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Essential Air Service at Altoona and Johnstown, Pennsylvania

We have decided to select Colgan to provide subsidized EAS at both Altoona and Johnstown, in accordance with its Option 2. In this case, both carriers have a good track record of providing reliable air service at small communities. Both have full code-share relationships with US Airways and both would serve US Airways’ major hub at Pittsburgh, providing excellent access to the national air transportation system. Shuttle America would use 33-seat Saab aircraft whereas Colgan would use 19-seat Beech 1900s. We find that either carrier could capably provide reliable air service at these communities. The City of Altoona supports the selection of Colgan while Johnstown supports Shuttle America. Given these circumstances, the relative subsidy requirements become decisional. We have examined all the possible options. Selecting Colgan’s Altoona-only option ($719,595) coupled with Shuttle America’s Johnstown option ($461,708) would require $1,181,303. Choosing Shuttle America to serve both communities would require a total of $1,050,818. Colgan, however, would serve both communities for a combined annual subsidy rate of $847,509.

Both Altoona and Johnstown generate large amounts of traffic. Using its 1900s, Colgan would be able to easily accommodate existing demand at Altoona. Johnstown, however, has traditionally been a larger traffic generator than Altoona, and Colgan would be able to accommodate current demand at the community, albeit at relatively high load factors. We are nevertheless satisfied that the three round trips that Colgan will provide in the Johnstown-Pittsburgh market will afford the Johnstown community with an adequate “safety net” of maintaining a connection to the nation’s air transportation system and thus fulfilling the core objective of the EAS program. The fact that the community may generate additional traffic will hopefully provide an incentive to Colgan to accommodate such traffic with extra frequencies or larger aircraft during peak times. In that regard, we note that Colgan operates a fleet of both Beech 1900s and Saab 340s. Given all of the above, including Colgan’s excellent track record of providing reliable air service at many small communities, we do not find sufficient basis to justify spending as much as an additional $333,794 per year in subsidy.

By:  Randall Bennett

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