I'd like to throw a little light on this piece from USA Today reporter, Thomas Frank. He begins by using as his example, a small airport in Williamsburg, Kentucky. This airport is more than an hour's drive from the nearest airport served by the airlines, yet he seems upset that this airport is receiving Federal funding because those airlines do not serve this community.
Is it fair to suppose that only those airports used by airliners are of use to the public?
Small airports that do not see airliner service provide other sorts of service to their surrounding community. Farmers rely upon crop-dusters to keep their fields pest-free and provide a reliable food supply for the rest of the nation. The automated weather reporting system at Williamsburg and thousands of other small airports transmits a continuous stream of detailed weather information to the National Weather Service. You, I, and the airlines benefit.
Police and fire officers use the airport to protect local citizens. Search and rescue flights, forest-fire fighters as well as disaster relief services need these small airports. Life-flights transport accident victims and critically ill patients to urgently needed treatment as well as carrying transplant organs and other vital medical products on very short notice.
Not mentioned in the article, the small Williamsburg airport, owned by Whitley County, which was used as an example, has recently welcomed AirEvac Lifeteam air ambulance that provides free flights to members for life- or limb-threatening emergencies. The article in USA Today also failed to mention the decision of the county to build a replacement on the airport for the old FEMA trailer that has been serving as the base for the county's EMS service.
Local commerce benefits from small airports. Even if you have never had a package delivered by FedEx or another air delivery service to a local airport, the chances are great that the businesses you frequent in your community have. There are industries and companies that insist they will not operate in a community without a nearby airport.
Directly and indirectly, airports provide jobs and sell goods and services that boost the local economy. In addition to flight schools, aviation fuel, aircraft maintenance and parts, airports bring trade to local hotels, restaurants, and sports and recreational businesses. There are also the fun things that airports bring, airshows, banner tows, parachute drops, and animal rescue flights.
General Aviation airports provide essential transportation services to small communities. It is easy to use a broad brush to condemn businessmen and elected officials for using small aircraft to fly from one meeting to another. It is easy to envy them the painless personal service of private aviation. But, really, does it make sense? Sometimes businessmen or officials would have to spend two or three times as long traveling by car.
Is it fair for passenger ticket fees to be used to improve airports not served by airlines?
The USA Today article states that the Airport Improvement Program is funded by passenger airline ticket fees. It fails to mention that General Aviation contributes to the same fund through fuel taxes that are five times greater than those paid by airlines or that the airports used by airlines receive the lion's share of the AIP funds.
The eleven million dollars in grants to the Williamsburg airport sounds like quite a lot until you compare it with the quarter-billion dollars in grants to the Nashville airport or the nearly half-billion dollars granted to the Louisville airport, about 100 miles away. It even pales by comparison with an equivalent length of highway. According to the US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, constructing a mile of Interstate highway costs around $10 to $40 million per mile. Williamsburg airport's runway is a little more than a mile long and its taxiway is another mile long. It looks like Williamsburg got a bargain.
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association likes to say, "a mile of highway gets you one mile, a mile of runway gets you anywhere."
