Essential Air Service program a waste of $$?

Any time tax dollars are spent on something, I'm inclined to think "waste"...but that doesn't mean I don't think tax dollars should be going to the program (...I hope I got that double negative right, I'm sure a grammar nazi will correct me...). I just think that most of the time the government spends money, they also waste it.

-mini
 
Its a hold over from the regulation era. I think its a good thing to have, but there needs to be some tweaking of it. No need for airports that are 70 miles from a major airport to have it. Some that are in the middle of no-where (especially Alaska), probably deserve the service.

But as an aside, USA Today can't stop bashing on aviation, can they. Heck, they want to get into the airport funding issue again in this one. Somebody needs to figure out who works for USA Today and ATA.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
Its a hold over from the regulation era. I think its a good thing to have, but there needs to be some tweaking of it. No need for airports that are 70 miles from a major airport to have it. Some that are in the middle of no-where (especially Alaska), probably deserve the service.
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I agree. There are alot of airports that dont need service.
 
At Colgan we do flights like Iad-jst-aoo-IAD. Johnstown and Altoon could easily be combined into 1. It's literally a 3 minute flight sometimes. Same with Morgantown and Clarksburg.
 
v1valarob said:
At Colgan we do flights like Iad-jst-aoo-IAD. Johnstown and Altoon could easily be combined into 1. It's literally a 3 minute flight sometimes. Same with Morgantown and Clarksburg.
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hmm, interesting perspective from a guy whose job partially relies on EAS.. maybe not completely, but i guarantee that Colgan would have to shed some weight it EAS was cut back.

Saying that, I do think it is a complete waste of money.
 
SIUav8er said:
hmm, interesting perspective from a guy whose job partially relies on EAS.. maybe not completely, but i guarantee that Colgan would have to shed some weight it EAS was cut back.

Saying that, I do think it is a complete waste of money.
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Colgan wants out of these routes. Many contracts are coming up in May and most of the out station workers don't believe we will rebid. The timing falls right in line with getting more Qs. If the contracts go away, we will just transition people and not hire as many.
 
Some of these airports really don't need service. Some. Many of them are reasonable. Lets take MCE for example. Great Lakes flies 2 B1900s from ONT-MCE and 1 from ONT-VIS-MCE and back. The principle is "Why drive 2 hours to SFO when you can FLY to ONT and connect on to anywhere?"

O RLY?

This is my take on it. 2 hour drive to SFO, sure. However, if you fly to ONT from VIS or MCE, you still need to connect more likely than not unless your final destination is a hub. This means if your final destination is say, TUS, you will need to fly MCE-ONT, or maybe even MCE-VIS-ONT, then connect onto say, Southwest. On Southwest you will still need to do ONT-LAS-TUS, and whats more is you have to book a separate reservation on WN, and if ZK is late and you miss the flight, its either standby or pay a change fee since WN has nothing to do with it. Thats a lot of flying, and what I've learned as a gate agent is the more segments you fly and the more carriers you fly on those segments the more likely you are to get royally screwed.

MOD is the next big city over to MCE, not a long drive at all, and FAT is not far from VIS. From MOD a person can hop on Skywest to SFO and go on to their final destination more than likely all on UA and with less connections(in this example a person can fly MOD-SFO-TUS with just a 1 hour wait in SFO). The drive to MOD would take less time than checking in for ZK, going thru security, and waiting around for boarding. Perhaps a person can even drive 20 minutes further to SCK and nab a $29 ticket on Allegiant to LAS and connect from there. Now for folks in VIS, a short drive over to FAT gives you almost all of the options you would have from ONT(in this example one may fly on US/Mesa FAT-PHX-TUS), saving you a connection and all the time that comes with it.

The only explanation I can think of is people are lazy and would rather be sitting around for 4 hours or so in airports than driving another 30 minutes once they get home from their trip.

I feel that in most cases the solution is stops in smaller cities. Skywest for example does SFO-CEC-ACV and LAX-YUM-IYK. On the CEC flights about half of the pax continue onto ACV, so it makes more sense to just stop in CEC than send 30 seats there and back. Thats probably the way to go for cities like VIS and MCE. Though, SFO-FAT-VIS didn't even fill 3 seats usually on the FAT-VIS segment, perhaps a clue some airports shouldn't be on the list at all.
 
I wish EAS in BHB would go away. BGR is less than an hours drive away, and I would LOVE to not have to deal with the TSA and all the stupid crap that goes on down there all because Colgan flies in there.

PQI definitely needs some type of service there, RKD is some where in the middle, 90 minutes from both BGR and PWM, AUG is redundant, 60 minutes from both BGR and PWM.
 
Yes.

It's a waste of tax dollars.

If it doesn't directly benefit me, then it's a waste.

End the program. Call your elected representatives, let's have tea bag parties to demand our change. Let me know how many socialist posters I need to print out.
 
surreal1221 said:
Yes.

It's a waste of tax dollars.

If it doesn't directly benefit me, then it's a waste.

End the program. Call your elected representatives, let's have tea bag parties to demand our change. Let me know how many socialist posters I need to print out.
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Lol. Man you've been sarcastic this week.
 
It's especially a waste when you see one passenger get on a 34 seat aircraft. It's not always that bad but quite often empty airplanes are being run on these routes.
 
Back in the day when the old man was flying 99s and the like around the state, they would stop at all the airports along the route even if nobody was getting off or on, because they would not get aid the subsidy if they didn't stop.
 
OldTownPilot said:
Back in the day when the old man was flying 99s and the like around the state, they would stop at all the airports along the route even if nobody was getting off or on, because they would not get aid the subsidy if they didn't stop.
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It is still that way
 
beechpilot said:
It's especially a waste when you see one passenger get on a 34 seat aircraft. It's not always that bad but quite often empty airplanes are being run on these routes.
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I wouldn't and don't have a problem with the EAS service on 1900's and smaller airplanes. Look at some of these cities, that have 340's, EMB-120's and even CRJ's. Do we really need to subsidize a CRJ-200 route, when it could either support its self, or go to a smaller plane with EAS. Put Cessna 40'2 (ala Cape Air) on those routes, if that is all they support. Look at the Alaksan EAS, you've got DHC-2's, Cessna 185/206/207's, BN-2's, PA31/2's and even a Grumman Goose.

But, that said, it would take too much common sense for the government to do something that makes sense.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
I wouldn't and don't have a problem with the EAS service on 1900's and smaller airplanes. Look at some of these cities, that have 340's, EMB-120's and even CRJ's. Do we really need to subsidize a CRJ-200 route, when it could either support its self, or go to a smaller plane with EAS. Put Cessna 40'2 (ala Cape Air) on those routes, if that is all they support. Look at the Alaksan EAS, you've got DHC-2's, Cessna 185/206/207's, BN-2's, PA31/2's and even a Grumman Goose.

But, that said, it would take too much common sense for the government to do something that makes sense.
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That's just what the law says... Some cities must have the right to Jet service. In regards to the CRJ's
 
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