Sat, Feb 11, 2012
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.
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