Subsidies keep small-airport flights in the air

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Subsidies keep small-airport flights in the air
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY
12/31/07

Imagine an aviation system in which planes fly two-thirds empty, fares are as low as $46 and the government pays up to 93% of the cost of a flight. You don't have to look far. That system exists in the USA — and quietly is expanding even as most of the nation's 2 million daily air travelers see fares tick upward for increasingly crowded flights. Each day, about 3,000 passengers enjoy mostly empty, heavily subsidized flights, financed by a 30-year-old program that requires the government to guarantee commercial air service to scores of small communities that can't support it themselves.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) pays a few small airlines $110 million a year total so they can profitably carry as few as four passengers per day to nearby hubs, often for rock-bottom fares. For example, a round-trip in Montana from Miles City to Billings — a two-hour drive away — costs passengers just $88 with a 30-day advance purchase on Big Sky Airlines because the government kicks in $779. Flying round-trip from Lewistown, Mont., to Billings — also a two-hour-drive — costs $88 as well on Big Sky. The government cost: $1,343 per passenger. Just two people a day took the Lewistown-to-Billings flights on average in 2006, according to the DOT.

The subsidy program has drawn steady criticism — namely from DOT administrators, who say it wastes money by providing what amounts to luxury travel to people within driving distance of a larger airport. But the subsidies have expanded in recent years, thanks to strong backing from Congress, airlines and airports. Two weeks ago, lawmakers allocated another $110 million for 2008, rejecting proposed DOT cuts. They also blocked the department from requiring 10 communities to pick up a small portion of the cost as part of an effort to prod local officials to better promote flights and draw more passengers. Supporters say the Essential Air Service program helps economic development by providing "airline access to rural and isolated rural communities," as Congress wrote in a 1996 act boosting funding.

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But as Congress has escalated subsidies through the years, the program has increasingly paid for flights between major airports and places that are neither rural nor isolated. Twenty-four communities with subsidized air service are within 90 miles of an airport that had at least 1 million passengers in 2006. Those subsidies cost $22 million a year.

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