Originally Posted by
MrBigAir
It's very easy to wave a hand and tell other people that they are "free to move." People may not want to move for whatever reasons they may have. Home is home. It's incredibly expensive to move. There's a sense of place, a support network, maybe that family has been there for generations, or a myriad of other reasons.
A good point. People have family and jobs that they can't just uproot and take elsewhere. I personally wouldn't want to live in most of the communities served by EAS but that's my personal choice, as living there is their choice. If their choice means they don't get easy and cheap access to air travel, that's one thing, but anyone who just made the argument "if you don't like it then move" never gets to complain about commuting ever again.
Now, I'm not a complete idiot. The country is broke and I agree that some of these cities probably don't need them. My company does two cities. One is fairly isolated, driving wise, and one is within a 45 minute or hour drive of two cities with some non subsidized regional service. The former city usually provides fuller flights. I think it's worth reevaluating which of these routes is really useful and eliminating the ones that aren't. EAS is still valuable to many communities, especially out west, and completely eliminating the program would be a disservice to the communities and to the aviation industry. I also agree that $400 million is a drop in the bucket compared to other massive programs that need to be trimmed down. I think ultimately they'll find a middle ground and keep some of the program.
Either way there needs to be some compromise between "lets subsidize everything" and "the government shouldn't help anybody." It seems like people are so closed minded and opposed to dialogue about any idea's they disagree with. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion but I just personally get worried by this "if you don't like it, **** you" mentality that seems to be more and more pervasive. It's the real world and the government is always going to do things you disagree with no matter what your affiliations are. It's no secret that aviation is an industry populated by right leaning pilots (at least in my experience) who want less government involvement in everyday life and that's fine. But I'm just surprised that any professional pilot would want to see money cut from any aviation related programs when there's other needs to be addressed first.