I flew EAS routes throughout the east coast, midwest and Southwest for 4 years for Air Midwest in Beechcraft 1900's.

Many times I thought that it was crazy that government money was spent to supplement service to some of these communities. This came to an end when I actually talked to a number of my passengers on Albuquerque to Silver City, NM flight.

One was an Oncologist based in Albuquerque who flew down on the first flight to Silver City in the morning, was driven to the hospital and had appointments every 30 minutes all day long until the absolute last minute upon which he would jump back onto the last flight that evening back to Albuquerque. Without the EAS flights, these patients (many of whom could not travel to ABQ for visits, etc.) would not have any specialists to consult regarding a life threatening illness.

The second was a orthopedic surgeon who filled the back of the airplane with boxes of artificial hip balls, etc. He would do 2-3 operations during his stay in Silver City and take the last flight back to ABQ.

The more I talked to these people on my flights, the more I found that a lot of these communities quality of life would be drastically altered if EAS was not in place.

It looks like the EAS program is another government boondoggle, but in a lot of cases it is a lifeline to the rest of the world. On the West Coast distances made some communities completely inaccessible. On the east coast (Appalachians, etc.) these communities were so far off the beaten path and in the mountains that automobile travel really wasnt an effective option for medical and essential personnel visiting from larger cities.

At the other extreme....I flew from Kansas City to Topeka, KS (A very short flight) for over a year each day without ever carrying a single passenger...NOT ONE! We were flying just to record the completion and get paid by the government. Flying an empty 1900 each way day after day just reminded me that this was a tremendous waste. (Not a complete waste....the FBO at Topeka had a great free popcorn machine......CREW MEAL!!!!) Topeka had service just for political reasons.. no other reason. It was a short and easy drive to MCI. Truly a waste. It is a good program, but gets abused by some communities who really don't need the service. The program just needs a lot of tweaking.

Today I fly the LUVJet into big airports, but my best times in this business were wrestling the Beech 1900 into a hundred little towns that nobody has ever heard of. Memories!