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A spatial analysis of air transport access and the essential air service program in the United States
Journal of Transport Geography 19 (2011) 93–105
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Journal of Transport Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo
A spatial analysis of air transport access and the essential air service program in the United States Tony H. Grubesic a,*, Timothy C. Matisziw b a b
Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, United States Department of Geography and Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Keywords: Essential air service Airports Hubs Accessibility Spatial analysis Market leakage Public policy
In the United States, the goal of essential air service (EAS) is to provide a minimum level of air transport service from smaller, often remote communities to the national network. While supporters of EAS tout the economic benefits of connecting rural and isolated communities, critics cite high costs, low use and antiquated eligibility requirements as factors which compromise the value of the program. In this paper, a comprehensive database of US airports is combined with network analysis techniques and a geographic information system to evaluate population access (at the census tract level) to EAS airports for 2006. Results suggest that redundant coverage of EAS market areas by alternative Federal Aviation Administration designated hub airports can contribute to EAS airport market leakage and that alternative definitions of EAS community eligibility have the potential to dramatically increase programmatic efficiency and reduce federal monies spent on EAS subsidies. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Between 1938 and 1978, the US airline industry was regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). During this era, if commercial carriers wished to provide domestic service between communities, the CAB required them to file an application for a Section 401 certificate. If the carrier was deemed ‘‘fit” for providing service, a certificate was issued and it was expected that the carrier operate at least two daily round trips for each point on the certificate (OAA, 2009).1 However, with deregulation looming in mid-1970s and the likely disbandment of the CAB, there were concerns that carriers would drop passenger service in smaller communities without government approval – a move that would allow airlines to strengthen their focus on more profitable routes. In an effort to insulate smaller and more vulnerable communities from losing service, Section 419 was added to the Federal Aviation Act, establishing the Essential Air Service (EAS) program.2 EAS is a federally subsidized program that provides small communities throughout the United States and Alaska with a minimum level of air transport service, connecting them through carrier hubs to the national network. Initially slated to provide subsidies for 10 years, the program has continued to receive support (and fund-
ing) since 1978. Nicknamed ‘‘flying pork” by some, it is obvious that EAS is not without controversy (Gillies, 2004). Services between smaller communities and geographically proximal airports are cited as wasteful and woefully underutilized (Frank, 2007). Consider, for example, the subsidized route between the EAS community of Lewistown, Montana to its nearest hub airport city, Billings, Montana.3 During 2006, airfares on this route cost $88 with a 30-day advance purchase on Big Sky airlines. However, the government cost was $1343 per passenger. According to the US Department of transportation, this route averaged two people per day during 2006. Proponents of EAS suggest that without such subsidies, smaller communities throughout the more rural portions of the United States would suffer. For example, in a response to proposed cuts to EAS during fiscal year 2007, the National Grange (2006), the oldest agricultural organization in the United States with members in 3600 communities in 37 states stated: ‘‘The communities located in the rural areas of this country suffer from economic isolationism, scarce resources, and the loss of farms and younger families not willing to stay. The creation of economic opportunities can ameliorate these difficulties. Providing service such as EAS is one of the only ways to help our rural communities.”
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.H. Grubesic). 1 As noted by Wensveen (2007), fitness of the applicant referred to carrier financial resources, flight equipment, service history and strategy for conducting the proposed operations. 2 Section 419 is now 49 U.S.C. 41731-41742.
3 Lewistown is a 2 h drive from Billings, an FAA-designated small hub. The nearest medium or large hub to Lewistown is Salt Lake City International (SLC) (665 miles) or Denver International (DEN) (690 miles). According to the EAS guidelines, flights from subsidized airports can make no more than one intermediate stop on their way to a hub. In this instance, Billings is likely the intermediate stop prior to SLC or DEN.
0966-6923/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.12.006
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Given this context, there are several important questions pertaining to EAS which need to be addressed. First, if essential air service subsidies were eliminated, would it drastically reduce opportunities for smaller, more rural communities in the United States to access the national air transport system? Second, given the existing landscape of EAS subsidized communities, is there any redundancy in airport market coverage with larger, geographically proximal airports? Finally, if the program was not completely eliminated, would it be possible to better prioritize EAS subsidies by reevaluating community eligibility and then assessing the potential impacts of EAS inclusion/exclusion on community access to the air transport system? In an effort to address these questions, this paper develops an analytical framework for evaluating the contingencies associated with both modifying and eliminating the EAS program in the contiguous 48 states. Specifically, by utilizing network analysis techniques and a geographic information system (GIS), census tractbased market areas for all 108 EAS airports (year 2006) are generated and subjected to a proximity analysis with FAA designated hubs to determine if redundant market coverage exists in the airport system. It is important to note that the use of census tracts instead of cities as the unit of analysis provides a significantly more refined and accurate estimation of population accessibility to airports. In addition to the accessibility analysis, a series of ‘‘what if” scenarios are generated to help deepen our understanding of how the EAS program, specifically community eligibility requirements, could be modified to make the allocation of federal subsidies more efficient. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides more background information on the Essential Air Service program, including community eligibility requirements and related issues. We then outline the components of measuring spatial access and airport market redundancies in Section 3. Results are presented in Section 4 and we conclude with a brief discussion of the results, highlighting implications for public policy.
2009). Communities are also not eligible if subsidies exceed $200 per passenger, although communities more than 210 highway miles from medium or large hubs are exempt from this restriction.4 Given the previously mentioned criteria, it is clear that the FAA plays an important role in helping determine EAS eligibility, albeit indirectly. According to the FAA (2009), publicly owned airports that have at least 2500 passenger boardings per each calendar year are considered ‘‘commercial”. From that group, the FAA classifies airports by the percentage of annual passenger boardings for the entire system. For example, large hubs board 1% or more of the total passengers in the US, medium hubs at least 0.25% but less than 1%, small hubs at least 0.05% but less than 0.25% and non-hub primary airports more than 10,000 passengers, but less than 0.05% of the total system (Fig. 1). Interestingly, as discussed in the next section, 45.8% of the US population lives within 70 miles of a large hub with 63.6% living within 70 miles of a large or medium hub and 79.6% living within 70 miles of a large, medium or small hub. Where EAS service levels are concerned, the federal government subsidizes between two and four roundtrip flights per day, per community, on aircraft with a 19 seat capacity. As of fiscal year (FY) 2009, $123 million are allocated to the program and there are 107 communities in the contiguous 48 states and Puerto Rico with an additional 45 communities in Alaska that participate. A final note regarding the EAS program pertains to carrier market entry and exit. In all EAS communities, carriers must file a 90 day notice if they plan to exit the market, regardless of carrier subsidy status (subsidized or subsidy-free). The USDOT then attempts to recruit a carrier willing to enter the market on a subsidy-free basis. If this is not possible, a request for proposals is issued and the lowest-cost proposal is typically selected, but other aspects of carrier ‘‘fitness” are also considered.5 Incumbent carriers are not allowed to suspend service until a replacement carrier is found. However, if the incumbent goes out of business, there may be a service hiatus in an EAS community (OAA, 2009). 2.2. Evaluating EAS
2. Background 2.1. EAS program As noted in the introduction, the major impetus for developing the EAS program was that the federal government recognized that deregulation, while stimulating competition between carriers on popular routes connecting large cities, would likely lead to a reduced or complete elimination of services for smaller communities. Initially, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA) stated that any community receiving scheduled air service from a certificated carrier (n = 746) was eligible for the EAS program. This is somewhat of an oddity, because this included communities like Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Obviously, there was very little chance that the ADA would motivate carriers to abandon these cities, thus, they were never slated to receive subsidies (OAA, 2009). Although the guidelines specifying community eligibility have changed somewhat through the years (Reynolds-Feighan, 1995), the OAA (2009) notes that both Congress and the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) have worked to ‘‘streamline the EAS program and increase efficiency, mostly by eliminating subsidy support for communities that are within a reasonable drive of a major hub airport.” Specifically, communities are not eligible if they are located less than 70 miles from a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) designated large or medium hub airport. To assess this defined access standard, driving distance is typically measured from the location of city hall in a community to the property boundary of an airport using the shortest network path (USDOT,
Much of the literature regarding the EAS program is dated, although many of the pertinent issues raised in this work remain salient. For example, although Kaemmerle (1991) did not directly target EAS for evaluation, he did provide an analytical framework for estimating the demand-side determinants for air service in smaller communities.6 Using enplanements as the dependent variable and a suite of independent covariates, which included the population of an airport service area (defined as a MSA), per capita income and local employment base and air service characteristics of proximal airports (seats available, departures and fares), he fit a series of regression models to explain variations in service demand. Interestingly, Kaemmerle (1991) also used a simple gravity model to estimate the attractiveness of alternative access points to the national air network. Specifically, hub alternatives not located in the smaller community were defined as airports within a reasonable driving distance of 200 miles. Attractiveness was directly related to the weekly number of departures and inversely related to the square of the driving distance. Cunningham and Eckard (1987) explicitly evaluate the EAS program in an attempt to determine if subsidies were actually necessary. Using a relatively simple series of hypotheses and t-tests, the
4 Subsidy cutoffs are calculated by dividing the annual subsidy by the annual passengers generated. 5 Carrier fitness reflects a combination of previous carrier performance, financial condition, and other factors. For more details, see the Office of Aviation Analysis (http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/aviatanalysis.htm). 6 Fleming and Ghobrial (1992) and Reynolds-Feighan (1995) also explored this issue.
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Fig. 1. FAA designated hubs, commercial non-hubs and EAS airports.
authors concluded that ‘‘while subsidies have produced somewhat lower fares, they have little impact on other quality variables, and may have actually reduced flight frequency” (1987, 275). As a result, the authors recommend that the EAS program be eliminated. Vowles (1999) takes a somewhat different approach and estimates the probability of communities losing air service given a set of operational, economic, geographic and social determinants. Interestingly, results suggest that without EAS, all of the communities in Eastern Montana (e.g., Glasgow, Glendive, Miles City) have an extremely high probability of losing service. Because all of these cities hub to Billings and the incumbent carrier is Big Sky Airlines (which has no affiliation with any other carrier), all travel beyond Billings is considered interline travel (changing carriers) which tends to be quite expensive. Furthermore, only about 33% of the seats are filled on these routes. Flynn and Ratick (1988) propose a multiobjective optimization model to provide both methodological and empirical support for helping maximize access to the air transportation system. More importantly, the authors use the developed tools to evaluate potential changes to the EAS program, utilizing a case study in North and South Dakota. Results indicate that variations in subsidies level have a significant impact on both service coverage and service patterns. In related analyses, several papers highlight additional factors pertaining to airport service that are important considerations when evaluating the EAS program. First, Vowles (1999), Fuellhart (2007), Tierney and Kuby (2008) and Ishii et al. (2009) among others suggest that airport leakage is a significant concern in both multi-airport regions as well as for single airports in smaller, more rural communities. Simply put, leakage occurs in airport market areas because consumers believe the benefits associated with patronizing alternative airports outweigh the costs of access. This
can include lower fares, more convenient scheduling or airline preferences. Second, Kanafani and Abbas (1987) suggest that a consolidation of traffic occurs at larger airports, particularly for those located in regions with many small communities lying within a 100 miles radius. These smaller airports, therefore, experience declining enplanements due to airport leakage. Considering that nearly 64% of the US population lives within 70 miles of a large or medium sized hub, the implications for EAS service could be significant. Finally, Matisziw and Grubesic (2010) suggest that there is a major difference between access and accessibility for the air transport system. Geurs and Van Wee (2004, 128) define accessibility as the ‘‘extent to which land-use and transport systems enable (groups of) individuals to reach activities or destinations by means of a (combination of) transport mode(s)”. Conversely, access generally focuses on the proximity of transportation options to individuals or areas demanding a service (Murray and Davis, 2001). Where air transport is concerned, opportunities for travel within the system vary greatly between airports, particularly when considering the number of direct, nonstop destinations offered. Given this context, accessibility for each airport within the system is assumed to be directly proportional to the level of service maintained between directly connected airports and inversely proportional to the cost of each served connection with respect to an individual’s originating location (Matisziw and Grubesic, 2010). In the next section, we outline the components of a contingency analysis for evaluating the impact of varying access standards on the ability of EAS airports to effectively serve communities in the United States. Provided different access standards, changes in market coverage and redundancy are tracked for EAS communities and evaluated against four different subsets of US commercial airports.
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3. Data and methods To better understand how the current configuration of EAS airports provides service within the United States, a spatial analysis was conducted on the US airport system. All commercial airports with scheduled service in the contiguous United States were identified using Innovata’s SRS database for 2006.7 According to these data, 431 airports in the lower 48 US states maintained scheduled commercial flights. Of the 431 commercial airports, 128 were classified by the FAA as either small (65 airports), medium (34 airports), or large (29 airports) hubs. Of the remaining 303 airports not classified as hubs, 108 were designated as participating in the EAS program in 2006 (USDOT, 2006).8 For the purposes of representing EAS market areas, estimating population served and tracking access to the US airport system, Census tracts for the lower 48 states are used (n = 64,855). Although population can be represented at a variety of spatial scales (i.e., state-level, metro-level, or city-level as is currently used by the EAS), the utility of census tracts is twofold. In addition to providing a complete tiling of the lower 48 states, the finer level of spatial resolution of census tract boundaries allows for a more accurate representation of EAS market areas. Driving distance between each census tract and each commercially served airport on the US highway system was computed in a GIS. Given that 431 commercial airports and 64,855 census tracts are involved in this analysis, 27,952,505 shortest paths were identified and retained for subsequent analysis. As a result, each census tract can be characterized by its relative locational proximity to airports of five different types: (1) EAS, (2) FAA small hubs, (3) FAA medium hubs, (4) FAA large hubs, (5) All other commercial airports (non-hub/non-EAS). 3.1. Defining EAS market areas As noted previously, communities are eligible for EAS funds if they are beyond 70 miles from a FAA-designated medium or large airport hub. The 70 miles distance standard is measured from a community’s representative center point (e.g., city hall) to the nearest medium or large hub’s official property line. Obviously, EAS communities are not neatly contained market areas, with passengers solely depending on government subsidized services for air transport. In reality, virtually all airports in the United States function with some type of loosely defined catchment area from which they draw the majority of their passengers. Thus, even though airports represent a focused access point to the air transport network for a specific community, they also represent collection points for passengers living in other spatially proximal communities, depending on their distance to other commercial airports as well as on their valuation of travel cost. This combined level of passenger demand/patronage and their associated geographic origins help define airport market (i.e., catchment) areas. As a result, although it is likely that EAS communities draw the majority of their traffic locally, it is also likely that many of the potential passengers are also distributed within the specified 70 miles (or more) distance standard between the EAS airport and its nearest large or medium hub. This also suggests that many of these passengers have alternative choices for air transport, particularly if they reside in the section of the EAS market area which is nearer the larger hub airport. For example, consider Fig. 2 which highlights a small, hypothetical market area for an EAS airport and a nearby hub airport. While passengers residing in Community 2 are clearly within 70 miles of the EAS airport, because that community is located on 7
See Grubesic et al. (2009) for more details on the SRS database. It is important to note that several communities (e.g., Garden City and Dodge City, Kansas) were provided EAS service to multiple hubs. In these instances, both communities hub to Kansas City (MCI) and Denver (DEN). 8
FAA Medium Hub
Community 2
EAS Airport Community
Community 1
70 mile market area Fig. 2. Hypothetical 70 miles EAS market area and passenger leakage potential.
the north side of the catchment area, the FAA medium hub is also a viable departure option. Conversely, passengers residing in Community 1, located south of the EAS airport, are forced to drive much further to access the FAA medium hub. This does not eliminate the hub as a legitimate choice, but the EAS airport is certainly more accessible.9 Fig. 2 highlights one of the major problems facing many smaller airports, including many of those subsidized by the EAS program – market leakage. As noted previously, when passengers in smaller airport communities travel to larger, more distant hubs (by car) to take advantage of lower fares, more convenient scheduling, or service from a specific airline (Fuellhart, 2007; Tierney and Kuby, 2008), market leakage occurs. Interestingly, previous studies on air service in smaller communities cite driving distances of 100– 200 miles as reasonable standards for accessing larger hubs (Lin, 1977; Kanafani and Abbas, 1987; Kaemmerle, 1991). Considering that the current EAS access standard is only 70 miles, depending on the spatial distribution of EAS airports and other commercial options (including FAA small hubs), there is the potential for redundant and perhaps unnecessary service within the EAS program. 3.2. Contingency analysis The first approach utilized for evaluating ‘‘what if?” scenarios for the EAS program is to generate a series of benchmark values associated with commercial airport coverage in the United States. Using the geographic database of 431 airports with scheduled service for 2006, airport service areas based upon a range of different driving distance access standards (in 5 miles increments, [0– 995 miles]) are calculated. To provide a perspective on service levels for these service areas, supplementary metrics for evaluating changes in area covered (km2) and population covered are also tabulated for comparative purposes. Once the initial benchmarks are 9 It is important to note that we are not suggesting that 70 miles is the spatial extent of all EAS airport catchment areas. Rather, it represents the minimum, functional distance threshold by which subsidy decisions are based. As a result, the 70 mile threshold represents a good estimation of market areas for EAS airports, although in more rural or remote portions of the United States, EAS airports may operate with much larger catchment areas.
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set for the entire system (i.e., all commercial airports), service coverage for alternative airport groupings (i.e., medium/large hubs, small/medium/large hubs, EAS, non-hubs) is similarly computed and the resulting changes in area and population covered are tabulated for each of the access standards evaluated. Again, special attention is paid to FAA-designated medium and large hubs because of the formal EAS community eligibility guidelines, but analysis is also extended to FAA-designated small hubs and the remaining 195 non-hub airports which provide some level of commercial service. In an effort to evaluate redundancies in the EAS airport system, a slightly different methodology is employed. Applying the same range of access standards (0 through 995 miles, at 5 miles intervals) used in the previous contingency analysis, a series of Boolean queries are developed to help discern which census tracts are served uniquely by EAS airports (e.g., within 70 miles) and which census tracts have alternative airport options or redundant service coverage (e.g., with a FAA medium hub) within the specified access standard. The following rules for evaluating both unique and redundant EAS service are applied: Unique service coverage: All census tracts i that are within the critical access distance S of the EAS airport j (i.e., fijdij 6 Sg, where dij = the driving distance between tract i and airport j) are flagged as uniquely served if they are also not within the access distance S of any non-EAS airports k (i.e., {i|dik > S}). Redundant service coverage: All census tracts i that are within the critical access distance of a non-EAS airports k (i.e., fijdik 6 Sg) and are also within the access distance of an EAS subsidized airport(s) j (i.e., fijdij 6 Sg) are flagged as redundantly served. Simply put, if the service areas (i.e., based on a critical access distances of 70 miles), of an EAS airport and any other viable commercial airport intersect, those census tracts in the intersection of the two service areas represent areas/populations that are redundantly served and have potential for passenger/market leakage problems. Similarly, non-intersecting service areas represent service coverage uniquely provided by a single airport. Given the number of census tracts and airports evaluated in this analysis, the number of access standards considered, and the large distance matrices required, custom scripts for conducting the analysis were developed in C++ to circumvent some of the processing limitations of the GIS. In this portion of the analysis, redundancies are systematically explored for each access standard in an effort to assess the impact of applying alternative distance standards for community eligibility to the EAS program. In this context, EAS airports exhibiting heavy service redundancy with alternative commercial options at 80, 90 or 100 miles may be suitable targets for subsidy elimination for example.
4. Results 4.1. Benchmarking airport coverage As noted previously, analyzing driving distances between census tracts and airports in greater detail can provide an initial benchmark of how well the US is served by different types of airports. Fig. 3 depicts the proportion of US population in the lower 48 that is effectively served by different groupings of airport types at various levels of driving access. For example, it is interesting to note that approximately 64% of the US population lives within 70 miles of a medium or large hub. Further, approximately 90% of the residents in the United States live within 180 miles (approximately a 3 h drive) of a medium or large hub. If FAA-designated
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small hubs are also included, locational access increases dramatically. Approximately 80% of the US population is within 70 miles of a small, medium or large hub and only 2% of the population is located further than 180 miles from these hubs. If one considers all non-EAS airports, access continues to increase with approximately 93% of the population having access to a commercial airport within 70 miles and only about 0.1% of the population not having access within 180 miles. Finally, when all commercial airports are considered as viable options for accessing the US air transport system, approximately 96% of the population lives within 70 miles and only 0.007% of the population does not have access within 180 miles. Given these initial benchmarks, it is important to note that approximately 36% of the US population is further than 70 miles from a medium or large hub. This implies that airports in these communities are eligible for EAS support. However, it is clear that when accounting for the presence of all non-EAS airports, not simply medium and large hubs, about 93% of the US population lives within 70 miles of an airport with scheduled commercial service in 2006. This suggests that EAS would be necessary for at least 7% of the US population if the critical access standard of 70 miles is maintained. 4.2. Evaluating EAS and hub airport coverage redundancy One question that arises is to what extent do EAS airports uniquely serve demand? In other words, to what extent is EAS service redundant with other commercial airports? To assess the possibility of redundancy, the spatial proximity of each census tract is evaluated in relation to EAS airports and other commercial airports of different classes (e.g., small, medium, large and non-hubs). Again, this is evaluated based on the computed driving distances and the associated query rules discussed earlier to identify: (1) areas that are uniquely served by EAS and (2) areas that are served by both EAS and another class of airports (i.e., redundant service coverage). Fig. 4 details the level of unique access offered by EAS airports when compared to other groupings of commercial airports in the US. The top curve (circles) indicates unique service coverage offered by EAS airports as compared to medium and large hubs over a range of different access standards. For instance, given an access standard of 70 miles, EAS airports would uniquely serve approximately 8.3% of the US population. Unique EAS service coverage reaches a peak at a 120 miles access standard (12.3% of population) and diminishes completely at 745 miles. This high level of unique EAS service coverage is not surprising since medium and large hubs only account for about 15% of all commercial airports in the lower 48 US states. However, airports classified as ‘‘small” hubs are also important contributors to the US air transportation system. These include vital airports such as Akron-Canton Regional, Savannah/Hilton Head International, Tallahassee Regional, Fresno Yosemite International, Santa Barbara Municipal, El Paso International, as well as many others. More importantly, these small hubs are for the most part, commercially self sustaining, requiring no EAS subsidy. The middle curve (squares) indicates unique EAS coverage when small, medium, and large hubs are considered. In this scenario, the unique service ability of EAS airports is much diminished. Given a 70 miles critical access distance, only about 5.6% of the tract population is uniquely served by EAS airports with the maximum population uniquely served being slightly more (5.7%) at a 85 miles access distance. Further, unique coverage by EAS airports diminishes completely at 500 miles. Aside from small, medium, and large hubs, there are commercially viable ‘‘non-hub” airports that do not require EAS subsidies. For example, Elko Regional, Missoula International, Jackson Hole, Rochester International
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Fig. 5. Redundant coverage of US population served by EAS airports and (a) medium/large hubs, (b) small/medium/large hubs, (c) all non-EAS airports.
and Tulsa International among others are all of regional significance and in many instances provide direct service to larger hub airports. Thus, they can also be considered to provide effective access to the US air transport system. Fig. 4 also depicts the impact that these non-hub airports have on the unique service coverage of EAS airports. Once again, unique service by EAS airports is represented by the bottom curve (triangles). The maximum unique population served by including non-hubs in addition to small, medium and large airports is now only about 3.4% given an access standard of 55 miles. Ironically, a critical access distance of 70 miles actually reflects a reduction in population served (2.9%) while all unique coverage by EAS airports is completely diminished at 285 miles. Given these results, it is apparent that the service capabilities of EAS airports perform as intended when compared to access options provided by medium and large hubs using the critical access distance of 70 miles as the benchmark for community eligibility. Simply put, EAS airports provide access to a relatively small, but important segment of the rural and remote population in the United States. However, when small hubs and other regionally important non-hub airports with commercial service are considered, EAS airports are observed to provide a decreased level of unique service. This decreased level of unique service arises due to a higher level of redundant coverage by non-EAS airports. For example, consider Fig. 5 which highlights the extent of redundant service coverage (i.e., leakage potential) for EAS airports. Given access standards of 0–35 miles, there is no service overlap between EAS airports and medium and large hubs. However, as shown in Fig. 5, service overlap begins to rise dramatically after that 35 miles, with a nearly 35% overlap at an access distance of 70 miles and a 56% overlap at an access distance of 100 miles. Thus, if passengers were willing to travel a mere 100 miles for better airport amenities such as
more frequent flights, cheaper tickets, fewer layovers, passenger leakage becomes a significant concern for many EAS market areas. Further, when small hubs are introduced as viable airport options for passengers, redundant service coverage occurs more rapidly. In this case, a service overlap of approximately 57% is realized at the 70 miles access distance and nearly 80% overlap at the 100 miles access distance. Finally, if all non-EAS airports are considered, service coverage redundancy becomes even more significant. At a 70 miles access distance, a service overlap of almost 78% occurs while at the 100 miles access distance, overlap is slightly over 95%. Figs. 6 and 7 graphically illustrate the geographic distributions of unique and redundant service coverage for EAS airports. For example, Fig. 6 highlights the level of redundant service for EAS airports with a critical access distance of 70 miles, with light gray areas representing unique EAS coverage with respect to medium and large hubs and dark gray areas representing redundant coverage. There are several areas worth noting on this map, including the Pittsburgh, PA region and portions of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. In both cases, larger hub airports (PIT, DCA, IAD, and BWI) are surrounded by a ring of EAS airports. For example, consider Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). According to the FAA, there were 4,946,256 enplanements during 2006, qualifying PIT as a medium hub. There are five EAS subsidized airports surrounding PIT, including Morgantown, WV (MGW), Johnstown, PA (JST), Jefferson County (DUJ) and Chess-Lambertin (FKL). While all of these communities are more than 70 miles from PIT, significant portions of their market area are not. In fact, 76.8% of all census tracts in the Pittsburgh (n = 721) core-based statistical area (CBSA) for 2006 (Census, 2006) are within 70 miles of both PIT and an EAS airport. Further, this does not include numerous tracts outside of the Pittsburgh CBSA in adjacent metropolitan areas (e.g., Indiana, PA, New Castle, PA, etc.). Not surprisingly, when small
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(a) Medium and Large Hubs
(b) Small, Medium and Large Hubs Fig. 6. Redundant service coverage for EAS airports at the 70 miles critical distance threshold.
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hubs are included in the analysis, the number of areas with redundant service coverage increases to include portions of S.W. Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and California’s San Joaquin Valley (Fig. 6b). Further, when the community eligibility parameter is extended to 100 miles, significantly more redundancy appears between EAS airports and small, medium and large hubs (Fig. 7). Large pockets remain in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, but pockets of redundancy also begin to emerge in more sparsely populated regions of Colorado, Arizona and Washington. 4.3. Evaluating EAS airport redundancy As shown in the Figs. 6 and 7, considerable redundancy does exist between EAS airports and FAA designated hubs over many of the access standards considered (i.e., 70 and 100 miles). However, Figs. 8 and 9 highlight yet another type of overlap, namely, service redundancy amongst EAS airports. As illustrated by Fig. 8, there is no redundancy between EAS service areas up to an access distance of 20 miles. However, as the access distance increases to the community eligibility standard of 70 miles, redundancy between EAS airports becomes apparent. For example, at 70 miles, there is slightly more than 18% redundancy (Fig. 8). However, when the critical access distance is increased to 100 miles, EAS service areas display 32.5% redundancy while at 180 miles and there is a 53.8% overlap in service coverage. Fig. 9 displays the geographic manifestation of this service overlap, highlighting the degree of redundancy for each census tract by airport count. For example, at a 70 miles critical access distance, several census tracts in the Mason City (MCW) and Dodge City (FOD), Iowa service areas are covered by several airports (i.e., redundant coverage = 2) (Fig. 9a). In more extreme cases such as those found in Pennsylvania and New York, there are tracts that can reach up to six unique EAS airports within 100 miles (Fig. 9b) – and this does not consider additional access options such as FAA designated hubs or alternative non-hub airports which are not subsidized by the EAS program.
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dizing airline operations for carriers serving unprofitable routes to undesirable locations. As noted in the introduction, the gap between fares collected and the cost of flying a route in Montana often exceeds $1200. This is a marked difference, suggesting that operations are only possible with EAS subsidies. A second facet smacking of corporate welfare is the use of Raytheon engineered 19-seat Beechcraft 1900 turboprops. Interestingly, while the regional and commuter jet market in the United States has been moving toward the larger, faster and more comfortable regional jets manufactured by Embraer, Canadair and Bombardier since the late 1990s (Dresner et al., 2002),10 most EAS cities remain served by the Beechcraft turbo props. Why? Raytheon encourages the continued use of these antiquated aircraft because the company’s success was strongly tied to the initial purchase and continued maintenance of these planes (Sparks, 2007).11 More importantly, Raytheon is a primary contributor to Regional Aviation Partners, a special interest group charged with promoting and lobbying for EAS. While it would be difficult to dissect all of the political motivations for encouraging or allocating EAS subsidies, it is fairly easy to gauge political interest in EAS through legislative activities. For example, in 2007, John Salazar, the democratic representative from Colorado’s 3rd district and John Peterson, the republican representative from Pennsylvania’s 5th district introduced the Rural Aviation Improvement Act (USHR, 2007). Several general amendments were proposed to the existing EAS program: 1. Raising the total annual authorized funding to $140 million. 2. Repealing a provision put in place by the 2002 FAA Reauthorization Act requiring a community to pay a portion of the cost (up to 10%) to keep its limited commercial air service. 3. Modifying an existing provision that caps the EAS subsidy at $200 per passenger for communities within 210 miles of a medium or large hub airport. 4. Requiring the USDOT to calculate distances to the nearest hub airport by using the most commonly used route instead of the shortest route available.
5. Discussion Given the results presented in the previous section, it is clear that several aspects of the EAS program in the United States are worth further discussion. Redundancy in service coverage is clearly an issue of concern. As mentioned throughout this paper, the fundamental goal of the EAS program is to ensure that smaller communities retain a link to the national air transport system. This is accomplished with federal subsidies for 108 different airports in the United States during 2006. Again, communities are eligible for EAS service if they are located at least 70 miles from the nearest medium or large airport hub. At first glance, while the locations of EAS subsidized airports appear to be distributed somewhat evenly throughout the rural segments of the US, our analysis suggests a high level of redundant coverage both within the EAS network and between EAS airports and alternative commercial hubs. Portions of Pennsylvania and New York exhibit the highest levels of redundancy, with Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and several other Midwestern states also exhibiting significant service overlap. Why do these redundancies exist? There is no clear-cut answer to this question, although certain components of the EAS program, namely a combination of private interests and political leverage, can shed some light on these inefficiencies. For example, as noted previously, EAS service is controversial because critics believe it encourages regressive transfers – funneling money from all taxpayers, many of which cannot afford air travel, to communities where residents can afford air travel and do not need the federal subsidies (Sparks, 2007). Further, it has been suggested that EAS also functions as a corporate welfare system. There are two facets to this. First, the federal government is subsi-
Interestingly, although this act did not pass, it is not surprising that representatives from both Colorado and Pennsylvania were involved – both are states with numerous (and redundant) EAS service areas. More recently, Bill S. 983 (Rural Aviation Improvement Act) was reintroduced by representatives from Maine and New Mexico – containing many of the same parameters by representatives from the failed 2007 version and promoted by Regional Aviation Partners (Open Congress, 2009). From a spatial perspective, the results of this paper also point to some interesting developments. First, our analysis suggests that the use of a 70 miles critical access standard to a medium or large hub may be too liberal. Roughly equating to a 1-h drive, there are many instances throughout the United States where census tracts within an EAS market area are within easy reach of alternative commercial airports (including medium and large hubs). For example, large portions of the Athens, GA airport market, which is subsidized by the EAS program, are within an easy driving distance (<70 miles) to Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport (Fig. 6a). Although the Athens connector routes fly through Charlotte, NC (CLT), there is simply no comparison between ATL and CLT for flight frequency, destinations availability or pricing. As noted by Grubesic et al. (2009) and others, ATL is a dominant hub, with an extremely large network footprint, providing unparalleled service frequency and seating capacity to cities throughout the southeastern US. As a result, it is likely that Athens experiences significant
10 11
The Bombardier CRJ 700 seats 70 passengers. The production of the Beechcraft 1900 turboprops was halted in 2002.
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(a) Medium and Large Hubs
(b) Small, Medium and Large Hubs Fig. 7. Redundant service coverage for EAS airports at the 100 miles critical distance threshold.
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1 0.9
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market leakage to Atlanta. Further, by eliminating EAS service to Athens, the federal government could have saved $392,000 during 2006. As of 2008, Athens, GA is supported by an annual subsidy of $1,051,386. Second, when the EAS program was implemented in 1978, the spatial distribution of population in the United States was much different. For example, consider Pueblo, CO. In the early 1980s, the only medium to large airport option was Denver (DEN), located 115 miles to the north via a relatively sparsely populated Interstate 25. Today, the I-25 corridor is one of the fastest growing (and suburbanizing) conurbations in the United States. For instance, Colorado Springs, which is located 45 miles north of Pueblo, had a population of 215,000 in 1980. Today, more than 376,000 people live in Colorado Springs and its airport (COS) enplanes approximately 1 million passengers per year. Considering the spatial proximity of Pueblo to COS, should it remain an EAS subsidized community? Obviously, the distance between Denver and Pueblo has not changed, but its proximity to a viable FAA-designated ‘‘small” hub, suggests that it may be time to reevaluate EAS community eligibility guidelines in Colorado and many other locations in the United States. Third, the empirical results presented in this paper provide strong evidence that redundancies in EAS market areas between medium and large hubs and within the EAS airport system already exist at the 70 miles critical access standard. However, by increasing the community eligibility access distance from 70 miles to 100 miles, more dramatic redundancies in EAS market areas begin to emerge, suggesting that the systematic thinning of EAS airports is possible, particularly if one includes viable small hub airport options for travel. With subsidies ranging from several hundred-thousand dollars to well over $1 million in some EAS communities, modest changes in eligibility requirements could save taxpayers millions. Further, given the
existing spatial distribution of EAS communities and the alternative commercial options for air travel in many locations, market leakage is likely occurring (Fuellhart, 2007), making the system inefficiencies more pronounced. In part, the incorporation of small hubs into the EAS evaluation process is important because of the emergence of the hub-and-spoke operational structure utilized by most commercial carriers in the United States. In an effort to develop economies of scale, the huband-spoke system minimizes the costs of adding spokes to operational hubs and often increases revenues, geographic footprints and market shares for carriers (O’Kelly, 1998; Goetz, 2002; Grubesic and Zook, 2007). That said, while levels of service in the smaller spoke markets remain limited, many small hubs offer a viable palette of connections. For example, Sioux Falls Regional Airport (FSD) is served by three airlines (Delta, Allegiant and United) in 2009, with virtually all routes available to passengers connecting through Minneapolis (MSP), Chicago (ORD) or Denver (DEN).12 Even with this modest level of service, there is little doubt that EAS airports in South Dakota experience some degree of market leakage to FSD. For example, both Brookings and Watertown are within 100 miles of FSD, with Watertown’s EAS connection (Mesaba Airlines) connecting through MSP anyway. In conclusion, the EAS program appears to be fraught with inefficiencies in spatial service provision. From market redundancies between FAA-designated medium and large hubs to service overlap between EAS communities, the results of this paper suggest that eligibility requirements for EAS subsidies need to be revisited. 12 Allegiant air provides service to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Orlando on an irregular (i.e., once weekly) basis. Delta also provides one daily connection to Atlanta.
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(a) 70 Mile Threshold
(b) 100 Mile Threshold Fig. 9. EAS airports with redundant coverage, 70 miles and 100 miles.
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References Cunningham, L.F., Eckard, E.W., 1987. US small community air service subsidies: essential or superfluous? Journal of Transport Economics and Policy 21 (3), 255–277. Dresner, M., Windle, R., Zhou, M., 2002. Regional jet services: supply and demand. Journal of Air Transport Management 8 (5), 267–273. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 2009. Airport Categories. URL:. Fuellhart, K., 2007. Airport catchment and leakage in a multi-airport region: the case of Harrisburg International. Journal of Transport Geography 15, 231–244. Geurs, K.T., Van Wee, B., 2004. Accessibility evaluation of land-use and transport strategies: review and research directions. Journal of Transport Geography 12, 127–140. Gillies, A. 2004. Flying Pork. Forbes. URL: . Goetz, A.R., 2002. Deregulation, competition, and antitrust implications in the US airline industry. Journal of Transport Geography 10, 1–19. Grubesic, T.H., Zook, M., 2007. A ticket to ride: evolving landscapes of air travel accessibility in the United States. Journal of Transport Geography 15, 417–430. Grubesic, T.H., Matisziw, T.C., Zook, M.A., 2009. Spatio-temporal fluctuations in the global airport hierarchies. Journal of Transport Geography 17, 264–275. Ishii, J., Jun, S., Van Dender, K., 2009. Air travel choices in multi-airport markets. Journal of Urban Economics 65, 216–227. Kaemmerle, K.C., 1991. Estimating the demand for small community air service. Transportation Research Part A 59 (2/3), 101–112. Kanafani, A., Abbas, M.S., 1987. Local air service and economic impact of small airports. Journal of Transportation Engineering 113 (1), 42–55.
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Lin, F.-B., 1977. Airport choice in low demand region. Transportation Engineering Journal 103 (6), 711–727. Matisziw, T.C., Grubesic, T.H. 2010. Evaluating Locational Accessibility to the U.S. Air Transportation System. Working Paper, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia. Murray, A.T., Davis, R., 2001. Equity in regional service provision. Journal of Regional Science 41 (4), 557–600. National Grange 2006. Grange calls for Essential Air Service funding. URL:. Office of Aviation Analysis [OAA]. 2009. What is Essential Air Service? URL: . O’Kelly, M.E., 1998. A geographer’s analysis of hub-and-spoke networks. Journal of Transport Geography 6 (3), 171–186. Open Congress. 2009. Rural Aviation Improvement Act. URL: . Reynolds-Feighan, A.J., 1995. European and american approaches to air transport liberalisation: some implications for small communities. Transportation Research Part A 29 (6), 467–483. Sparks, E. 2007. Unfree as a Bird. The American: The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute. URL: . United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) 2009. Telephone conversation with Office of Aviation Analysis. 7/10/09. United States House of Representatives (USHR) 2007. Rep. Salazar Introduces Bipartisan Rural Aviation Improvement Act. URL: . Vowles, T.M., 1999. Predicting the loss of commuter air service in the United States. Journal of Air Transport Management 5, 13–20. Wensveen, J., 2007. Air Transportation: A Management Perspective, sixth ed. Ashgate, Aldershot.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Transport Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo
A spatial analysis of air transport access and the essential air service program in the United States Tony H. Grubesic a,*, Timothy C. Matisziw b a b
Department of Geography, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, United States Department of Geography and Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Keywords: Essential air service Airports Hubs Accessibility Spatial analysis Market leakage Public policy
In the United States, the goal of essential air service (EAS) is to provide a minimum level of air transport service from smaller, often remote communities to the national network. While supporters of EAS tout the economic benefits of connecting rural and isolated communities, critics cite high costs, low use and antiquated eligibility requirements as factors which compromise the value of the program. In this paper, a comprehensive database of US airports is combined with network analysis techniques and a geographic information system to evaluate population access (at the census tract level) to EAS airports for 2006. Results suggest that redundant coverage of EAS market areas by alternative Federal Aviation Administration designated hub airports can contribute to EAS airport market leakage and that alternative definitions of EAS community eligibility have the potential to dramatically increase programmatic efficiency and reduce federal monies spent on EAS subsidies. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Between 1938 and 1978, the US airline industry was regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). During this era, if commercial carriers wished to provide domestic service between communities, the CAB required them to file an application for a Section 401 certificate. If the carrier was deemed ‘‘fit” for providing service, a certificate was issued and it was expected that the carrier operate at least two daily round trips for each point on the certificate (OAA, 2009).1 However, with deregulation looming in mid-1970s and the likely disbandment of the CAB, there were concerns that carriers would drop passenger service in smaller communities without government approval – a move that would allow airlines to strengthen their focus on more profitable routes. In an effort to insulate smaller and more vulnerable communities from losing service, Section 419 was added to the Federal Aviation Act, establishing the Essential Air Service (EAS) program.2 EAS is a federally subsidized program that provides small communities throughout the United States and Alaska with a minimum level of air transport service, connecting them through carrier hubs to the national network. Initially slated to provide subsidies for 10 years, the program has continued to receive support (and fund-
ing) since 1978. Nicknamed ‘‘flying pork” by some, it is obvious that EAS is not without controversy (Gillies, 2004). Services between smaller communities and geographically proximal airports are cited as wasteful and woefully underutilized (Frank, 2007). Consider, for example, the subsidized route between the EAS community of Lewistown, Montana to its nearest hub airport city, Billings, Montana.3 During 2006, airfares on this route cost $88 with a 30-day advance purchase on Big Sky airlines. However, the government cost was $1343 per passenger. According to the US Department of transportation, this route averaged two people per day during 2006. Proponents of EAS suggest that without such subsidies, smaller communities throughout the more rural portions of the United States would suffer. For example, in a response to proposed cuts to EAS during fiscal year 2007, the National Grange (2006), the oldest agricultural organization in the United States with members in 3600 communities in 37 states stated: ‘‘The communities located in the rural areas of this country suffer from economic isolationism, scarce resources, and the loss of farms and younger families not willing to stay. The creation of economic opportunities can ameliorate these difficulties. Providing service such as EAS is one of the only ways to help our rural communities.”
* Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (T.H. Grubesic). 1 As noted by Wensveen (2007), fitness of the applicant referred to carrier financial resources, flight equipment, service history and strategy for conducting the proposed operations. 2 Section 419 is now 49 U.S.C. 41731-41742.
3 Lewistown is a 2 h drive from Billings, an FAA-designated small hub. The nearest medium or large hub to Lewistown is Salt Lake City International (SLC) (665 miles) or Denver International (DEN) (690 miles). According to the EAS guidelines, flights from subsidized airports can make no more than one intermediate stop on their way to a hub. In this instance, Billings is likely the intermediate stop prior to SLC or DEN.
0966-6923/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.12.006
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Given this context, there are several important questions pertaining to EAS which need to be addressed. First, if essential air service subsidies were eliminated, would it drastically reduce opportunities for smaller, more rural communities in the United States to access the national air transport system? Second, given the existing landscape of EAS subsidized communities, is there any redundancy in airport market coverage with larger, geographically proximal airports? Finally, if the program was not completely eliminated, would it be possible to better prioritize EAS subsidies by reevaluating community eligibility and then assessing the potential impacts of EAS inclusion/exclusion on community access to the air transport system? In an effort to address these questions, this paper develops an analytical framework for evaluating the contingencies associated with both modifying and eliminating the EAS program in the contiguous 48 states. Specifically, by utilizing network analysis techniques and a geographic information system (GIS), census tractbased market areas for all 108 EAS airports (year 2006) are generated and subjected to a proximity analysis with FAA designated hubs to determine if redundant market coverage exists in the airport system. It is important to note that the use of census tracts instead of cities as the unit of analysis provides a significantly more refined and accurate estimation of population accessibility to airports. In addition to the accessibility analysis, a series of ‘‘what if” scenarios are generated to help deepen our understanding of how the EAS program, specifically community eligibility requirements, could be modified to make the allocation of federal subsidies more efficient. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides more background information on the Essential Air Service program, including community eligibility requirements and related issues. We then outline the components of measuring spatial access and airport market redundancies in Section 3. Results are presented in Section 4 and we conclude with a brief discussion of the results, highlighting implications for public policy.
2009). Communities are also not eligible if subsidies exceed $200 per passenger, although communities more than 210 highway miles from medium or large hubs are exempt from this restriction.4 Given the previously mentioned criteria, it is clear that the FAA plays an important role in helping determine EAS eligibility, albeit indirectly. According to the FAA (2009), publicly owned airports that have at least 2500 passenger boardings per each calendar year are considered ‘‘commercial”. From that group, the FAA classifies airports by the percentage of annual passenger boardings for the entire system. For example, large hubs board 1% or more of the total passengers in the US, medium hubs at least 0.25% but less than 1%, small hubs at least 0.05% but less than 0.25% and non-hub primary airports more than 10,000 passengers, but less than 0.05% of the total system (Fig. 1). Interestingly, as discussed in the next section, 45.8% of the US population lives within 70 miles of a large hub with 63.6% living within 70 miles of a large or medium hub and 79.6% living within 70 miles of a large, medium or small hub. Where EAS service levels are concerned, the federal government subsidizes between two and four roundtrip flights per day, per community, on aircraft with a 19 seat capacity. As of fiscal year (FY) 2009, $123 million are allocated to the program and there are 107 communities in the contiguous 48 states and Puerto Rico with an additional 45 communities in Alaska that participate. A final note regarding the EAS program pertains to carrier market entry and exit. In all EAS communities, carriers must file a 90 day notice if they plan to exit the market, regardless of carrier subsidy status (subsidized or subsidy-free). The USDOT then attempts to recruit a carrier willing to enter the market on a subsidy-free basis. If this is not possible, a request for proposals is issued and the lowest-cost proposal is typically selected, but other aspects of carrier ‘‘fitness” are also considered.5 Incumbent carriers are not allowed to suspend service until a replacement carrier is found. However, if the incumbent goes out of business, there may be a service hiatus in an EAS community (OAA, 2009). 2.2. Evaluating EAS
2. Background 2.1. EAS program As noted in the introduction, the major impetus for developing the EAS program was that the federal government recognized that deregulation, while stimulating competition between carriers on popular routes connecting large cities, would likely lead to a reduced or complete elimination of services for smaller communities. Initially, the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (ADA) stated that any community receiving scheduled air service from a certificated carrier (n = 746) was eligible for the EAS program. This is somewhat of an oddity, because this included communities like Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Obviously, there was very little chance that the ADA would motivate carriers to abandon these cities, thus, they were never slated to receive subsidies (OAA, 2009). Although the guidelines specifying community eligibility have changed somewhat through the years (Reynolds-Feighan, 1995), the OAA (2009) notes that both Congress and the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) have worked to ‘‘streamline the EAS program and increase efficiency, mostly by eliminating subsidy support for communities that are within a reasonable drive of a major hub airport.” Specifically, communities are not eligible if they are located less than 70 miles from a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) designated large or medium hub airport. To assess this defined access standard, driving distance is typically measured from the location of city hall in a community to the property boundary of an airport using the shortest network path (USDOT,
Much of the literature regarding the EAS program is dated, although many of the pertinent issues raised in this work remain salient. For example, although Kaemmerle (1991) did not directly target EAS for evaluation, he did provide an analytical framework for estimating the demand-side determinants for air service in smaller communities.6 Using enplanements as the dependent variable and a suite of independent covariates, which included the population of an airport service area (defined as a MSA), per capita income and local employment base and air service characteristics of proximal airports (seats available, departures and fares), he fit a series of regression models to explain variations in service demand. Interestingly, Kaemmerle (1991) also used a simple gravity model to estimate the attractiveness of alternative access points to the national air network. Specifically, hub alternatives not located in the smaller community were defined as airports within a reasonable driving distance of 200 miles. Attractiveness was directly related to the weekly number of departures and inversely related to the square of the driving distance. Cunningham and Eckard (1987) explicitly evaluate the EAS program in an attempt to determine if subsidies were actually necessary. Using a relatively simple series of hypotheses and t-tests, the
4 Subsidy cutoffs are calculated by dividing the annual subsidy by the annual passengers generated. 5 Carrier fitness reflects a combination of previous carrier performance, financial condition, and other factors. For more details, see the Office of Aviation Analysis (http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/aviatanalysis.htm). 6 Fleming and Ghobrial (1992) and Reynolds-Feighan (1995) also explored this issue.
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Fig. 1. FAA designated hubs, commercial non-hubs and EAS airports.
authors concluded that ‘‘while subsidies have produced somewhat lower fares, they have little impact on other quality variables, and may have actually reduced flight frequency” (1987, 275). As a result, the authors recommend that the EAS program be eliminated. Vowles (1999) takes a somewhat different approach and estimates the probability of communities losing air service given a set of operational, economic, geographic and social determinants. Interestingly, results suggest that without EAS, all of the communities in Eastern Montana (e.g., Glasgow, Glendive, Miles City) have an extremely high probability of losing service. Because all of these cities hub to Billings and the incumbent carrier is Big Sky Airlines (which has no affiliation with any other carrier), all travel beyond Billings is considered interline travel (changing carriers) which tends to be quite expensive. Furthermore, only about 33% of the seats are filled on these routes. Flynn and Ratick (1988) propose a multiobjective optimization model to provide both methodological and empirical support for helping maximize access to the air transportation system. More importantly, the authors use the developed tools to evaluate potential changes to the EAS program, utilizing a case study in North and South Dakota. Results indicate that variations in subsidies level have a significant impact on both service coverage and service patterns. In related analyses, several papers highlight additional factors pertaining to airport service that are important considerations when evaluating the EAS program. First, Vowles (1999), Fuellhart (2007), Tierney and Kuby (2008) and Ishii et al. (2009) among others suggest that airport leakage is a significant concern in both multi-airport regions as well as for single airports in smaller, more rural communities. Simply put, leakage occurs in airport market areas because consumers believe the benefits associated with patronizing alternative airports outweigh the costs of access. This
can include lower fares, more convenient scheduling or airline preferences. Second, Kanafani and Abbas (1987) suggest that a consolidation of traffic occurs at larger airports, particularly for those located in regions with many small communities lying within a 100 miles radius. These smaller airports, therefore, experience declining enplanements due to airport leakage. Considering that nearly 64% of the US population lives within 70 miles of a large or medium sized hub, the implications for EAS service could be significant. Finally, Matisziw and Grubesic (2010) suggest that there is a major difference between access and accessibility for the air transport system. Geurs and Van Wee (2004, 128) define accessibility as the ‘‘extent to which land-use and transport systems enable (groups of) individuals to reach activities or destinations by means of a (combination of) transport mode(s)”. Conversely, access generally focuses on the proximity of transportation options to individuals or areas demanding a service (Murray and Davis, 2001). Where air transport is concerned, opportunities for travel within the system vary greatly between airports, particularly when considering the number of direct, nonstop destinations offered. Given this context, accessibility for each airport within the system is assumed to be directly proportional to the level of service maintained between directly connected airports and inversely proportional to the cost of each served connection with respect to an individual’s originating location (Matisziw and Grubesic, 2010). In the next section, we outline the components of a contingency analysis for evaluating the impact of varying access standards on the ability of EAS airports to effectively serve communities in the United States. Provided different access standards, changes in market coverage and redundancy are tracked for EAS communities and evaluated against four different subsets of US commercial airports.
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3. Data and methods To better understand how the current configuration of EAS airports provides service within the United States, a spatial analysis was conducted on the US airport system. All commercial airports with scheduled service in the contiguous United States were identified using Innovata’s SRS database for 2006.7 According to these data, 431 airports in the lower 48 US states maintained scheduled commercial flights. Of the 431 commercial airports, 128 were classified by the FAA as either small (65 airports), medium (34 airports), or large (29 airports) hubs. Of the remaining 303 airports not classified as hubs, 108 were designated as participating in the EAS program in 2006 (USDOT, 2006).8 For the purposes of representing EAS market areas, estimating population served and tracking access to the US airport system, Census tracts for the lower 48 states are used (n = 64,855). Although population can be represented at a variety of spatial scales (i.e., state-level, metro-level, or city-level as is currently used by the EAS), the utility of census tracts is twofold. In addition to providing a complete tiling of the lower 48 states, the finer level of spatial resolution of census tract boundaries allows for a more accurate representation of EAS market areas. Driving distance between each census tract and each commercially served airport on the US highway system was computed in a GIS. Given that 431 commercial airports and 64,855 census tracts are involved in this analysis, 27,952,505 shortest paths were identified and retained for subsequent analysis. As a result, each census tract can be characterized by its relative locational proximity to airports of five different types: (1) EAS, (2) FAA small hubs, (3) FAA medium hubs, (4) FAA large hubs, (5) All other commercial airports (non-hub/non-EAS). 3.1. Defining EAS market areas As noted previously, communities are eligible for EAS funds if they are beyond 70 miles from a FAA-designated medium or large airport hub. The 70 miles distance standard is measured from a community’s representative center point (e.g., city hall) to the nearest medium or large hub’s official property line. Obviously, EAS communities are not neatly contained market areas, with passengers solely depending on government subsidized services for air transport. In reality, virtually all airports in the United States function with some type of loosely defined catchment area from which they draw the majority of their passengers. Thus, even though airports represent a focused access point to the air transport network for a specific community, they also represent collection points for passengers living in other spatially proximal communities, depending on their distance to other commercial airports as well as on their valuation of travel cost. This combined level of passenger demand/patronage and their associated geographic origins help define airport market (i.e., catchment) areas. As a result, although it is likely that EAS communities draw the majority of their traffic locally, it is also likely that many of the potential passengers are also distributed within the specified 70 miles (or more) distance standard between the EAS airport and its nearest large or medium hub. This also suggests that many of these passengers have alternative choices for air transport, particularly if they reside in the section of the EAS market area which is nearer the larger hub airport. For example, consider Fig. 2 which highlights a small, hypothetical market area for an EAS airport and a nearby hub airport. While passengers residing in Community 2 are clearly within 70 miles of the EAS airport, because that community is located on 7
See Grubesic et al. (2009) for more details on the SRS database. It is important to note that several communities (e.g., Garden City and Dodge City, Kansas) were provided EAS service to multiple hubs. In these instances, both communities hub to Kansas City (MCI) and Denver (DEN). 8
FAA Medium Hub
Community 2
EAS Airport Community
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70 mile market area Fig. 2. Hypothetical 70 miles EAS market area and passenger leakage potential.
the north side of the catchment area, the FAA medium hub is also a viable departure option. Conversely, passengers residing in Community 1, located south of the EAS airport, are forced to drive much further to access the FAA medium hub. This does not eliminate the hub as a legitimate choice, but the EAS airport is certainly more accessible.9 Fig. 2 highlights one of the major problems facing many smaller airports, including many of those subsidized by the EAS program – market leakage. As noted previously, when passengers in smaller airport communities travel to larger, more distant hubs (by car) to take advantage of lower fares, more convenient scheduling, or service from a specific airline (Fuellhart, 2007; Tierney and Kuby, 2008), market leakage occurs. Interestingly, previous studies on air service in smaller communities cite driving distances of 100– 200 miles as reasonable standards for accessing larger hubs (Lin, 1977; Kanafani and Abbas, 1987; Kaemmerle, 1991). Considering that the current EAS access standard is only 70 miles, depending on the spatial distribution of EAS airports and other commercial options (including FAA small hubs), there is the potential for redundant and perhaps unnecessary service within the EAS program. 3.2. Contingency analysis The first approach utilized for evaluating ‘‘what if?” scenarios for the EAS program is to generate a series of benchmark values associated with commercial airport coverage in the United States. Using the geographic database of 431 airports with scheduled service for 2006, airport service areas based upon a range of different driving distance access standards (in 5 miles increments, [0– 995 miles]) are calculated. To provide a perspective on service levels for these service areas, supplementary metrics for evaluating changes in area covered (km2) and population covered are also tabulated for comparative purposes. Once the initial benchmarks are 9 It is important to note that we are not suggesting that 70 miles is the spatial extent of all EAS airport catchment areas. Rather, it represents the minimum, functional distance threshold by which subsidy decisions are based. As a result, the 70 mile threshold represents a good estimation of market areas for EAS airports, although in more rural or remote portions of the United States, EAS airports may operate with much larger catchment areas.
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set for the entire system (i.e., all commercial airports), service coverage for alternative airport groupings (i.e., medium/large hubs, small/medium/large hubs, EAS, non-hubs) is similarly computed and the resulting changes in area and population covered are tabulated for each of the access standards evaluated. Again, special attention is paid to FAA-designated medium and large hubs because of the formal EAS community eligibility guidelines, but analysis is also extended to FAA-designated small hubs and the remaining 195 non-hub airports which provide some level of commercial service. In an effort to evaluate redundancies in the EAS airport system, a slightly different methodology is employed. Applying the same range of access standards (0 through 995 miles, at 5 miles intervals) used in the previous contingency analysis, a series of Boolean queries are developed to help discern which census tracts are served uniquely by EAS airports (e.g., within 70 miles) and which census tracts have alternative airport options or redundant service coverage (e.g., with a FAA medium hub) within the specified access standard. The following rules for evaluating both unique and redundant EAS service are applied: Unique service coverage: All census tracts i that are within the critical access distance S of the EAS airport j (i.e., fijdij 6 Sg, where dij = the driving distance between tract i and airport j) are flagged as uniquely served if they are also not within the access distance S of any non-EAS airports k (i.e., {i|dik > S}). Redundant service coverage: All census tracts i that are within the critical access distance of a non-EAS airports k (i.e., fijdik 6 Sg) and are also within the access distance of an EAS subsidized airport(s) j (i.e., fijdij 6 Sg) are flagged as redundantly served. Simply put, if the service areas (i.e., based on a critical access distances of 70 miles), of an EAS airport and any other viable commercial airport intersect, those census tracts in the intersection of the two service areas represent areas/populations that are redundantly served and have potential for passenger/market leakage problems. Similarly, non-intersecting service areas represent service coverage uniquely provided by a single airport. Given the number of census tracts and airports evaluated in this analysis, the number of access standards considered, and the large distance matrices required, custom scripts for conducting the analysis were developed in C++ to circumvent some of the processing limitations of the GIS. In this portion of the analysis, redundancies are systematically explored for each access standard in an effort to assess the impact of applying alternative distance standards for community eligibility to the EAS program. In this context, EAS airports exhibiting heavy service redundancy with alternative commercial options at 80, 90 or 100 miles may be suitable targets for subsidy elimination for example.
4. Results 4.1. Benchmarking airport coverage As noted previously, analyzing driving distances between census tracts and airports in greater detail can provide an initial benchmark of how well the US is served by different types of airports. Fig. 3 depicts the proportion of US population in the lower 48 that is effectively served by different groupings of airport types at various levels of driving access. For example, it is interesting to note that approximately 64% of the US population lives within 70 miles of a medium or large hub. Further, approximately 90% of the residents in the United States live within 180 miles (approximately a 3 h drive) of a medium or large hub. If FAA-designated
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small hubs are also included, locational access increases dramatically. Approximately 80% of the US population is within 70 miles of a small, medium or large hub and only 2% of the population is located further than 180 miles from these hubs. If one considers all non-EAS airports, access continues to increase with approximately 93% of the population having access to a commercial airport within 70 miles and only about 0.1% of the population not having access within 180 miles. Finally, when all commercial airports are considered as viable options for accessing the US air transport system, approximately 96% of the population lives within 70 miles and only 0.007% of the population does not have access within 180 miles. Given these initial benchmarks, it is important to note that approximately 36% of the US population is further than 70 miles from a medium or large hub. This implies that airports in these communities are eligible for EAS support. However, it is clear that when accounting for the presence of all non-EAS airports, not simply medium and large hubs, about 93% of the US population lives within 70 miles of an airport with scheduled commercial service in 2006. This suggests that EAS would be necessary for at least 7% of the US population if the critical access standard of 70 miles is maintained. 4.2. Evaluating EAS and hub airport coverage redundancy One question that arises is to what extent do EAS airports uniquely serve demand? In other words, to what extent is EAS service redundant with other commercial airports? To assess the possibility of redundancy, the spatial proximity of each census tract is evaluated in relation to EAS airports and other commercial airports of different classes (e.g., small, medium, large and non-hubs). Again, this is evaluated based on the computed driving distances and the associated query rules discussed earlier to identify: (1) areas that are uniquely served by EAS and (2) areas that are served by both EAS and another class of airports (i.e., redundant service coverage). Fig. 4 details the level of unique access offered by EAS airports when compared to other groupings of commercial airports in the US. The top curve (circles) indicates unique service coverage offered by EAS airports as compared to medium and large hubs over a range of different access standards. For instance, given an access standard of 70 miles, EAS airports would uniquely serve approximately 8.3% of the US population. Unique EAS service coverage reaches a peak at a 120 miles access standard (12.3% of population) and diminishes completely at 745 miles. This high level of unique EAS service coverage is not surprising since medium and large hubs only account for about 15% of all commercial airports in the lower 48 US states. However, airports classified as ‘‘small” hubs are also important contributors to the US air transportation system. These include vital airports such as Akron-Canton Regional, Savannah/Hilton Head International, Tallahassee Regional, Fresno Yosemite International, Santa Barbara Municipal, El Paso International, as well as many others. More importantly, these small hubs are for the most part, commercially self sustaining, requiring no EAS subsidy. The middle curve (squares) indicates unique EAS coverage when small, medium, and large hubs are considered. In this scenario, the unique service ability of EAS airports is much diminished. Given a 70 miles critical access distance, only about 5.6% of the tract population is uniquely served by EAS airports with the maximum population uniquely served being slightly more (5.7%) at a 85 miles access distance. Further, unique coverage by EAS airports diminishes completely at 500 miles. Aside from small, medium, and large hubs, there are commercially viable ‘‘non-hub” airports that do not require EAS subsidies. For example, Elko Regional, Missoula International, Jackson Hole, Rochester International
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and Tulsa International among others are all of regional significance and in many instances provide direct service to larger hub airports. Thus, they can also be considered to provide effective access to the US air transport system. Fig. 4 also depicts the impact that these non-hub airports have on the unique service coverage of EAS airports. Once again, unique service by EAS airports is represented by the bottom curve (triangles). The maximum unique population served by including non-hubs in addition to small, medium and large airports is now only about 3.4% given an access standard of 55 miles. Ironically, a critical access distance of 70 miles actually reflects a reduction in population served (2.9%) while all unique coverage by EAS airports is completely diminished at 285 miles. Given these results, it is apparent that the service capabilities of EAS airports perform as intended when compared to access options provided by medium and large hubs using the critical access distance of 70 miles as the benchmark for community eligibility. Simply put, EAS airports provide access to a relatively small, but important segment of the rural and remote population in the United States. However, when small hubs and other regionally important non-hub airports with commercial service are considered, EAS airports are observed to provide a decreased level of unique service. This decreased level of unique service arises due to a higher level of redundant coverage by non-EAS airports. For example, consider Fig. 5 which highlights the extent of redundant service coverage (i.e., leakage potential) for EAS airports. Given access standards of 0–35 miles, there is no service overlap between EAS airports and medium and large hubs. However, as shown in Fig. 5, service overlap begins to rise dramatically after that 35 miles, with a nearly 35% overlap at an access distance of 70 miles and a 56% overlap at an access distance of 100 miles. Thus, if passengers were willing to travel a mere 100 miles for better airport amenities such as
more frequent flights, cheaper tickets, fewer layovers, passenger leakage becomes a significant concern for many EAS market areas. Further, when small hubs are introduced as viable airport options for passengers, redundant service coverage occurs more rapidly. In this case, a service overlap of approximately 57% is realized at the 70 miles access distance and nearly 80% overlap at the 100 miles access distance. Finally, if all non-EAS airports are considered, service coverage redundancy becomes even more significant. At a 70 miles access distance, a service overlap of almost 78% occurs while at the 100 miles access distance, overlap is slightly over 95%. Figs. 6 and 7 graphically illustrate the geographic distributions of unique and redundant service coverage for EAS airports. For example, Fig. 6 highlights the level of redundant service for EAS airports with a critical access distance of 70 miles, with light gray areas representing unique EAS coverage with respect to medium and large hubs and dark gray areas representing redundant coverage. There are several areas worth noting on this map, including the Pittsburgh, PA region and portions of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. In both cases, larger hub airports (PIT, DCA, IAD, and BWI) are surrounded by a ring of EAS airports. For example, consider Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT). According to the FAA, there were 4,946,256 enplanements during 2006, qualifying PIT as a medium hub. There are five EAS subsidized airports surrounding PIT, including Morgantown, WV (MGW), Johnstown, PA (JST), Jefferson County (DUJ) and Chess-Lambertin (FKL). While all of these communities are more than 70 miles from PIT, significant portions of their market area are not. In fact, 76.8% of all census tracts in the Pittsburgh (n = 721) core-based statistical area (CBSA) for 2006 (Census, 2006) are within 70 miles of both PIT and an EAS airport. Further, this does not include numerous tracts outside of the Pittsburgh CBSA in adjacent metropolitan areas (e.g., Indiana, PA, New Castle, PA, etc.). Not surprisingly, when small
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(a) Medium and Large Hubs
(b) Small, Medium and Large Hubs Fig. 6. Redundant service coverage for EAS airports at the 70 miles critical distance threshold.
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hubs are included in the analysis, the number of areas with redundant service coverage increases to include portions of S.W. Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and California’s San Joaquin Valley (Fig. 6b). Further, when the community eligibility parameter is extended to 100 miles, significantly more redundancy appears between EAS airports and small, medium and large hubs (Fig. 7). Large pockets remain in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, but pockets of redundancy also begin to emerge in more sparsely populated regions of Colorado, Arizona and Washington. 4.3. Evaluating EAS airport redundancy As shown in the Figs. 6 and 7, considerable redundancy does exist between EAS airports and FAA designated hubs over many of the access standards considered (i.e., 70 and 100 miles). However, Figs. 8 and 9 highlight yet another type of overlap, namely, service redundancy amongst EAS airports. As illustrated by Fig. 8, there is no redundancy between EAS service areas up to an access distance of 20 miles. However, as the access distance increases to the community eligibility standard of 70 miles, redundancy between EAS airports becomes apparent. For example, at 70 miles, there is slightly more than 18% redundancy (Fig. 8). However, when the critical access distance is increased to 100 miles, EAS service areas display 32.5% redundancy while at 180 miles and there is a 53.8% overlap in service coverage. Fig. 9 displays the geographic manifestation of this service overlap, highlighting the degree of redundancy for each census tract by airport count. For example, at a 70 miles critical access distance, several census tracts in the Mason City (MCW) and Dodge City (FOD), Iowa service areas are covered by several airports (i.e., redundant coverage = 2) (Fig. 9a). In more extreme cases such as those found in Pennsylvania and New York, there are tracts that can reach up to six unique EAS airports within 100 miles (Fig. 9b) – and this does not consider additional access options such as FAA designated hubs or alternative non-hub airports which are not subsidized by the EAS program.
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dizing airline operations for carriers serving unprofitable routes to undesirable locations. As noted in the introduction, the gap between fares collected and the cost of flying a route in Montana often exceeds $1200. This is a marked difference, suggesting that operations are only possible with EAS subsidies. A second facet smacking of corporate welfare is the use of Raytheon engineered 19-seat Beechcraft 1900 turboprops. Interestingly, while the regional and commuter jet market in the United States has been moving toward the larger, faster and more comfortable regional jets manufactured by Embraer, Canadair and Bombardier since the late 1990s (Dresner et al., 2002),10 most EAS cities remain served by the Beechcraft turbo props. Why? Raytheon encourages the continued use of these antiquated aircraft because the company’s success was strongly tied to the initial purchase and continued maintenance of these planes (Sparks, 2007).11 More importantly, Raytheon is a primary contributor to Regional Aviation Partners, a special interest group charged with promoting and lobbying for EAS. While it would be difficult to dissect all of the political motivations for encouraging or allocating EAS subsidies, it is fairly easy to gauge political interest in EAS through legislative activities. For example, in 2007, John Salazar, the democratic representative from Colorado’s 3rd district and John Peterson, the republican representative from Pennsylvania’s 5th district introduced the Rural Aviation Improvement Act (USHR, 2007). Several general amendments were proposed to the existing EAS program: 1. Raising the total annual authorized funding to $140 million. 2. Repealing a provision put in place by the 2002 FAA Reauthorization Act requiring a community to pay a portion of the cost (up to 10%) to keep its limited commercial air service. 3. Modifying an existing provision that caps the EAS subsidy at $200 per passenger for communities within 210 miles of a medium or large hub airport. 4. Requiring the USDOT to calculate distances to the nearest hub airport by using the most commonly used route instead of the shortest route available.
5. Discussion Given the results presented in the previous section, it is clear that several aspects of the EAS program in the United States are worth further discussion. Redundancy in service coverage is clearly an issue of concern. As mentioned throughout this paper, the fundamental goal of the EAS program is to ensure that smaller communities retain a link to the national air transport system. This is accomplished with federal subsidies for 108 different airports in the United States during 2006. Again, communities are eligible for EAS service if they are located at least 70 miles from the nearest medium or large airport hub. At first glance, while the locations of EAS subsidized airports appear to be distributed somewhat evenly throughout the rural segments of the US, our analysis suggests a high level of redundant coverage both within the EAS network and between EAS airports and alternative commercial hubs. Portions of Pennsylvania and New York exhibit the highest levels of redundancy, with Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and several other Midwestern states also exhibiting significant service overlap. Why do these redundancies exist? There is no clear-cut answer to this question, although certain components of the EAS program, namely a combination of private interests and political leverage, can shed some light on these inefficiencies. For example, as noted previously, EAS service is controversial because critics believe it encourages regressive transfers – funneling money from all taxpayers, many of which cannot afford air travel, to communities where residents can afford air travel and do not need the federal subsidies (Sparks, 2007). Further, it has been suggested that EAS also functions as a corporate welfare system. There are two facets to this. First, the federal government is subsi-
Interestingly, although this act did not pass, it is not surprising that representatives from both Colorado and Pennsylvania were involved – both are states with numerous (and redundant) EAS service areas. More recently, Bill S. 983 (Rural Aviation Improvement Act) was reintroduced by representatives from Maine and New Mexico – containing many of the same parameters by representatives from the failed 2007 version and promoted by Regional Aviation Partners (Open Congress, 2009). From a spatial perspective, the results of this paper also point to some interesting developments. First, our analysis suggests that the use of a 70 miles critical access standard to a medium or large hub may be too liberal. Roughly equating to a 1-h drive, there are many instances throughout the United States where census tracts within an EAS market area are within easy reach of alternative commercial airports (including medium and large hubs). For example, large portions of the Athens, GA airport market, which is subsidized by the EAS program, are within an easy driving distance (<70 miles) to Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport (Fig. 6a). Although the Athens connector routes fly through Charlotte, NC (CLT), there is simply no comparison between ATL and CLT for flight frequency, destinations availability or pricing. As noted by Grubesic et al. (2009) and others, ATL is a dominant hub, with an extremely large network footprint, providing unparalleled service frequency and seating capacity to cities throughout the southeastern US. As a result, it is likely that Athens experiences significant
10 11
The Bombardier CRJ 700 seats 70 passengers. The production of the Beechcraft 1900 turboprops was halted in 2002.
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(b) Small, Medium and Large Hubs Fig. 7. Redundant service coverage for EAS airports at the 100 miles critical distance threshold.
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market leakage to Atlanta. Further, by eliminating EAS service to Athens, the federal government could have saved $392,000 during 2006. As of 2008, Athens, GA is supported by an annual subsidy of $1,051,386. Second, when the EAS program was implemented in 1978, the spatial distribution of population in the United States was much different. For example, consider Pueblo, CO. In the early 1980s, the only medium to large airport option was Denver (DEN), located 115 miles to the north via a relatively sparsely populated Interstate 25. Today, the I-25 corridor is one of the fastest growing (and suburbanizing) conurbations in the United States. For instance, Colorado Springs, which is located 45 miles north of Pueblo, had a population of 215,000 in 1980. Today, more than 376,000 people live in Colorado Springs and its airport (COS) enplanes approximately 1 million passengers per year. Considering the spatial proximity of Pueblo to COS, should it remain an EAS subsidized community? Obviously, the distance between Denver and Pueblo has not changed, but its proximity to a viable FAA-designated ‘‘small” hub, suggests that it may be time to reevaluate EAS community eligibility guidelines in Colorado and many other locations in the United States. Third, the empirical results presented in this paper provide strong evidence that redundancies in EAS market areas between medium and large hubs and within the EAS airport system already exist at the 70 miles critical access standard. However, by increasing the community eligibility access distance from 70 miles to 100 miles, more dramatic redundancies in EAS market areas begin to emerge, suggesting that the systematic thinning of EAS airports is possible, particularly if one includes viable small hub airport options for travel. With subsidies ranging from several hundred-thousand dollars to well over $1 million in some EAS communities, modest changes in eligibility requirements could save taxpayers millions. Further, given the
existing spatial distribution of EAS communities and the alternative commercial options for air travel in many locations, market leakage is likely occurring (Fuellhart, 2007), making the system inefficiencies more pronounced. In part, the incorporation of small hubs into the EAS evaluation process is important because of the emergence of the hub-and-spoke operational structure utilized by most commercial carriers in the United States. In an effort to develop economies of scale, the huband-spoke system minimizes the costs of adding spokes to operational hubs and often increases revenues, geographic footprints and market shares for carriers (O’Kelly, 1998; Goetz, 2002; Grubesic and Zook, 2007). That said, while levels of service in the smaller spoke markets remain limited, many small hubs offer a viable palette of connections. For example, Sioux Falls Regional Airport (FSD) is served by three airlines (Delta, Allegiant and United) in 2009, with virtually all routes available to passengers connecting through Minneapolis (MSP), Chicago (ORD) or Denver (DEN).12 Even with this modest level of service, there is little doubt that EAS airports in South Dakota experience some degree of market leakage to FSD. For example, both Brookings and Watertown are within 100 miles of FSD, with Watertown’s EAS connection (Mesaba Airlines) connecting through MSP anyway. In conclusion, the EAS program appears to be fraught with inefficiencies in spatial service provision. From market redundancies between FAA-designated medium and large hubs to service overlap between EAS communities, the results of this paper suggest that eligibility requirements for EAS subsidies need to be revisited. 12 Allegiant air provides service to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Orlando on an irregular (i.e., once weekly) basis. Delta also provides one daily connection to Atlanta.
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(a) 70 Mile Threshold
(b) 100 Mile Threshold Fig. 9. EAS airports with redundant coverage, 70 miles and 100 miles.
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