US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Article: Bush's budget could mean slashed air service in WV's smallest airports

Full text of story here (http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Business/2005031241?pt=0)

There is a good picture of the inside of BKW as one of the photos with the story. I have always liked the look of it, especially compared to the shoddy rundown look of the BLF bus station, er, airport.

A snip....
"Flights at three of West Virginia’s eight commercial airports could end if President Bush’s 2006 budget passes in its current form.

Bush’s proposal reduces funding for the Essential Air Service program from $102 million to $50 million and requires airports and their communities to contribute a matching amount — ranging from 10 to 50 percent, depending on how isolated the community is — to receive federal funding.

Communities won’t get the federal money without the match."

Opinion: I don't really care if EAS gets cut or made to locally match here in BKW/BLF. The routes that Colgan has decided to fly since the dehubbing of PIT make NO sense (2X IAD, 1X CMH) since there is little/no opportunity to connect anywhere useful. 2X CLT or even 2X DCA would have made more sense in giving people coming to/from this region better choices. I'm better served both in schedules/options and fares by driving 90 min to CRW and ROA or 2 hours to GSO or TRI.

LWB gets subsidized by the Greenbrier, so you know there's going to be affluent passengers going there.

Personally, I'd rather see Essential Air Service funded long before a lot of the other crap in the Budget, including every penny that is squandered on Homeland inSecurity.

However, if you live in Podunk and you want to travel by plane, there's two choices:

1)Expect to pay more since there's not a lot of money to be made flying to/from Podunk and a company operating at a loss all the time is not a viable company.

2)Drive or use public transportation to get to the nearest viable larger airport.

Michael Boyd discusses Essential Air Service regularly at www.aviationplanning.com

Colgan does not independently decide to fly to IAD and CMH rather than CLT and PIT. It is a little like the CAB that awarded or required certain routes to be flown.

Why they chose IAD and CMH is probably based on a combination of O&D and low fare service available at the hub. CLT obviously has no low fare service, and PIT has very little, and neither are large destinations (neither is CMH but then WN flies there, making onward travel pretty cheap).

Some of the through fares US publishes out of these little places are pretty decent, and some of them are ridiculously high, in which case an end-on-end fare will work if the hub is a low-fare one (good web sites like Expedia.com will find end-on-end combinations).

Why Bush wants to cut an annual $50 million from an aviation budget that spends $50 million every few hours doing unproductive tasks such as staring at boarding passes and patting down one-way passengers is beyond me. But then I already knew Bush was an idiot, so I guess this doesn't surprise me. :mad:

Colgan does not independently decide to fly to IAD and CMH rather than CLT and PIT. It is a little like the CAB that awarded or required certain routes to be flown.

Why they chose IAD and CMH is probably based on a combination of O&D and low fare service available at the hub. CLT obviously has no low fare service, and PIT has very little, and neither are large destinations (neither is CMH but then WN flies there, making onward travel pretty cheap).


Colgan is based in Manassas, VA, thus IAD is their "home", which they admit is one reason IAD is a destination.

When service was switched, Colgan also said the decision was based on O&D, which living here I don't see, unless coal people have business in those markets.

You guys and the report forget one very important fact. As long as Senator Byrd (D-WV) breaths I would not bet on much funding getting cut in his state. They don’t call that racist old bird Mr. Pork for nothing.

They don’t call that racist old bird Mr. Pork for nothing.
Regardless of your feelings about Senator Byrd, comments like that one make FT seem no different than the countless other mindless BBs out there with every person under the sun throwing out threats and cutting down others.

Please not here.

Sen. Byrd has long ago repuidaited, disavowed and apologized for his earlier KKK membership. He is the rare politician that admited that he was wrong and has worked didligently to amend for his mistake.

If you're so keen on hunting racists, go to a Nascar race, you'll find over 100,000 of them.

For the record he was the Klan leader. However I was referring to his use of the infamous “N” word just months ago as show on CNN. You can call it anything you want but I will stay with racist. Understand that only conservatives can be so named.

In any event, point taken that this is not the place for that discussion. Nor is it the place anti-southern Red state slur against NASCAR.

Point was while he is in office do not be surprised if funding is increased.

Point was while he is in office do not be surprised if funding is increased.

Well then, stick to the point.

For the record he was the Klan leader. However I was referring to his use of the infamous “N” word just months ago as show on CNN. You can call it anything you want but I will stay with racist. Understand that only conservatives can be so named.

In any event, point taken that this is not the place for that discussion. Nor is it the place anti-southern Red state slur against NASCAR.

Point was while he is in office do not be surprised if funding is increased.

Just a little something from the FT rules for you to ponder.

"Any posts containing communications that are knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, offensive, vulgar, abusive, hateful or bashing -- especially those aimed at sexual orientation, gender, race, color, religious views, national origin, or disability - will not be tolerated and will be removed. Individuals who do not abide by these rules are subject to having their FlyerTalk account permanently deleted."

Full text of story here (http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Business/2005031241?pt=0)

There is a good picture of the inside of BKW as one of the photos with the story. I have always liked the look of it, especially compared to the shoddy rundown look of the BLF bus station, er, airport.

A snip....
"Flights at three of West Virginia’s eight commercial airports could end if President Bush’s 2006 budget passes in its current form.

Bush’s proposal reduces funding for the Essential Air Service program from $102 million to $50 million and requires airports and their communities to contribute a matching amount — ranging from 10 to 50 percent, depending on how isolated the community is — to receive federal funding.

Communities won’t get the federal money without the match."

Opinion: I don't really care if EAS gets cut or made to locally match here in BKW/BLF. The routes that Colgan has decided to fly since the dehubbing of PIT make NO sense (2X IAD, 1X CMH) since there is little/no opportunity to connect anywhere useful. 2X CLT or even 2X DCA would have made more sense in giving people coming to/from this region better choices. I'm better served both in schedules/options and fares by driving 90 min to CRW and ROA or 2 hours to GSO or TRI.

LWB gets subsidized by the Greenbrier, so you know there's going to be affluent passengers going there.

Rant Hat On-
The purpose of EAS is not to make communities pay money for air service, it is the recognition that air service is VITAL to many of these small communities and their only links to the outside world save greyhound and private cars. Yet these options are often not viable as they are signifigantly slower then an airplane. The EAS program is not broken the whole purpose of it is to subsidize air service to towns/cities that would otherwise cost airlines money to fly to and thus would have no air service; and that is exactly what it is doing. What is very interesting to me is that if you look at rural areas in the US as a general rule the voted for Bush in both elections yet now he is proposing to cut the services that these areas recieve. :rolleyes: This whole rant can also be applied to Amtrak simply replace airservice with train service and airlines with Amtrak.
-Rant Hat Off

Just a little something from the FT rules for you to ponder.

"Any posts containing communications that are knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, obscene, profane, threatening, harassing, offensive, vulgar, abusive, hateful or bashing -- especially those aimed at sexual orientation, gender, race, color, religious views, national origin, or disability - will not be tolerated and will be removed. Individuals who do not abide by these rules are subject to having their FlyerTalk account permanently deleted."

OK, I pondered but ponder me this: which part was false and/or defamatory, inaccurate......? I was simply stating historical fact. Is that not now allowed?