Might be essential to someones job??? Even small towns need travel ability for some of their buisnesses.

1000% agree!!! If you subtract what is gained through this service, from what is spent, and compare it to your average contract in Iraq, it would more than pale in comparison.:eek: Oops...I did it again!

I disagree. EAS stole a huge number of (real) charter jobs. How did those people travel before EAS showed up in thier town?

I have been following this thread and I would like to state my opinion. The first is that 121 flying is only one type of flying in the aviation world. Another thing is that a great number of my/our 135 charter jobs have been lost because we cant compete with a "gobment" funded program. BTW First year pay on a twin cessna in 2009 was a salary of 38K (for me atleast)... our planes made money on those routes without government handouts.

I don't mean to wish you guys out of your jobs but it's hard not to be a little bitter when we see the things we see every day. Our Charters have slowed way down while the number of pax flying stays the same.

The way I see it was we were doing fine. I was fairly compensated. The locals that needed to fly chartered a flight. Now, three 1900's fly in a day. Not one flight has more than 5 people on it. On your route I burn 55 gal, a 1900 is burning 150-180 gal.

What makes this program worth the money when there were guys already there doing it right? Maybe some towns needed it but mine sure didn't.

Just my opinion, flame away!

No flaming from me. But, I think you were, just maybe, flying for a failing business. I'm not sure you could directly attribute it to EAS. Chances are, the city was set up as EAS well before the charter company started, anyway, so they should have been aware of that fact and planned for that, prior to setting up the business. There is a little market overlap, I admit, but I don't believe it would be enough to send a charter company to the grave. I worked for a charter company (not as a pilot), before I flew for Lakes, that was within a 20 minute drive of one of the largest hubs in the country. They had no issue making money, and felt very little direct competition from the major airlines. A lot of smaller charter companies actually compensate their workers pretty poorly, and provide zero benefits. The one I worked for compensated their King Air pilots less than I am compensated in the 1900. In the 1900, I can think of only a few destinations that we serve, that are served by a charter company, as well. I don't believe the actual effect is quite as dramatic as you make it out to be, but I admit, there may be a little market overlap, and a small negative effect to the charter industry. But, we probably have 2-3 pilots jobs created, for every charter pilot job that may, or may not have been lost, as a result of EAS. We do need to negotiate higher compensation; I have no excuse for that. It should be directly in-line with industry average on type/ aircraft size. We're working on that. Final point. How many major airline jobs are created as an indirect result of EAS? I would reckon that the number is pretty significant. Remember, almost all EAS providers have code shares, or fly as express carriers for major airlines. We feed people to the hubs, to travel on the majors. Most of our business doesn't involve people just looking for a flight to the hub. They are looking at going to another final destination, which will involve flying on a major airline. Charter companies aren't specifically established to feed people to the hubs, like the EAS program is, and they don't have code share agreements, which provides the majors with money and passengers. How many major airline jobs would be eliminated, if we abandoned EAS, and charter expanded to the point where it was actually taking away major airline jobs; Example: It would be cheaper and faster to charter an aircraft to get a group of executives to a final destination, over chartering a bus to drive your executives 300 miles, to the hub, so they could hop on a major airline, and eventually fly to their final destination. Without EAS, not only would you miss out on the direct feed to the majors, more people would completely bypass the airline system to get to their final destination, both resulting in the elimination of major airline jobs in significant numbers.

I'm in the CGI and MWA area, and they both are going with Cape Air. Subject to DOT approval.

There's an allegiance to St. Louis among all these small towns, that is unfounded as far as airline service is confirmed. The local leaders live in the past glory of the Ozark and TWA hubs, not understanding the modern realities.

DEC might be too close to other airports, but UIN, TBN, CGI, and MWA, would be better off soliciting RJ service to ORD, from an AA or UA regional. Don't know if the numbers would work or not, but it would be worth a look.

St. Louis is still a goto place for hospitals and baseball, but it's days as a viable airline hub are over.

Just curious who your source is, cause my sources are saying somthing else? Just curious cause
I did see that local 12 reported that the airport board recomended going with Cape air but still subject to a county or city board vote??? Cant find any new reports of Marion Ill going with Cape air though.

Somebody who needs to travel for their job can drive the 2 hours to STL in my opinion. Maybe it's just me, but I don't even think of a 2 hour drive as a long drive. If the person is not willing to make the drive, they can live and/or work somewhere else. I still don't see how it is the responsibility of a taxpayer in Dallas to make sure that somebody in Marion has access to an airplane that flies them somewhere they could drive in 2 hours.

Yes, but when you add the cost of EAS to the cost of our illegal war in Iraq, you just increase the national debt. Just because you aren't adding as big of a chunk doesn't mean it's ok to add it...though most of Congress seems to disagree with that view.

I generally agree with your sentiments. Government subsidies for one company mean a lack of free market principles and a destruction of the ability for companies to compete for business. If these places are so lucrative/wonderful/worthwhile to live in, then the people who live there either need to learn to afford to foot the bill for their air service, learn to drive the 2 hours to the airport nearby, or decide to live in an area that suits their needs better.

As you know, we codeshare with United and Frontier. They both have a very very tiny presence in STL. AA also barely has any flights in STL. Southwest has a bunch but nobody codeshares with them. Point is, there are hardly any codeshare connections on us into STL. If we went to ORD, I think we'd have a ton more people flying.

I agree completely. I was talking to an AA/former TWA guy on the jumpseat in to STL today and I was talking about how much of a ghost town the airport is. He said TWA used to have almost 850 flights/day in STL. Now AA is decreasing the number to 38 departures per day. ORD would make so much more sense. You can't get anywhere from STL.


Again, although I disagree with EAS in principle and think it's generally unconstitutional, I can agree that there are communities out there that do greatly benefit from having EAS in their town. UIN, DEC, MWA, CGI are just too close to STL for it to be important to them in my opinion...and I think that's probably pretty evident when you look at our flight loads. No flaming needed in this thread, just some friendly discussion about the ridiculousness that is the airline industry.

I think the real issue with ORD is securing slots and the unjust cost of doing so, makes it almost impossible to do even with EAS monies

Yeah, that's what I've heard. I've heard from multiple people that ORD won't even allow turboprops to service that airport, but I doubt there's much truth to that. I would think that if we're codesharing with United, we could use some of their gates, but I have experience with that and it's ridiculous. We'd spend an insane amount of time in the penalty box.