Jeff Bingaman United States Senator from New Mexico

U.S. SENATOR Jeff Bingaman

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Contact Senator Bingaman's Office:

Jude McCartin
Maria Najera
703 Hart Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5521

Bingaman Bill Bolsters Commercial Air Service in New Mexico Communities

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman has joined with Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to reintroduce bipartisan legislation to improve a program that helps several New Mexico communities retain commercial air service. 

The Rural Aviation Improvement Act would work to preserve and improve the Essential Air Service Program (EAS), which provides commercial air service to over 100 communities in 35 states.  Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all. 

“The Essential Air Service Program ensures that many of New Mexico’s smaller communities have access to dependable air service.  This bill would help improve the program and ensure it continues to provide important transportation services to parts of our state,” Bingaman said.

The bill makes a number of important improvements to the EAS program, including the following:

• Permanently repeals a provision put in place by the 2002 FAA Reauthorization Act requiring a community to pay a portion of the cost (up to 10%) to keep its limited commercial air service;
• Modifies an existing provision that caps the EAS subsidy at $200 per passenger for communities within 210 miles of a medium or large hub airport. The cap was set in 2000 and has never been adjusted for inflation or increases in airline costs.  The bill includes an annual increase in the cost cap to reflect inflation;
• Establishes a procedure for a community that has lost its commercial air service because the $200/passenger cap had been exceeded to apply to re-enter the program if it can demonstrate the cost of the service no longer exceeds the cap;
• Include incentives for airlines to participate and stay in the EAS program by requiring subsidy payments to be adjusted to reflect changes in operating cost, such as the cost of fuel;
• Requires FAA to include passenger boardings on charter flights departing from EAS communities to be included in total the passenger boardings used to calculate an airport’s annual apportionment for the Airport Improvement Program, which is currently delineated by a 10,000 enplanement threshold.  If a community is below that threshold, it is eligible for $150,000 and $1 million if above the threshold.

Additionally, the bill extends the Department of Transportation’s authority to provide grants to cities under the Small Community Air Service Development program through 2013.  It was first established in 2000. 

The Small Community program helps rural communities establish new air service or to promote and improve their existing air service. Since it was first enacted a number of New Mexico communities have won grants, including most recently Roswell in 2007 to help promote the new regional jet service to Dallas.  

Congress established the Essential Air Service Program in 1978 to ensure that communities that had commercial air service before deregulation continue to receive scheduled service.   Without EAS, many rural communities would have no commercial air service at all.  New Mexico’s four EAS communities: Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Clovis and Silver City.