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This Week is Small Community Air Service Development Week 2009

By Brett Snyder

Updated on: October 4, 2009 / 10:25 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Every fall, airports jockey into position to try and get a little piece of the federal government's Small Community Air Service Development Program (SCASDP) funds. I thought last year was going to be the last, but here we are with a fresh new batch of applications. So it's time for SCASDP Week 2009 here on BNET.

Last year, I picked 5 proposals to highlight, some good and some bad. My predictions sadly only came true on 2 of the 5, and none of the ones I liked were approved. Bummer. But this year, we've got a fresh new crop, and I have to say that most of them are incredibly boring.

The story is the same for most of these. Let me paraphrase:

"We've lost a ton of service, but we totally deserve more. We just need money to convince airlines to come back and then we're sure it'll be successful in the long run without further funding."
"Our service would totally be successful, but people just don't know about it. We need to spend a ton of money on marketing it so people start flying here."
"Our fares are too high, so we want a low cost carrier to come in and save us."

Personally, I find most of these to be a waste of time. Sure, every so often it works. Take a look at Santa Rosa, California. They received a SCASDP grant a few years ago to get Horizon Air to start flying there, and sure enough that service has prospered on its own. But most of the time, they just don't work. (Palmdale, anyone?)

I'm even more amazed at the amount of money that airports seem to throw at consulting firms to write their proposals. It looks like half the proposals have been written by Sixel Consulting and they look exactly the same every time. Is nobody concerned about having a firm write your proposal when they're also doing the same thing for about half of the competition? I guess not. I should get into this business.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be focusing on some of the more creative proposals that I think deserve attention. They may not be the best plans, but at least these airports have stepped outside the box to try and come up with something different. For that, they at least deserve a closer look.