The Essential Air Service Program
Oct 16th, 2006 | By Jared Blank(Thanks to View from the Wing for the heads up):
The NY Times (reg req’d, sorry) has an interesting article about the Essential Air Service program, which provides subsidies for airlines to fly to remote airports across the country. Lewiston, Montana, is one of these remote airports, and the airline serving it received, get this, $472 each way per passenger flying on the route. How many passengers is this? Fewer than 3 each day, on average. While the total dollars spent on the program is small, the article points out that many of the airports benefitting from these subsidies are not that far from major airports (such as Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is less than 70 miles from Philly). Makes for a good read…