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Regional Aviation News
Small US Communities At Risk of More Air Service Cuts
May 1, 2003
Several small US communities are at risk of losing air service in the near-term as the current economic and air travel crisis takes it toll, BACK Aviation Solutions vice president Tulinda Larsen warns. Speaking at Commercial Aviation Event's annual regional airline conference in Washington DC today, Larsen says some 27 US airports have completely lost air service since August 2001, and another 25 airports have gone from housing multiple carriers to just one.
"Today 188 airports have four daily departures or less," says Larsen, adding that many more airports face a reduction or elimination of air services. She notes that US carriers are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain flights to certain small or rural communities in part because low-fares airlines are attracting passenger traffic to larger hubs located as much as a 2hr drive away from the community. In addition, she says, the single safety standard - a rule adopted by the FAA in 1996 that has increased operating costs for 10- to 30-seat turboprops operators - is making it "uneconomical to operate 30 seats or below", the standard aircraft capacity flown by airlines to smaller communities. The US Department of Transportation's (DOT's) essential air services (EAS) program was established to subsidize air service to small communities. But according to Regional Aviation Partners - a lobbying group that represents the needs of small regional operators - the DOT's EAS rules are too restrictive at a time when US carriers are quickly exiting small communities. EAS criteria currently prohibits the DOT from subsidizing service to communities that are located fewer than 70 highway miles (112km) from the nearest medium- or large-hub airport or require a subsidy per passenger in excess of $200. This mileage requirement has eliminated more than a handful of communities from the EAS program, according to RAP.
RAP executive director Maurice Parker tells ATI the DOT is working on a plan that would require communities to match EAS subsidies, and change the language of the EAS program to only include communities located 100 highway miles or more from the nearest hub airport. "This is more like eliminating the [EAS] program, instead of a revamp," says Parker. RAP has drummed up support in Congress for loosening the EAS mileage standards, and wants the DOT to drop the single safety standard. US Senator Arlen Specter, for example, is introducing a new bill that would return commercial air service to EAS communities previously eliminated from the program due to the DOT's mileage requirement interpretation. The bill, dubbed The Essential Air Service Eligibility Fairness Act of 2003, is scheduled to be introduced later this week and would require the DOT to use "the most commonly used route" between the community and the hub airport to determine distance.
On 29 April 2002, the community of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was deemed ineligible from the EAS program by the DOT because it was within 65.3 driving miles of the Philadelphia airport. Instead of using the "most commonly used highway route", says RAP, the DOT chose "a tortuous 66mi route between Lancaster and Philadelphia, going through villages and boroughs that no Lancastrian would travel". Senator Specter's bill would require the DOT to defer to a Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) or an organization designated by the governor of the state, as the final authority to certify the distance and most commonly traveled route between hub airports and EAS communities.
Larsen says the DOT "is on the path to revise EAS because unfortunately no community has ever been weaned from the program". She stresses the DOT is considering implementing tax reductions at certain airports to drum up airline traffic.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news Mary Kirby
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www.RegionalAviationPartners.org |