Essential Air Service

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Essential Air Service (EAS) is a US government program to connect smaller cities in the USA to the airline network that would otherwise no longer be served by airlines after the deregulation of the US flight market.

The aim is to guarantee a minimum number of daily scheduled flights to cities and towns that would normally not be profitable for airlines.

The EAS program came into being after the de-regulation act of 1978 , which completely freed the US airlines from their route networks and calculations.

The United States Department of Transportation subsidizes airlines for approximately 140 routes across the country that would otherwise not be served by any airline. The level of subsidization depends on the economic needs of the municipalities, the hub of the municipalities served and the number of flights, seats and type of machines used that are required to reach a hub.

According to a New York Times article on the EAS program, the average allowance per passenger is approximately $ 74. The aid can be much higher for some flight connections to economically disadvantaged communities, but the aid on many connections is very low. The program is very popular in the subsidized communities and members of Congress expect the grant to grow to $ 114 million per year. In contrast, the White House would like to reduce the subsidy to $ 50 million. To this end, stricter subsidy criteria are to be applied and the cost shares of the US states and communities concerned are to be increased.