Dealing with fallout from new FAA rules

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

In the case of air service, rural Nebraskans may be starting to feel a draft.

Maintaining air service at small airports like McCook has been a long-term battle, dating back to the deregulation of the airline industry during the Reagan years.

Without regulation, profit-oriented businesses like airlines would be unlikely to serve small markets with only dozens of passengers instead of hundreds. That hurts business, putting smaller towns at a disadvantage when it comes to attracting and maintaining industries who rely on timely, reliable air transportation.

Thus Essential Air Service was born, first as a temporary solution that has been extended to the present.

President George W. Bush attempted to cut the subsidy to a total of $50 million, but it has grown to $241 million for 160 communities, 43 of them in Alaska.

Former Sen. Ben Nelson's work as a champion of the subsidy was recognized through the renaming of his hometown airport in his honor.

On the surface, new federal regulations requiring co-pilots to have at least 1,500 hours of flight time aren't designed to disrupt rural air service, but that has been the effect.

Officially, they were drafted in response to crashes involving commuter airlines and supposedly low-time, overworked and under-rested pilots, but the Federal Aviation Administration rules are well on their way to disrupting service to small communities, ours included.

Lawmakers with Essential Air Service in their crosshairs couldn't have done a better job of undermining the program.

Great Lakes Airlines is one of the airlines caught in the trap, forced to cancel flights and carrying fewer than 30 passengers in May compared to six times that the same month the previous year.

Without being able to count on local air service, most travelers found other options, usually driving to major airports.

When they do, that cuts the enplanement statistics, which makes it hard for small airports to qualify for EAS.

But that's not all; even general aviation is threatened. With fewer than 10,000 enplanements per year, small airports no longer qualify for the Airport Improvement Program, which helps improve infrastructure such as runways, taxiways, noise control, navigational aids, safety and security.

U.S. Rep. Adrian Smith took up the cause, recently introducing the Small Airport Regulatory Relief Act, which would require the Federal Aviation Administration to use enplanement numbers from 2012, before the 1,500-hour regulations went into effect, in appropriating funds for the Airport Improvement Program for the next two years.

Whether or not taxpayers should be asked to subsidize air service or any transportation is a fair question that should be debated in an open manner as proposed laws are considered.

The fallout from those laws, whether through unintended consequences or through devious maneuvering, should be subject to open debate as well.