In Brief:
- The government shutdown, which has dragged out to 28 days, could risk funding for Essential Air Service, a U.S. DOT program that subsidizes commercial flights to small airports.
- Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced earlier this month that DOT had secured $41 million more to extend funding through Nov. 2.
- Some flight providers say they’ll continue serving Essential Air Service communities, but an extended shutdown could test those commitments.
Waterloo Regional Airport in Iowa’s Cedar Valley, a six-county region about halfway between Minneapolis and St. Louis, runs a fairly limited commercial air service. It only uses one model of jet, the Embraer E170, a single-aisle plane with capacity for about 50 passengers. It has two departures and two arrivals per day. And it serves one destination: Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
The airport itself only has seven employees, including Steven Kjergaard, the director of aviation. But airports are sort of like malls, Kjergaard says. Airport workers operate and maintain the facility, but it provides employment for lots of other people too, including Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, air traffic controllers, vendors and flight crews. With an annual average of around 12,000 enplanements — the technical term for a passenger boarding an airplane — Waterloo Regional is among the smallest airports in the country.
Commercial flights probably wouldn’t serve northeastern Iowa at all if it weren’t for Essential Air Service, a federal program that subsidizes flights to small rural airports. The program was established in the late 1970s to ensure that some commercial service would continue to serve small markets even after the removal of much federal control over the aviation industry. The program subsidizes all the flights in and out of Waterloo Regional Airport, to the tune of about $7.5 million a year. It subsidizes service to many smaller airports as well — more than 170 airports around the country, 65 of which are in Alaska.
The federal government shutdown threatens this service. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) notified communities that it would stop reimbursing Essential Air Service flights after Oct. 12 because of lapses in federal funding. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy later announced that the department had “secured $41 million in additional funding to sustain the Essential Air Service (EAS) program” through Nov. 2. Many of the commercial airlines that provide service have said they’ll keep running flights to small markets in the short term, but that they’d “re-evaluate” if the shutdown drags on much longer.
“We just hope that this gets resolved so we don’t see an interruption of service,” says Kjergaard. “We provide an important link and a great economic engine to the Cedar Valley.”
The government shutdown has complicated air travel in a variety of ways. TSA agents and air traffic controllers — federal workers who provide critical security services at every airport in the country — are currently working without pay. More airports are beginning to report staffing shortages as the shutdown reaches its fourth week, already the second-longest shutdown in U.S. history. Those issues could lead to delays at airports as the holiday travel season approaches. And if the Essential Air Service program funding does in fact lapse, many rural communities could lose air service altogether.
The Department of Transportation did not respond to questions from Governing about how it found the additional $41 million or what would happen after Nov. 2. Small airports and Essential Air Service flight operators are in a holding pattern, but some seem to think the flights will continue even in the event of a prolonged shutdown.
“We are not expecting any impacts in the near future,” Jeremy Patton, the director of Cortez Municipal Airport in southwest Colorado, said earlier this month. That airport hosts EAS flights operated by Denver Air Connection, a subsidiary of Colorado-based Key Lime Air. Denver Air Connection announced earlier this month that it would continue its flights despite the shutdown. “We have no intention of suspending service or cancelling flights,” Jon Coleman, the company’s senior vice president for strategy and business development, said in a press release on Oct. 6. “We understand how important these flights are for our passengers. For the foreseeable future, all DAC flights will operate as scheduled.”
Envoy Air, a regional operator owned by American Airlines, is also planning to continue flights for now. “American values its partnership with DOT and the EAS communities we serve, and we have no plans to cancel or reduce service in the immediate term,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Still, even with assurances from many flight providers, airport directors are hoping for an end to the shutdown. Johnstown Airport in Johnstown, Pa., runs daily round-trip flights to Chicago and Washington, D.C. It has a small maintenance staff that’s also trained to be first responders in the case of an emergency. Its air traffic control services are run by a squadron of U.S. Air Force members, whose pay has also been disrupted by the shutdown. The airport also hosts an aviation maintenance technician program run by Saint Francis University and a flight school with 80 students.
Cory Cree, the Johnstown Airport manager, is used to serving flights with political luminaries visiting western Pennsylvania and often emphasizes to his staff that they have to leave their political beliefs at home. He wouldn’t offer a judgment about who’s to blame for the shutdown. Johnstown Airport hasn’t seen staffing challenges yet, according to Cree. But the airport “has to have a place to fly to” as well, and the longer the shutdown lasts, the more it could affect airport staff around the country, as well as the traveling public, he says.
“The longer it drags out, the more damage it causes to everyone,” he says. “That’s the real heroes at the moment — everybody that’s willing to continue to work and not get paid until this thing is over.”
