Essential Air Service: A Lower Rung on the Pilot Shortage Food Chain?

Abstract

Verbatim from Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons. Not paraphrased, not summarized.

The Essential Air Service (EAS) program, established in 1978 by the federal government as a temporary measure designed to help remote communities cope with the impact of airline deregulation, subsidizes flights to certain destinations that would not otherwise have ready access to commercial air service. The airlines participating in this program fly relatively smaller aircraft and have traditionally hovered at the lower end of the salary scale. Their pilots are, nevertheless, subject to the same flight experience requirements as the major carriers. The national (or perhaps international) pilot shortage has caused some EAS carriers to abruptly terminate service leaving the related communities in the lurch. The service disruptions and increasing cost of the program over its 40-year history has not gone unnoticed by Congress. Although it would appear to be low hanging fruit for budget minded legislators, efforts to radically reduce expenditures have been only marginally successful. The lack of a ground swell movement to eliminate the program can be explained by the economic theory of concentrated benefits and disbursed costs – that is to say, the benefits of the program are concentrated in a localized few who can serve as an active voting block while the costs are disbursed among all taxpayers who hardly notice the miniscule charge. I would argue that it is reasonable and prudent at this time to dramatically reduce the number of serviced communities through incentives and sunset provisions and, furthermore, that such a reduction will have very little impact on the communities being served.

Author

• Peck, Michael Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Keywords

• Essential Air Service
• pilot shortage
• salary
• Air and Space Law