The Worst Small Community Air Service Grant Applications For 2010

Yesterday I looked at some of the good grant applications for this year's Small Community Air Service Development (SCASD) program. Today I'll do the fun part -- looking at a few of the bad ones.

Unfortunately, I don't get to pick and choose which grant applications win and which ones don't. My picks never quite seem to align with the feds, but that doesn't mean I can't voice my opinion. Many of the applications are the same thing we see every year: subsidize airlines to start service because the airport thinks it deserves it. But those are boring, and it takes something more to make it a really bad idea. Here are some of the worst ones in my eyes, in no particular order.

Carlsbad, California Carlsbad is looking for $500,000 to get Horizon Air (ALK) to start flights to San Jose. (I'll look at Horizon's SCASD efforts in San Jose in a later post in-depth.) On the surface, there might not seem to be anything particularly wrong with that, but then again, you have to think about Carlsbad's situation.

Today, Carlsbad only has flights to Los Angeles on United Express, and it wants more service. That's understandable, but there is another airline proposing to do just that. California Pacific wants to start flights from Carlsbad to a bunch of western destinations, including San Jose. So this application might draw more service to San Jose but it will hurt the chances of success for the airline that's trying to do more than that, if it can ever get off the ground.

If Carlsbad has no faith in California Pacific actually starting, then that's one thing. But otherwise, this is just shooting itself in the foot.

Lansing, Michigan Poor Lansing. Since 2005, Lansing has lost two-thirds of its capacity and now it's desperate for more. But wait, I feel no sympathy for Lansing if it's going to use these ridiculously distorted numbers to make its claim. See, in 2005, Lansing had far more service than it ever could support so using that high-water mark to compare is just silly.

Independence Air used to operate as United Express at Washington/Dulles but then it went out on its own. The airline had several regional jets per day flying to Lansing from Washington while United maintained its schedule by bringing in new partners to operate the service that it had historically offered. In addition, Northwest moved in to protect its Michigan operations and the result was a ton of service in Lansing. It was completely unsustainable and Independence went under. Then Lansing returned back to normalcy. And that explains a huge chunk of that drop in service.

But that's not the only reason to shoot down this proposal. Lansing wants to fund service to Washington/Dulles with this grant, but guess what? Sun Country has applied for slots at Washington/National to fly from Lansing . . . without subsidy. It also wants to fly from Lansing to other destinations. If Sun Country can make this work, then why do the feds need to subsidize others to do the same? They don't.

Jackson, Mississippi I'm really not sure what to make of Jackson's proposal here. The airport wants $250,000 to conduct a study on how to restructure airline operations and then put together a huge marketing program. In the proposal's words:

. . . the Airport and Community must clearly identify where these shifts in air service demand have taken place, quantify them, and assist incumbent (and, hopefully new) airlines in adjusting schedules, routes, capacity, hub-access and other factors to take advantage of them.

This whole things smells like a very well-paid consultant's work. I'll give them credit for packaging it as something different, but I can't see this doing any good at all.

Related:

• Samoa and Arkansas Win Federal Air Travel Subsidies
• Dumbest Cities to Receive Federal Airline Service Subsidies
• SCASDP Grants Have Been Awarded