FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Dave Thomas, VP Marketing and Planning

       (307) 432-7000

Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd. Reports September 2004 Traffic

CHEYENNE, Wyo., October 11, 2004 � Great Lakes Aviation, Ltd. (OTC Bulletin Board: GLUX � news) today announced preliminary passenger traffic results for the month of September.

Scheduled service generated 10,735,593 revenue passenger miles (RPM�s), a 1.4 percent decrease from the same month last year.  Available seat miles (ASM�s) declined 13.4 percent to 23,720,593. As a result, load factor increased 5.5 points to 45.3 percent.  Passengers carried increased 0.7 percent to 39,829 when compared with September 2003.

For the nine months ending September 30, 2004 compared to the same period in 2003, revenue passenger miles (RPM�s) increased 13.7 percent to 101,557,481 as available seat miles (ASM�s) increased 1.2 percent to 247,731,623, resulting in a load factor of 41.0 percent for the year 2004 compared to 36.5 percent for the same period in 2003.  The company carried 367,073 revenue passengers for the nine month period ending September 30, 2004, a 13.4 percent increase on a year-over-year basis.

SEPTEMBER AND YEAR TO DATE STATISTICS

     September 2004 September 2003 Change

Passengers Enplaned  39,829   39,546      0.7%

Revenue Passenger Miles (000) 10,736   10,892      -1.4%

Available Seat Miles (000) 23,721   27,393  -13.4%

Load Factor    45.3%   39.8%       5.5 points

     YTD 2004  YTD 2003  Change

Passengers Enplaned  367,073  323,707 13.4%

Revenue Passenger Miles (000) 101,557    89,351  13.7%

Available Seat Miles (000) 247,732  244,844   1.2%

Load Factor    41.0%   36.5%     4.5 points

Great Lakes is providing scheduled passenger service at 32 airports in nine states with a fleet of Embraer EMB-120 Brasilias and Raytheon/Beech 1900D regional airliners. A total of 160 weekday flights are scheduled at two hubs, with 154 flights at Denver and 6 flights at Phoenix. All scheduled flights are operated under the Great Lakes Airlines marketing identity in conjunction with code-share agreements with United Airlines and Frontier Airlines at the Denver International Airport hub.

Additional information is available on the company web site that may be accessed at www.greatlakesav.com