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Show (Officials Support Substitute Air Carrier Locally In a meeting held last Friday j Governor Calvin L. Ramp-m Ramp-m office, local and state , officials agreed that they (M1ld not protest an applica- . j,n before the Utah Public Service Commission from Key Airiin. to discontinue service . loMoab. The decision was . Kicked following receipt of fC,rd from Moab, Grand Co., and other officials, that fey would prefer to have a substitute carrier brought in to tile over Key's commuter run io Salt Lake City morning and inning, and the service to Grand Junction, which is now ooly available evenings. Jerry Mooney, chairman of tie Utah Air Transportation Committee, sponsoring agen cy for a demonstration project now being conducted in Utah on commuter air travel, stated in the meeting that he felt there would be little trouble in finding a suitable substitute commuter airline to take over Key's duties here. "Sky West Aviation, which is serving the Salt Lake City-Cedar City-St. George portion of our demonstration project would be the likely candidate to take over on the Moab-Salt Lake City route," Mr. Mooney told the Governor. Gover-nor. Governor Rampton pledged his support to the change, and also to Moab's request that service to Grand Junction be continued and hopefully in creased to morning and evening status by the substitute substi-tute carrier. That support came when the Governor was told that statistics in Moab showed that a full 80 percent of arriving and departing traffic during the tourist season came through Grand Junction from eastern and midwestern cities. Governor Rampton stated that he thought that any eastern Utah commuter service that did not include Grand Junction as a major stop would have a difficult time ever breaking even. The State of Utah, with financial assistance from the Four Corners Regional Commission, Com-mission, is now conducting a demonstration commuter airline air-line study aimed at providing information needed to submit an application to the Civil Aeronautics Board in Washington, Wash-ington, D. C. for limited certification and subsidy. The CAB is not currently recognizing recogni-zing commuter, or third-level carriers, but is paying tremendous tremen-dous subsidies to regional airlines for service to small-boarding small-boarding and isolated com-; com-; munitesj .. As a part of the demonstration demonstra-tion project, the State was granting to Sky West and Sun Valley Key Airlines, $20,000 each to help defray expenses in the service study. Key's president, James Bacon, told the Governor in a letter two weeks ago, that $20,000 was not nearly enough for his company--a subsidiary of Johns-Manvjlle Corp. and that he was pulling out of the study. That is when the application for service stoppage stop-page went to the Public Service Commission. Hopes that the Federal Civil Aeronautics Board might eventually recognize and begin be-gin helping small commuter airlines in their efforts to serve small communities brightened this week, when President Gerald Ford, through his Transportation Secretary William Wil-liam Coleman Jr., urged Congress to appropriate funds for subsidies to commuters to insure that small towns across the nation might continue to have scheduled air service. Transportation Secretary said the legislation, an amendment amend-ment to the administration's proposal to deregulate the airline industry would mean better service to small towns at less cost to the taxpayer. The administration proposal would make any local service or commuter airline which takes over scheduled service on an unprofitable route abandoned by another carrier eligible for federal subsidies. . Tries To Extend Subsidy Currently only local service airlines such as Frontier and Ozark which are regulated by the Civil Aeronautics Board can receive federal subsidies. The Civil Aeronautics Board last year attempted to extend a subsidy to a commuter airline but was thwarted when the U.S. Circuit Court ruled the board could not give federal money to an airline which it did not regulate. The legislation basically would overturn this ruling. Commuter carriers usually operate smaller and more economical planes than do air carriers regulated by the CAB and thus are able to make a profit on routes where the larger airlines cannot. However, some towns generate gen-erate such small passenger traffic that even the commuter service cannot make a profit. This is where the subsidy program would come into effect. The subsidy program would last until 1985 and the federal government would pay 100 percent of the subsidy need except on routes serving towns that generated 5 passengers a day or less over a six month period. Service would be continued on those routes only if the state or local government agreed to pay half of the subsidy cost. The secretary said the subsidy program was designed to alleviate fears of small towns that the administration's administra-tion's deregulation legislation would cause them to lose all scheduled air service. ' That legislation, currently pending in Congress, would give the airlines new freedom to raise and lower rates and to start and stop service on routes. No Longer Served About 30 percent of the cities served by local service airlines under the subsidy program in 1960 are no longer being served by those carriers. Many of those towns now receive air service from commuter airlines. Coleman said the federal government currently spends between $70 million and $80 million a year, in subsidies to local service airlines that serve small towns. He said this subsidy need would be reduced re-duced to $10 million to $15 million yearly by allowing the more efficient commuters to take over small town service |
