Here's a question for my friends in Pierre: would you like to buy your neighbor a plane ticket?
It's obvious a lot of you Pierre readers don't buy plane tickets for yourselves. Delta Airlines considers Pierre an "underperforming market" and is pulling its air service from our state capital. (That's what you get when on average you just barely manage to fill half the seats on a small plane.) Pierre doesn't qualify for a federal "Essential Air Service" subsidy. Apparently most Pierre folks either don't fly or take the initiative to drive to Rapid City or Sioux Falls to do so.
But those select few who want the pleasure of flying into the state capital may ask you to help pay for their privilege:
Pierre Mayor Laurie Gill says the city may have to provide a financial subsidy to entice an air carrier to offer a Pierre-Minneapolis route.
City officials are reaching out to other airlines after Delta Airlines announced it would eliminate the route due to a drop in passengers.
Gill says any airline looking at taking over the route may ask the city to provide assistance- a move she says that is not uncommon. The Pierre-Minneapolis route is not designated as an Essential Air Service route, so a carrier offering the flight does not receive federal funding ["Mayor: Pierre May Need to Offer Airline Subsidy," AP via KELO, 2011.11.14].
Hmm, let's see... the market says air service to Pierre isn't worth the ticket price. Most Pierre residents appear to agree. Mayor Gill apparently wants to overturn the verdict of the market. Pierrites, Republicans, free marketeers, how do you feel about that?
Related: But at least Mayor Gill is considering a do-it-yourself local approach. Lorraine Collins wonders if Spearfish would have gotten its airport upgrade if local residents had had to support the project with a local bond issue rather than getting 95% of the funding from Uncle Sam
Noem wants EAS for Watertown and Huron... I don't think EAS is essential. It isn't that far to drive to SF fron those towns. Rapid, SF, Aberdeen are probably the 3 places that we need an airport in SD.
It's a tough sell. It's already barely affordable to fly out of Sioux Falls. It's still considerably cheaper for more than one person to fly out of Omaha than Sioux Falls.
I can only imagine how much it costs to fly out of Pierre!
Actually Delta's figures are misleading and most of the current flights out of Pierre on Delta are full. Delta is hoping to rid itself of the smaller planes and is using cutbacks in smaller markets as an excuse. Out State Capital shouldn't be left without critical service heading east. Many state employees travel for work and flying out of Pierre is convenient. Our taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used to pay for time wasted driving 6 hours to SF or RC and back plus mileage, food and possibly an extra night of hotel stays.
Pretty bad that our state capital will soon have almost no air service and to top it off they will have a brand new $12 million airport to not fly out of...
And Mike, Watertown and Huron already receive EAS money and have done so for years while Pierre and Aberdeen qualify for the funding as the program requires a minimum distance of 70 miles from the closest hub (which for the purpose of this program would be Minneapolis). In fact rumor has it that Delta in Aberdeen wants to leave and then rebid to return if and when the city applies for and receives the funding.
How about a high speed train?
where a starbucks, a subway, and taco bell might share a dining car...
better yet: a trebuchet....
I'm all about a train to Pierre!
Laura, I am intrigued by the economic argument about mileage and overnight costs for state employees. I'd be very interested to see some official numbers that would tell us how much we spend on those extra costs that come from not being able to make faster trips by plane and how those costs compare to the cost of subsidizing air service.
High speed rail would be spectacular. I'd love a way to jump on a train to get from Rapid to Pierre to Sioux Falls and even Minneapolis. It'd force airlines to compete and maybe even stop them from treating passengers like cattle.