Airplane

(File photo)

The future of commercial air service in Lancaster has again been called into question with federal transportation officials threatening to pull a vital air service subsidy for a third straight year.

The Lancaster Airport in Lititz is one of five Pennsylvania airports recently hit with a notice of possible termination from the federal Essential Air Service (EAS) program, a controversial subsidy aimed at keeping commercial flights traveling to more rural parts of the country. Critics call the taxpayer funded program, worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually, wasteful, unnecessary and woefully inefficient.

The five airports -- located in Lancaster, Altoona, Bradford, Franklin/Oil City and Johnstown -- were recently informed of their possible "termination" from the program for failing to meet enplanement requirements meant to limit the mostly empty taxpayer supported flights that have been dogging the program for years.

Funds are distributed to the air carrier, in Lancaster's case Sun Air, for eligible and completed flights to and from the city, not to the airport itself.

But airports, like Lancaster's, must argue for their place in the EAS program, thereby ensuring a continuation of EAS dollars to carriers of chartered flights, like Sun Air. Without those funds, such a carrier may choose to abandon an airport or a market altogether.

Lancaster Airport has been in the EAS program since 2004 and is facing possible termination for the third year in a row, the Department of Transportation (DOT) reports.

The reason involves its failure to meet the congressionally-required threshold of 10 passengers per day.

According to the DOT, for Fiscal Year 2015, Lancaster enplaned just 4.2 passengers per day. And while demand fell, federal officials say, the airport's per passenger federal subsidy amount grew, exceeding the congressionally-required limit of $200. For Fiscal Year 2015, Lancaster's per passenger subsidy was $764, $564 above the $200 cap, DOT officials report.

Airport director David Eberly said the numbers are not in dispute. But Eberly did say the DOT measured passenger rates at a time when the carrier, not the airport, was cancelling flights and "really having a difficult time operationally to complete flights."

Since then, he said, "our numbers have increased dramatically," adding "Today we are above the threshold the DOT is looking for."

The EAS program was launched after airline deregulation in 1978, which gave air carriers almost total freedom to determine which markets to serve domestically and what fares to charge. To keep airlines from abandoning less lucrative rural markets or from spiking rural ticket prices, the Essential Air Service (EAS) program was put into place to guarantee a minimal level of scheduled air service in small communities.

But the program has been widely criticized since, with taxpayers footing the bill for 'ghost planes' chartered to locations often within driving distance or within driving distance of a larger, non-EAS funded airport. Harrisburg International Airport is within a 45 minute drive of Lancaster Airport, for example.

And through the decades, the program's cost has ballooned. Spending has increased 600 percent since 1996, and 123 percent since 2008, according to a 2015 Congressional Research Service report.

In June of last year, Congressman Tom McClintock, a California Republican, introduced legislation to eliminate funding for the program entirely, saying "This program subsidizes regular, scheduled, commercial service that practically nobody uses. If it actually had a passenger base, we wouldn't need, in effect, to hand out wads of hundred dollar bills to the few passengers who use it, would we? An airline so reckless with its funds would quickly bankrupt itself. The same principle holds true for governments."

Congress ultimately voted against cutting the program.

But requirements of EAS participating airports and airlines have been heightened in recent years, namely those designed to lower the per passenger subsidy cost by growing occupancy rates on flights.

In response, some airlines and airports have begun to offer heavily discounted tickets, some as low as $29, often with taxpayers making up the difference, sometimes at up to $764 per ticket sold, as was the case in Lancaster.

Nationwide, there are more than 100 different routes and 150 communities under the EAS program today, and most of them offer multiple flights each day.

In many cases, those planes are virtually empty, cbsnews.com reported last year.

The website said: "One 9-seat Cessna flies twice daily from Kansas City, Missouri, to Great Bend, Kansas. The government kicks in $1.4 million each year, even though there is usually just one passenger on board. Another $2.5 million per year goes to maintain near-empty daily flights to and from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, even though it's just a 40 mile drive to the larger Harrisburg airport that serves the same routes."

The report continues: "The cost to taxpayers for subsidizing those journeys has quadrupled in the last decade to a whopping $261 million, which has some lawmakers convinced the program is anything but essential."

Still, there are supporters of the EAS program, including Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) who said, "My staff and I have been in touch with all of the airports that would be affected [by the recent EAS termination warnings] and are supporting their waivers to the FAA to continue EAS."

"Eliminating or reducing the EAS program would severely damage the economies of rural communities such as Lancaster," Casey added. "It is important to retain air service to make these communities accessible for travel and commerce."

The economic argument is a popular one among EAS program supporters who believe cuts could signal a loss of competitive edge, however slight, for participating rural communities, many already struggling economically.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) could not be reached for comment Monday, while the office of Congressman Joe Pitts of Lancaster County recently declined to comment for this article.

In terms of revenue passenger enplanements, the DOT said, Lancaster is the 13th busiest airport in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Allentown, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, State College, Latrobe, Erie, Williamsport, Johnstown, DuBois, and Altoona.

Eberly, Lancaster Airport's director, said it will be up to Sun Air to determine if it will continue to operate commercial flights there if the subsidy is pulled, although termination from the program would certainly make a continuation less likely.

An attempt to reach Sun Air spokespeople was not immediately successful.

"We enjoy having airline service. We like to provide it for our community, for business travelers coming in and going out," Eberly said.

"It's a convenience for them and certainly a service we like to provide."

But without it, Eberly said, the airport would continue to operate its general aviation activities and leasing of properties to corporate tenants and businesses.

CORRECTION: Due to incorrect information supplied to PennLive, this article has been updated to correct the date of the Lancaster airport's entry into the EAS program. Correctly, it was 2004, not 2002. While an application was submitted in 2002, EAS service did not start in Lancaster until 2004.