Nonstop flights between Chicago and Sun Valley to start this winter

United Airlines will experiment this winter with nonstop service between Chicago and Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey.

Chicago will be the seventh nonstop city for the Sun Valley area, along with San Francisco, Denver and Portland, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Los Angeles.

The Chicago flights will be on Saturdays only on Dec 23, 30, Jan. 6, Feb. 17, 24, March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31. No Chicago flights are scheduled for most of January until mid-February.

“The peak ski season is Christmas to New Year and February and March,” said Carol Waller, executive director of the Fly Sun Valley Alliance, a Ketchum nonprofit that works to improve air service to the Wood River Valley. “We have ongoing discussions with airlines for ongoing service.”

This flight will be on 76-seat Embraer E175 regional jets, meaning that at most 760 passengers will fly nonstop from Chicago to Hailey.

“This is an opportunity for us to see how this goes to get bigger opportunities,” said Scott Fortner, executive director at Visit Sun Valley, the region’s visitors bureau.

Visit Sun Valley will increase digital messaging and social media marketing in Chicago as well as key East Coast markets like Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia to seek travelers who would connect to the Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Hailey nonstop, Fortner said.

Waller and Fortner said Chicago has been a strong market for Sun Valley skiing, even with the circuitous routes travelers have had to fly to reach Sun Valley. Chicago residents will likely still see connecting airports in one direction on the United nonstop unless they spend exactly seven days in Wood River Valley.

The 9 a.m. flight from Chicago arrives in Hailey at 11:48 a.m. and flies back to Chicago at 12:25 p.m., according to the schedule released by Fly Sun Valley Alliance.

Chicago residents who want to fly home any day other than Saturday would have to travel through connecting airports as they do now.

Like nearly all flights at Friedman, the Chicago flights are expected to be nearly 80 percent out-of-towners and only 20 percent locals – though a share of the out-of-towners are part-time residents, Waller said.