Now that the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have passed their respective FAA funding bills for FY2004, it’s anyone’s guess when the conference committee charged with hammering out a compromise reaches a consensus. But to regional airlines and small communities that have come to depend on Essential Air Service subsidies, the timing matters less than the profound changes potentially in store for next year, regardless of both bills’ apparent commitment to keep funding at $113 million for the next three years.
Granted, maintaining funding levels represents a big victory in and of itself, given the Bush Administration’s February proposal to reduce EAS distributions to $50 million and completely abolish the Small Community Air Service Development Pilot Program. The Administration plan would also have required local communities within a 210-mile radius of a large or medium-size hub to match 25 percent of the federal disbursement. For airlines outside that 210-mile radius, the proposal would have required a 10-percent match.
