it or the cheap thrill. Fly Frontera? Sounds like the name of either an agile wrestler or a Hispanic rapper.

Brownsville will do its life impulse. It has to. There are too many dreamers and wannabes in that bordertown at the end of the Rio Grande. They, too, must be entertained.

Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, as Commissioner Atkinson wishes, and the idea sent down the halls of City Hall for filing in the basement archives. A million-point-five is peanuts for an airline, what with jet fuel costs being what they are - a large, large part of any company's operating budget. Five-hundred-thousand just to "start up" the business is insane.

We have this image of actor Edward James Olmos walking into the next Town Hall meeting on this Fly Frontera idea and saying, "Hey, remember me? I wanted to make a film about your chess wizards over at the college and I only wanted 250 grand, and your people over there told me to go take a hike. You guys remember that one?"

Every struggling, hardscrabble community wants to fly its flag. There's nothing wrong with that; it should be part of the governance journey. An airline based in Brownsville would be a feather in the city's Charro hat, absolutely. Maybe hordes would fly in from the drug-ravaged northern Mexico communities seeking a few laughs, distance from the killing gunfire and beheadings. Then again maybe not. People caught in the middle of a cruel and bloody war tend to have other more-important priorities.

The odds here are staggering, steeped wildly against this venture succeeding beyond the city's "opt out" timetable of six months. And, beyond that, what business in America gives itself six months to make it or break it? Six months? Six months, they said.

What I want to know is this: Will Fly Frontera charge an extra fee for bags?...

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