Reason Number 1,423 Why the Essential Air Service Program is a Huge Waste of Taxypayer Funds

(MoneyWatch)  Pop quiz. What costs $123 million per year and offers marginal value to the taxpayers who pay for it? No, it's not a CAT Scan for someone without health insurance; it's the government's Essential Air Service (EAS) program.

I've written about the boondoggle that its the EAS program on Cranky before, but today I want to focus on the plight of little Visalia in Central California. The Visalia Times-Delta has an in-depth article on the EAS program's failures there and I think it's worth shining a larger spotlight.

Visalia used to maintain service on its own, but in recent times, nobody has been willing to fly there without government subsidy. Fortunately for Visalia, they qualified for the EAS program because the airport a) had service before deregulation and b) is more than 70 miles from a medium or large hub. So, the feds have been pouring money into maintaining service to this city despite the fact that it's only 40 miles from Fresno and 70 miles from Bakersfield. Those are both "small" hubs so they don't count.

In the last year, the existing EAS provider walked away and Great Lakes was chosen as the replacement. Great Lakes began flying from Visalia to both Ontario and Merced on the wings of a $1.5 million government subsidy. And guess what? Nobody is flying. Projections were for 14,000 passengers a year and they'll be extremely lucky to even reach half that. So not only is the government pouring taxpayer money into this, but Great Lakes isn't even making any money.

And why would they? Who the heck wants to go to Ontario or Merced? I mean, I have nothing against Ontario, but that's not going to provide very many connections around the world. If you wanted to fly from Visalia to Tokyo, you'd have to connect in Ontario and then San Francisco. You might as well drive to San Francisco. Or you could just drive 40 miles to Fresno and connect via LA or San Francisco.

But even if service was provided from Visalia right into Los Angeles, it still wouldn't be worthwhile. The cost would be more than flying from Fresno and the benefits would be minimal. It's just not worth it.

While I know that there are some valuable subsidies in the air travel world, I would argue that most of the EAS markets don't make the cut. This program needs a change.