Proposal would lead to fewer flights to rural Alaska, critics say

Air carriers would reduce the number of flights serving some remote Alaska towns and villages -- and charge more for tickets when they do arrive -- under a new proposal to reduce federal spending, say critics of the plan.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has proposed an amendment to an FAA reauthorization bill that would eliminate a program that spends more than $12 million a year to guarantee regular flights to 44 Alaska communities. The subsidies are part of the nationwide, $200 million Essential Air Service program that uses federal money to lower commercial air-travel costs to airports where it might otherwise be too expensive to fly. Alaska's congressional delegation is fighting efforts to cut the program.

"Minor budget cuts on the backs of rural America are not acceptable," Meredith Kenny, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Don Young, said in an e-mail Thursday.

Most of the communities subsidized by the program cannot be reached by road, according to a May 2010 list from the Department of Transportation.

Alaska Airlines is receiving about $2.7 million for flights to the Southeast village of Yakutat, for example, according to Transportation Department figures.

That amounts to about $4,300 per person in the community of 628 people.

Some conservatives are targeted the program as a way to shrink the federal budget.

U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, with three other Senate Democrats, has sent a letter to McCain opposing the amendment. "Eliminating EAS means driving up the price of air transportation which inflates the cost of milk, toilet paper, diapers and everything Sen. McCain's constituents can find in a box store or shopping mall," Begich said in prepared statement.

Both Young and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski also are expected to vigorously oppose any cuts to the service, even in the face of the anti-spending mood in Congress.

"In much of Alaska, air service is not a luxury, it's a necessity," Murkowski said.

"No matter how far away you are in the Lower 48, you can always get in your car and drive to the nearest airport," she said. "But in Alaska, that is not an option."

The late Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was a long-time defender of the subsidies, and in 2008 criticized proposed cuts to the service in President George W. Bush's final budget.

Under the subsidy, a one-way ticket from Circle (population 99) to Fairbanks is about $99, said Michael Morgan, director of operations for Fairbanks-based Warbelow's Air Ventures.

The same flight could cost passengers "significantly" more if the subsidy disappears, Morgan said. "The net result will be less frequent service and higher ticket prices."

Warbelow's is receiving more than $575,000 from the program to provide regular flights to five small Interior communities, according to the Transportation Department.

Alaska Airlines receives more than $8 million a year for two essential air service contracts in the state -- one to Adak, 350 miles west of Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands, and one to a collection of five Southeast communities.

The program was created to ensure that less-profitable routes to small airports wouldn't be eliminated when airline service was deregulated in 1978. It pays airlines to provide scheduled service to about 150 communities, from Muscle Shoals, Ala., to Pelican, Alaska.

McCain's proposal is shaping up as an early test in the new Congress of conservatives' zeal for shrinking the federal government.

"It will be a test of the willingness to cut spending," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who proposed the amendment.

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