Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Cape Air service to Lancaster extended until January 31. Lancaster Airport (KLNS), Pennsylvania.

Cape Air service here will live to fly another day.

At least until Jan. 31.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has extended the federal subsidy to Cape Air for providing service to Lancaster by four months.

The department also has increased the Essential Air Service subsidy to an annualized $1.64 million, from $1.37 million.

Lancaster Airport Authority officials learned last week that the subsidy would be extended beyond its scheduled Sept. 30 expiration.

That will enable Cape Air to continue daily service between here and Baltimore-Washington International for the time being.

Cape Air has been flying between Lancaster and BWI since March 2009, thanks to the subsidy.

The subsidy for each departing flight from Lancaster is $465, according to the transportation department.

But that subsidy is in jeopardy because of a new federal law.

The new law excludes EAS subsidies to 10 airports, including Lancaster, located less than 90 miles from a hub airport, and to three others that get minimal use.

However, the new law also gives Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood the latitude to allow exceptions.

LaHood can issue a waiver of the 90-mile criterion if the secretary determines that the "geographic characteristic of the location results in undue difficulty in accessing the nearest medium or large hub airport."

Andrew Bonney, Cape Air vice president of planning, said he's hopeful of a favorable decision but refused to speculate on what LaHood might do.

"We are hopeful that (Cape Air) stays in the program, but I have no idea really if they will get past Jan. 31," Lancaster Airport director Dave Eberly said.

In the meantime, though, the transportation department is not enforcing the 90-mile rule until it finalizes the regulations to accompany the new subsidy formula.

The EAS program spends $200 million a year to subsidize commercial flights to 153 communities that otherwise would not have air service because those routes are unprofitable.

EAS subsidies have quadrupled since 2001 and have become a target of GOP lawmakers who say such programs are superfluous at a time of high deficits.

Lancaster Airport has had EAS-funded service, off and on, with several carriers since 2004.

Cape Air, with its nine-passenger Cessna 402 twin-engine planes, has seen a 21 percent increase in ticket sales for the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period in 2010, Bonney said.

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