Obama visit turns Grand Canyon wedding plan into grand disappointment

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 | 3 a.m.

It was going to be a lovely wedding.

The bride and groom were going to helicopter down to the banks of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon to exchange vows.

The weather forecast was perfect. Everything was in order for a memorable event that was to start in Las Vegas with the short, scenic flight that thousands of tourists take every year.

Every wedding planner knows that something is going to go wrong when the big day comes — maybe the wrong color flowers are delivered, a tuxedo is missing or a musician goes to the wrong church.

But in this case, the Grand Canyon was yanked out from under the Midwestern couple who chose not to talk to the media about what had to be one of the biggest disappointments of their lives.

But Joshua Gust did. Gust is president and chief operating officer of A Special Memory Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, who planned the wedding and had to deliver the news to the couple that no-fly restrictions imposed on Las Vegas’ air-tour industry during President Barack Obama’s visit last week were going to affect their wedding plans.

“We’ve had to change plans on Grand Canyon weddings because of the weather before, but in my family’s more than 40 years in this business, we’ve never had to cancel because of something like this,” Gust said. “I understand the need for security, and I respect what the Secret Service needs to do to protect the president, but I really don’t understand why every airport had to be shut down for air tours.”

Gust is not alone in wondering why. Air-tour industry leaders estimated that about $750,000 in business was lost as a result of the closure of airspace during Obama’s visit. In previous presidential visits, the airspace was closed for a 12-mile radius of McCarran International Airport where Air Force One landed.

The industry has had a backup plan for when that happens. Most carriers set up a temporary operation at Boulder City Airport, outside the 12-mile radius, and bus customers there for their tour departures.

But less than 48 hours before Obama’s arrival, tour operators were notified that the no-fly radius was being extended to 30 miles, taking the Boulder City option out of the picture. When that news hit Tuesday before Obama’s Thursday-night arrival in Las Vegas, the tour operators scrambled to contact their customers, trying to move Thursday afternoon tours to early Wednesday or late Friday.

“Wednesday was crazy for us,” said Robert Graff, corporate vice president of marketing for the Papillon Group, which has helicopter and airplane tours operating from Southern Nevada to several scenic destinations, including the Grand Canyon.

“We were able to accommodate some customers on Wednesday and we put some passengers on buses,” Graff said. “But we really couldn’t do anything for those customers who are in town for a short time and are moving on to other cities.”

Gust often works with Papillon on wedding packages. Of the 8,000 to 10,000 weddings A Special Memory coordinates every year, 200 to 300 of them involve ceremonies in the Grand Canyon. A Grand Canyon-floor helicopter wedding costs $3,199, according to his company’s Web site.

The unlucky Midwestern couple had arranged a single helicopter ferry to the bottom of the canyon, taking them, two friends, the person conducting the ceremony and a wedding photographer.

When Gust learned late Tuesday that his customers’ canyon wedding was going to be affected, he immediately tried to make contact with the couple, who are in their late 20s and finalized wedding plans four months ago. They were already en route to Las Vegas so he left a message.

“When they got the message, they probably thought there was some problem with the flowers or something,” Gust said.

“When I finally got a hold of them, they were in their hotel,” he said. “I was on the phone with him, kind of a guy-to-guy conversation, and as I told him what was happening, he was relaying the information to her. They couldn’t believe what I was telling them.

“He said, ‘Don’t you have another airport?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, but it’s affected by the restrictions, too.’”

Gust offered to hold the ceremony the day after Obama left, but the couple, taking advantage of lower midweek hotel rates during their stay, were booked to leave the day after the wedding.

He offered staging the wedding at Valley of Fire State Park or Red Rock Canyon — which would have required expediting the marriage license process since the ceremony would then be in Nevada instead of Arizona. But the couple declined, saying those two places “just aren’t the Grand Canyon.”

The couple ended up having a simple ceremony at A Special Memory’s chapel on Fourth Street a couple of hours before Obama’s plane touched down at McCarran. Gust said they probably would do something more elaborate after they got home.

Gust described their demeanor as “angry.” He didn’t ask them whether they were Obama supporters.

Now that the president’s visit is behind us, it’s time to ask some questions and hope that our government leaders can supply the answers:

• Why was the no-fly designation extended to 30 miles and why weren’t local tour companies notified earlier to make accommodations for customers?

“It’s hard to understand how flying east from Boulder City is going to affect anything in Las Vegas,” Gust said.

He’s right. That’s one of the reasons why Papillon put the bulk of its operations in Boulder City in the first place — to remove traffic from Las Vegas and its suburban airports.

• Why does Air Force One land at McCarran and not at presumably more secure Nellis Air Force Base?

It may have something to do with the length of McCarran’s runway, but Nellis routinely accommodates massive troop and equipment-moving aircraft.

It could also have something to do with transporting the president within the city. McCarran is more convenient to the Strip and Green Valley, where Obama made public appearances.

But Secret Service officials had no problem closing down streets for the Obama motorcade once he arrived. Gust said he barely got a photo shoot completed for some of his clients getting their pictures taken at the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign when police closed Las Vegas Boulevard South to accommodate the motorcade.

• Why were Papillon and other air tour operators forced to curtail flights like other general aviation fliers?

Papillon is a Part 135-certificated carrier — a Federal Aviation Administration designation for commuters and on-demand operations.

When the restrictions were announced for Obama’s visit, restrictions were set for flight training, aerobatic flights, gliders, parachute operations, ultralights and hang gliders, crop dusters, model rockets — and air tours.

Graff was scratching his head over that as well.

“We’re an airline,” he said. “But for the president’s trip, we weren’t considered an airline.”

NASCAR on bikes

There are more than stock cars racing in Las Vegas this weekend.

More than 400 professional and amateur bike racers are competing this weekend on the roads around Lake Mead at Callville Bay.

Time trials were scheduled for Feb. 26 with road races Feb. 27 and criterium racing — known as “NASCAR on bikes” — and an awards ceremony Feb. 28.

Many of the participants, friends and families are staying on 40 houseboats docked at Forever Resorts’ Callville Bay Marina, the hub of the event.

Union anniversary

Southwest Airlines has always followed the beat of a different drummer and that goes for the flight attendants’ union.

When 54 women who wore hot pants and had to remind passengers to put out their cigarettes when the plane was landing sought some specific work rules 35 years ago, the Transport Workers Union Local 556 was born.

Since then, the union has grown to nearly 10,000 members, who have the best pay among flight attendants in the industry. Over the union’s history, it took on the issues of finding an alternate uniform to hot pants, ending the practice in which flight attendants were required to share rooms on layovers and fighting for the right of men to work as flight attendants.

The union is active in Las Vegas, where Southwest is McCarran’s busiest carrier and maintains a flight attendant base.

Singapore casino opens

Las Vegas Sands was quick to open a casino in Macau when foreign gaming companies were invited into that market. The Sands Macau is one of the first buildings tourists see in Macau when they arrive on ferries from Hong Kong.

But Las Vegas Sands will be second in Asia’s newest market, Singapore, after Resorts World Sentosa, operated by Genting Singapore, opened there last week.

The $4.7 billion Resorts World resort has a casino with 530 table games, 1,300 slot machines, a 12-table poker pit and a Universal Studios theme park. Resort officials anticipate the resort will draw 13 million visitors this year.

Las Vegas Sands was scheduled to announce its opening date this week. Its resort will be a more visible icon on the Singapore skyline with a high-profile location on the city’s marina.