It’s Not Just For Cities, Public Employee Unions And Spoiled Toddlers Anymore
By Mitch Berg
Keith at Redneck Crackers And Beer wonders if Delta Airlines has just been messing with us:.
I posted back in July that the Essential Air Service program was out of date, needed to be repealed, and cost the tax payers millions of dollars.
This is the government subsidy program that keeps airlines flying to cities that otherwise couldn’t support airline service on their own.
With the news that the program was on the chopping block, Delta announced – as they frequently do – that they’d have to start cutting service to these cities.
Whaddya suppose happened next?
Just out of curiosity I checked Delta’s website recently and noticed that only a few of these towns have been dropped and several have picked up regional jet service who only had turboprop service previously.
Huh.
So the question is, was Delta just playing the people in these small towns to lobby their congress-critters to pass the EAS bill to keep the pork rolling in to places that can’t afford commercial air service, and want the rest of us to pay for it?
Why not?
The tactic – “keep paying us for something that people won’t pay for, or at least pay as much for – naturally on their own” – is as predictable as every play in the Vikings playbook. Every school district and Local-Government-Aid-accepting city in Minnesota does it every year at budget time; “keep the swag coming, or we’re going to have to cut you off!”
October 12th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Thanks for mentioning my blog, Mitch. Interestingly, most of the towns that Delta threatened to cut were old legacy routes that go back to the North Central Airlines days, and heavily affected Minnesota, West Virginia and Michigan. I still can’t understand why a place like Thief River Falls, that enplanes an average of 15 passengers a day (or less) rates 2 flights a day to MSP.
Pork is endemic in DC, and the only way to get it under control is changing our congress-critters early and often.