Blog Decries Spending On Essential Air Services

A  Washington Post blogger likens the Essential Air Service (EAS) program to a vampire, saying that there had been a bipartisan effort to "drive a stake into it." The EAS pays airlines to fly routes to airports in smaller cities, subsidizing ticket costs to make it possible for those services to continue.

Al Kamen writes in his blog " In the Loop" that, while Congress did cut $3 million from the $200 million dollar program, and the amount the government could pay per ticked was cut to $1,000. The program was eliminated entirely only in Ely, NV, and Alamogordo, NM. Nine other airports which board ten or fewer passengers a day may also be cut, for an additional savings of $12 million. But those cuts are not guaranteed.

In his news release announcing the passage of the FAA bill, House Transportation committee chair John Mica (R-FL) pointed to cuts to the EAS, which had offered subsidies as high as $3,720 per ticket, as one of the main victories of the long negotiations. “Cutting outrageous ticket subsidies helped bring negotiators to the table to finally complete this long-term FAA bill,” Mica said. The House-Senate agreement includes further reforms to the small community airline ticket subsidy program by prohibiting new communities from joining, further eliminating subsidies to airports that have fewer than 10 passengers each day that are within 175 miles of a large or medium hub, and reducing federal taxpayer funding for the program."

Kaman says on his blog that one of the biggest losers in the bill are labor unions, which he ways will find it far more difficult to organize under the provisions of the bill. It is well known that labor organizations remain strongly opposed to the bill, and some have said that Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the measure will face their opposition come re-election.

FMI: www.faa.gov