Time to end the Essential Air Service program

[her209]

http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/x-50 role_files/essentialairservice.htm

The Airline Deregulation Act, passed in 1978, gave airlines almost total freedom to determine which markets to serve domestically and what fares to charge for that service. The Essential Air Service (EAS) program was put into place to guarantee that small communities that were served by certificated air carriers before deregulation maintain a minimal level of scheduled air service. The Department currently subsidizes commuter airlines to serve approximately 140 rural communities across the country that otherwise would not receive any scheduled air service. For more information contact the EAS and Domestic Analysis Division at (202) 366-5903.

If you're for deregulation, then you shouldn't expect the government to come to your rescue when a private business doesn't want to service your location because its unprofitable for them to do so. When where you live becomes profitable enough then the free market will take care of it.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/01/138901060/faa-debate-puts-subsidized-rural-airports-at-risk

Millions In Subsidies

About an equal number are flying out to Cleveland, where the flights originate, airport manager Tom Frungillo says.

To help keep Continental from losing money on the service, the federal government subsidizes these flights at a cost of about $1 million a year.

It's part of the Essential Air Service program, which subsidizes commercial flights to about 150 rural airports nationwide, at a yearly cost of nearly $200 million.

Critics call the program the poster child for wasteful government spending.

"Some of the flights, the airlines are flying planes as small as eight seats, and sometimes those aren't even full," says Erich Zimmermann, senior policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense.

He says in some cases, flying those half-empty planes can cost taxpayers quite a bit.

"I think the largest is an airport in Nevada, where each passenger is subsidized to the tune of $3,700 every time they step on the plane to take one of these flights," Zimmermann says.

http://www.wday.com/event/article/id/14016/publisher_ID/30/

"We just need to make sure we get the air service that we're entitled to. And actually, under the (Essential Air Service) system, it says the federal government has assured us we will have," Johnson said.

There's that word. I guess the residents of Devils Lake, ND aren't entitled to driving?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Is there a purpose for this thread? An all or nothing thing?

 

[Genx87]

I agree about dropping the subsidies and let the air carriers adjust schedules to make money on their own or drop service all together.

 

[Incorruptible]

They need to drop these subsidies, it is wasting money

 

[ichy]

Maybe shitty little towns like that ought to be allowed to wither away. At the very least people who choose to live there should pay for their own air service.

 

[ichy]

I looked at some of the airports near me that get subsidized and had to shake my head in disgust. Hagerstown? Just drive to IAD or BWI. Same with some of the places in PA. Altoona is within reasonable driving distance of several airports, just like Johnstown & Lancaster are. Disgusting.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Pull the plug if there is not another airport available less than 90 minute drive.

 

[Nebor]

$200 million for the entire program isn't that bad...

 

[CPA]

Drop it. Now.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'd be OK with pulling the plug. I'd also be OK with keeping one transit subsidy in true rural areas (not suburbs), such as Amtrak _or_ airports instead of both.

For suburbs it should be the states managing their own bus and light rail service as they see fit.

There are many "nice things" like this that should be cut from federal spending -- I hear radio ads for free cell phone plans for poor people, and the plan they get is a $30+/month plan instead of basic emergency service.

Then there is the subsidy to grow HFCS to give kids diabetes ....

 

[CycloWizard]

EAS is a regulation and an absurd one at that. Get rid of it. If you choose to live in the middle of nowhere, you choose to drive a long ways to get to a commercially-serviced airport.

 

[hal2kilo]

I looked at some of the airports near me that get subsidized and had to shake my head in disgust. Hagerstown? Just drive to IAD or BWI. Same with some of the places in PA. Altoona is within reasonable driving distance of several airports, just like Johnstown & Lancaster are. Disgusting.

That's ridiculous. Obviously the standard is also not applied evenly. I have a 65 mile drive to Sea Tac and there's a regional airport just 20 miles away from me that doesn't get the good deal. This program should be abolished.

 

[Lemon law]

IMHO, some of you deregulation advocates are not looking far enough ahead. If we let our airlines just drop small communities, what stops airlines from dropping ever larger cities, as the end result becomes, all airlines will squabble to serve only very large and profitable cities.

As there is another way to look at it, if the Federal government say taxes everyone a total of only 200 million nationwide, yet it saves consumers nationwide say a billion in extra driving time gas and money, its a overall 5X benefit to the nation overall.

But Pigs only think of only themselves. When I lived in a small city with an airport, it was profitable to fill a 20 passenger Turbo prop, to large regional hub airport, and then you could get a flight to any where in the world.

 

[ichy]

IMHO, some of you deregulation advocates are not looking far enough ahead. If we let our airlines just drop small communities, what stops airlines from dropping ever larger cities, as the end result becomes, all airlines will squabble to serve only very large and profitable cities.

As there is another way to look at it, if the Federal government say taxes everyone a total of only 200 million nationwide, yet it saves consumers nationwide say a billion in extra driving time gas and money, its a overall 5X benefit to the nation overall.

But Pigs only think of only themselves. When I lived in a small city with an airport, it was profitable to fill a 20 passenger Turbo prop, to large regional hub airport, and then you could get a flight to any where in the world.

This post makes absolutely no sense.

 

[CycloWizard]

IMHO, some of you deregulation advocates are not looking far enough ahead. If we let our airlines just drop small communities, what stops airlines from dropping ever larger cities, as the end result becomes, all airlines will squabble to serve only very large and profitable cities.

Because... They make money flying to/from larger cities.

As there is another way to look at it, if the Federal government say taxes everyone a total of only 200 million nationwide, yet it saves consumers nationwide say a billion in extra driving time gas and money, its a overall 5X benefit to the nation overall.

But Pigs only think of only themselves. When I lived in a small city with an airport, it was profitable to fill a 20 passenger Turbo prop, to large regional hub airport, and then you could get a flight to any where in the world.

Since you're in such a giving mood, can you have an airplane land in front of my house tomorrow to pick me up? I don't want to drive 15 minutes to the airport. I also don't want to have to catch a connection, so the plane should be capable of flying me 1500 miles nonstop. Kthx.

 

[chucky2]

This should be ended. Immediately.

This post makes absolutely no sense.

If you think that's bad, go check the one he did today in the 'Tarek Fatah--Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrating US Government' thread.

Chuck

 

[OutHouse]

IMHO, some of you deregulation advocates are not looking far enough ahead. If we let our airlines just drop small communities, what stops airlines from dropping ever larger cities, as the end result becomes, all airlines will squabble to serve only very large and profitable cities.

As there is another way to look at it, if the Federal government say taxes everyone a total of only 200 million nationwide, yet it saves consumers nationwide say a billion in extra driving time gas and money, its a overall 5X benefit to the nation overall.

But Pigs only think of only themselves. When I lived in a small city with an airport, it was profitable to fill a 20 passenger Turbo prop, to large regional hub airport, and then you could get a flight to any where in the world.

if we let the airlines?? dude the us governemnt does not own united airlines they can drop a route if they wish.

 

[Incorruptible]

This should be ended. Immediately.



If you think that's bad, go check the one he did today in the 'Tarek Fatah--Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrating US Government' thread.

Chuck

Agreed. That post he made was absolute nonsense

 

[herm0016]

its great that you all live in large cities. some places out west have 100s of miles to the nearest airport like Salt Lake city, Denver or even Bozeman MT. 200 million is not much money overall to enable a lot of people to travel, that otherwise would be stuck in their town without a days drive just to get to someplace that provides air service. I use the airport here in Rock Springs when i need to travel. Much nicer than wasting a day driving to Salt Lake City 3hrs or Denver 6hrs. should we also end the emergency broadcasting services because you all have alerts on your phones?

as far as letting the towns dry up? if that happens, where you you expect all the people that support your quality of life to live? people like us that supply you with oil and natural gas, or people that supply you with food or lumber etc.

this program saves me a minimum of 100's of dollars a year in fuel. I am sure the cost benefit is huge over the 200 million dollars.

from what i know, the seats are subsidized only if they are not filled. so they charge each flyer as if the plane was full, and the .gov (here the county and city taxes chip in also) pays for the rest of the seats.

some of those places are more than 500 miles from the nearest non-subsidized service

I would be fine cutting everything less than 100 miles. but I do think maintaining air service for most of the country is as important as maintaining roads.

should we also cut funding for all roads that fall under a certain car/hour standard? I have drivin long stretches without seeing another soul on some roads between here and North Dakota.

 

[CrackRabbit]

its great that you all live in large cities. some places out west have 100s of miles to the nearest airport like Salt Lake city, Denver or even Bozeman MT. 200 million is not much money overall to enable a lot of people to travel, that otherwise would be stuck in their town without a days drive just to get to someplace that provides air service. I use the airport here in Rock Springs when i need to travel. Much nicer than wasting a day driving to Salt Lake City 3hrs or Denver 6hrs. should we also end the emergency broadcasting services because you all have alerts on your phones?

as far as letting the towns dry up? if that happens, where you you expect all the people that support your quality of life to live? people like us that supply you with oil and natural gas, or people that supply you with food or lumber etc.

this program saves me a minimum of 100's of dollars a year in fuel. I am sure the cost benefit is huge over the 200 million dollars.

from what i know, the seats are subsidized only if they are not filled. so they charge each flyer as if the plane was full, and the .gov (here the county and city taxes chip in also) pays for the rest of the seats.

If the EAS program ended I don't think that the airlines would cancel all of the routes like that, but the price of a ticket to and from smaller airfields would certainly see a (likely rather hefty) increase in price.
Edit: You might also see smaller unaffiliated regional airlines to step up and take the place of large overweight carriers that bow out. If there is money to be made someone will figure out how to do it.

 

[Fern]

If you're for deregulation, then you shouldn't expect the government to come to your rescue when a private business doesn't want to service your location because its unprofitable for them to do so. When where you live becomes profitable enough then the free market will take care of it.
-snip-

While I'm not generally for such subsidies, I suspect there might be reasons other than just lack of service by for-profit companies.

E.g., Alaska. It may be a good idea (major cost savings) to subsidize some little airports instead of building highways/interstates in that environment and over those distances.

In states with interstates/highways etc, forget it.

Fern

 

[herm0016]

If the EAS program ended I don't think that the airlines would cancel all of the routes like that, but the price of a ticket to and from smaller airfields would certainly see a (likely rather hefty) increase in price.
Edit: You might also see smaller unaffiliated regional airlines to step up and take the place of large overweight carriers that bow out. If there is money to be made someone will figure out how to do it.

most of them are not the big carriers. Great lakes air and sky west serve many out here. That's sorta the point. There is no money to be made without tickets like I had to pay to go to get home to see my grandmother on her death bed. $1300 from Williston ND to Michigan with a layover in MSP. that was even through our corp. travel center! I could not even get a ticket through normal consumer channels. That is the service we would see if there was no eas. right now its around 600 to fly to michigan out of Rock Springs.

Fern: you would feel different about such a small government expenditure if you lived out here.

and people do have to live out here, as i stated, to support the quality of life of everyone in this country.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

There's that word. I guess the residents of Devils Lake, ND aren't entitled to driving?

By virtue of not living in a shithole of a country one should be entitled to certain benefits. In contrast, eliminating these benefits turns the area you live in into a shithole. So how is

When where you live becomes profitable enough then the free market will take care of it.

supposed to magically happen when you're living in a shithole?

I have no doubt there is probably
1. a lot of waste in the program
2. that some of it is intentional padding finagled by the airline co.'s
but arguing to eliminate programs like these based on some ideology over practicality is absurd. Maybe we wouldn't need this program at all if we had an extensive high speed rail system in this country, but there's your ideology stopping that too. One of government's most vital job is instituting infrastructure. It's the main catalyst for every activity that goes on in the country, especially the free market.

 

[Genx87]

its great that you all live in large cities. some places out west have 100s of miles to the nearest airport like Salt Lake city, Denver or even Bozeman MT. 200 million is not much money overall to enable a lot of people to travel, that otherwise would be stuck in their town without a days drive just to get to someplace that provides air service. I use the airport here in Rock Springs when i need to travel. Much nicer than wasting a day driving to Salt Lake City 3hrs or Denver 6hrs. should we also end the emergency broadcasting services because you all have alerts on your phones?

as far as letting the towns dry up? if that happens, where you you expect all the people that support your quality of life to live? people like us that supply you with oil and natural gas, or people that supply you with food or lumber etc.

this program saves me a minimum of 100's of dollars a year in fuel. I am sure the cost benefit is huge over the 200 million dollars.

from what i know, the seats are subsidized only if they are not filled. so they charge each flyer as if the plane was full, and the .gov (here the county and city taxes chip in also) pays for the rest of the seats.

some of those places are more than 500 miles from the nearest non-subsidized service

I would be fine cutting everything less than 100 miles. but I do think maintaining air service for most of the country is as important as maintaining roads.

should we also cut funding for all roads that fall under a certain car/hour standard? I have drivin long stretches without seeing another soul on some roads between here and North Dakota.

The carriers may not drop you but the cost will increase. There may also be a real possibility smaller carriers will spring up to compete in the market due to the increase in cost. This is govt meddling in the market and it needs to end.

 

[ichy]

The fact that they're subsidizing air service to Hagerstown which is a very reasonable drive from a major international hub (IAD) and a large, mostly domestic airport (BWI) shows how broken this program is.