Originally Posted by
3Cforme
There are FAA time limits on the duration of subsidy when the subsidy is paid from airport revenues at Federally-funded airports. You may want to study up on the relevant FAA regs. These regs also restrict how subsidies can be provided; AA as a new route entrant yes, a subsidy to Delta for existing service, no.
'Free market air service' is really an oxymoron. Few industries so heavily rely on public funding and allocation rules: airport terminals, runways, navigation, international treaty rights...
Actually these are not paid from airport revenues. The cities of Columbia, Jefferson City and counties of Cole and Boone are committing these funds. If it was federal funding I would not be so upset. It's when local tax payer dollars are used in an attempt to push out an established carrier that was gradually increasing service over the years, in favor of another carrier.
Carried to an extreme, the government might want to create a national airline (a flying Amtrak) and push the current carriers out of business. I understand subsidized essential air service, but this is not that case. Do we want the government to help out the great state of Texas by giving whatever subsidies are needed to get DL to reopen all of the gates they used to operate at DFW in the E concourse? That would push AA out of DFW - same scenario as I'm describing at COU>