Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)

May 6, 2008

Floor Statement: Aviation Restructuring

Senator Jay Rockefeller

Mr. President, I remember those days in West Virginia when all the major airlines operating large jet aircraft served all of West Virginia's airports--jets, actual jets coming into West Virginia. Airline deregulation was a terrible mistake. It changed the very nature of air travel in this country for all. For millions of Americans in large urban areas, it ushered in an era of affordable air traffic. A trip to New York and Los Angeles went down. In fact, at a number of points, it became much cheaper to go to Los Angeles from New York than to go from West Virginia to Washington. But for West Virginia communities, it meant a loss of service and convenience and often higher prices. It seemed to me that the big jets disappeared from West Virginia within days of deregulation. I remember those nice American, United, and Eastern jets sitting out there on the tarmac, people piling on. Deregulation--boom, they were gone.

For 30 years, small and rural communities have had to cope with very limited and unreliable service. The Presiding Officer knows exactly what I am talking about. Over the last several years, these problems have been exacerbated by the weakened financial condition of the U.S. airlines, which is what this whole effort to get a bill going is about.

After September 11, dozens of communities saw a dramatic decrease in the level of air service. It was measurable, noticeable, and depressing. Many lost service altogether. As the industry recovered from the dramatic downturn in the air traffic that tragic day sparked, small communities did not see the benefits of that resurgence because once they dropped something, it was easier to keep it dropped rather than to help.

Small community air service is facing an unprecedented crisis. If we fail to act to address this problem, dozens of small communities across our Nation will face a future without air service. Consider that for a moment--small communities, viable industries, institutions, people who count. Americans are born equal, but then some don't have air service. That is what we have now. Without access to reliable air service, we throw into question their economic future.

I do not come to the Senate to represent the diminution of possibilities for West Virginia's economic future. I have spoken about the weakened financial condition of our major airlines. But we must also recognize that small regional carriers that provide the air service to rural States such as West Virginia and Montana and parts of Ohio, I am quite certain, also provide the vast majority of air service to midsize communities across the country, and they are teetering on the brink of collapse because of high fuel prices.

As Senator Baucus knows all too well, small airlines across the West have folded, leaving at least 17 communities with no air service at all. Seventeen communities would sort of make up the entire State of West Virginia. That is a terrible blow. So few regional airlines are willing to initiate service to small, isolated communities that, when one withdraws service, it is very hard to find replacement air service. In most cases, it is impossible. Hundreds of small and rural communities across our country are facing drastically reduced air service because of this financial turmoil in the industry. Even in the best of times, these communities face a difficult time maintaining and developing new air service options. Today, their challenge is preventing the complete loss of air service. That is effort No. 1: Hold on to whatever you might have. No matter if it is one flight a day, hold on to it. Fight for it.

I strongly believe the Federal Government must continue to assist our most vulnerable communities stay connected to the Nation's aviation network, a network paid for by all Americans.

The reduction or elimination of air service has been devastating in terms of its effect on the economic well-being of many of our communities across the country. Having adequate air service is not only a matter of convenience, it is a matter of economic survival. Without access to reliable air service, businesses will not locate their operations in these areas of the country, no matter how attractive the quality of life or the quality of the workforce. We have, for example, extremely low housing prices, low property taxes, and an extraordinarily highly productive workforce, with an average in manufacturing of 1 percent annual turnover. That is almost unheard of. Airports are economic engines that attract critical new development opportunities and the people who can make those things happen or continue to grow.

West Virginia is a very good place to do business. Toyota and a number of other large industries, chemical and otherwise, have found that out. I can proudly state that countless large U.S. and international companies have facilities in my State. I can even point out that 20 Japanese companies have industries in the State of West Virginia, three in Wayne County, which the Presiding Officer is familiar with. From West Virginia, a business traveler can get to seven airline hubs and from these seven cities can get to any point on the globe. One-stop service to Tokyo, London, Dubai is critical if my State is going to compete in the global economy. West Virginia has been able to attract firms from around the world because corporate executives know they can visit their operations with ease. That is why we have air service. Rural and smalltown America must continue to be adequately linked to the Nation's air transportation network if its people and businesses are to compete with larger urban areas and around the world.

When Congress deregulated the airline industry, we promised small and rural communities we would make sure they would remain connected to the aviation system. We have failed in our commitment to those promises. The Essential Air Service Program, which Congress established when we deregulated the airline industry, is not a huge program, but it provides money to attract airlines into smaller communities and is incredibly valuable.

But, on the other hand, the essential air service has never met the true needs and expectations of rural air service or the necessary requirements of rural air service.

In West Virginia, the essential air service has often been plagued by high fares and limited, sporadic service. For 10 years, I have worked to strengthen small community air service. I do that because I represent a rural State with hard-working people who have an enormous desire to succeed and to work and are deprived of what many other Americans take for granted. That is not fair in Internet connection; you cannot have a rural and urban divide. It is just as true in airline service; you cannot have urban doing well, rurals being left out because we are all Americans, all created by God to be equal.

So I have worked to strengthen small community air service. In the Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century, which Congress enacted into law in the distant past of the year 2000, we began to address the need to improve air service in small and rural communities.

I, along with many of my colleagues, supported the creation of something called the Small Community Air Service Development Pilot Program, a competitive grant program to provide communities with the resources they needed to attract new air service to their town. We try everything we can. We try absolutely everything we can. Over 100 communities now have used these grants to secure and retain new air service options. That is good.

I wish to highlight two success stories which happened in my State. Charleston received money under the program I have described and has used it successfully--Charleston is our capital--they have used it very successfully to attract a new service connection for our chemical industry to Houston. Why is that important? Well, our chemical companies do a lot of the training of their people in Houston and then they come back and they work in our chemical companies. Air service to Houston gave West Virginians an important gateway, in addition, therefore, to the markets of Latin America.

Over the past 2 years, Tri-State Airport in Huntington has been reborn because of the money it received under this Small Community Air Service Development Grant Program. Prior to attracting a low-cost charter operator, the airport had seen a steep decline in the number of passengers using the airport. With fewer passengers, airlines cut back flights. Fewer flights meant fewer passengers. It was a death spiral.

Once the community was able to secure a grant, matched with almost as many local dollars, airport officials were able to attract a new carrier that served the critical markets local residents wanted. For the first time in 20 years, large jets roared off the runways in West Virginia, in Huntington. The airport will have 100,000 passengers pass through its gates for the first time in decades.

Now, that is not very impressive if you are from New York or Los Angeles, but in West Virginia it shakes the world, and it gives people new hope. I was there when all this happened, and you could see a new sense of vigor and determination in the population. Air service attracts community ambition.

Improving air service must be a collective effort. Communities are most successful in creating new air service options when everyone--including the Federal and the State governments, airports, airlines, businesses, and citizens--works together to attract, promote, and use the service.

One of the things we learned the hard way in West Virginia was you cannot treat an airport similar to something which is out there which people will automatically go to. We used to have a lot of our people from Charleston driving all the way to Cincinnati and actually not understanding that the cost of traveling to Cincinnati and the fuel and the overnight and all the rest of it actually did not give them that much of a financial break, but they looked at the cost of the airline and off they went. So 16 percent of Charleston's traffic disappeared.

I am now proud to say West Virginia communities have been able to use this important program to rethink their air service needs, to think about marketing airports. You market airports like you market anything else. People have to be aware of it. You have to attract people to it. It is not something which is there. It is something which has to sell itself. LaGuardia does not have to do that. Newark does not have to do that. In West Virginia, we have to do that, and we are doing that.

The FAA bill that is before us extends the authorization for these important programs for 4 more years.

Four West Virginia commercial airports rely solely upon the Essential Air Service program for any service at all. We are extending that and enlarging the amount. No community wants to be dependent on essential air service. It is not a badge of honor. But it is a fact of survival. But for many, it is their only option to maintain air service.

But as I mentioned earlier, the program has not met the needs of many communities. In 2003, as part of the last FAA reauthorization bill, I created a number of new voluntary pilot programs for essential air service communities. I modeled these initiatives after the Small Community Air Service Pilot Program by focusing on incentives rather than punitive approaches.

Under this new plan, a community could receive funds to develop its own marketing plans rather than rely on the airline for one. It could use funds to increase service levels, opt to use different types of aircraft or investigate the use of alternative transportation service. In other words, it said: What is our problem? What are we going to do about it? We cannot wait on other people. We have to make these decisions ourselves. We are doing that in West Virginia.

This year, we have added a number of provisions to strengthen the Essential Air Service program. We have increased the authorization level for the program by $58 million to $175 million a year. We have included provisions to help carriers that provide the essential air service so they can meet the cost of high fuel. It is essential. We have increased the flexibility of the program even further so communities can work with the Department of Transportation and air carriers to find air service that works for them.

Small and rural communities are the very first to bear the brunt of bad economic times. It has always been so. It shall always be so. The Presiding Officer knows exactly what I am talking about. We are always, in West Virginia, at the end of the food chain on everything. We understand that. We do not like it, but that is our current destiny, and so that is why we have to fight harder and try to be more imaginative.

The general economic downturn and the dire straits of the aviation industry have placed exceptional burdens on air service to our most isolated communities. The Federal Government must provide additional resources for small communities to help themselves attract air service. If you have to do the work yourself, you do it. You just do it. The Federal Government must make sure our most vulnerable towns and cities are linked to the rest of the Nation. It is an easy statement to make, but it is a huge statement. We have an obligation in this country to make sure all of our communities and our people are linked to the broad air service opportunities, hubs and spokes. It has to happen.

My legislation builds on existing programs and strengthens them. We must continue to provide our constituents the tools and resources necessary to attract air service, and we are doing that.

So, in closing, I should say a subsidy alone does not solve the problems of small community air service. If our constituents do not use that service, or the airlines take it away--airlines cannot operate unprofitable flights or flights that are marginally profitable, for which they could do better elsewhere. They make a little bit of money or they do not make a little bit of money, and they are gone because their situation is so dire.

I do not know what the future of the U.S. airline industry will look like in 6 months, but our Nation needs a strong airline industry. Our communities need to be connected to the aviation system.

That is why we are going through this most extraordinary exercise of no amendments to be voted on, a good deal of time to sit and talk, a great deal of frustration. But we are trying to pass something called the Federal aviation bill that will provide service to our people. If there is anything in the national interest, it is that. I will not go so far as to say it is more important than the interstate highway system, in terms of economic development and also reaching out to the world, which all our States need now to do on a two-way basis.

So we fight. We continue to fight.

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Floor Statement: Aviation Restructuring

Senator Jay Rockefeller