Only the third item in this longer item is relevant to this site, but it is relevant. So we're posing that section here.
Lex Anteinternet: The CST goes into the Sunday before Labor Day with a barrel of economic news
3. Wyoming to subsidize air travel?
"The air liner "Hannibal" on the Alexandria aerodome"
In a really surprising story the Wyoming Department of Transportation is advancing a plan to contract with air carriers in Wyoming the same way that airlines do with regional carriers., this story coming in the wake of Allegiant saying "Tally Ho!" to Casper. That is, basically, they'll buy any seats the regionals don't fill. It's an ambitious and surprising plan. It basically accepts the reality of the situation, that being that Wyoming is too small of market, in the modern world, to support much air travel. Casper has what little there is, and even its services are being reduced. Part of this is fueled, as the paper notes, by a new regulatory requirement that pilots for commercial carriers have a much increased number of hours in order to take that job. This has resulted in a pilot shortage, which was coming on anyhow, and it's also meant that its more expensive to operate in the small venues. A law of unintended consequences thing, sort of.
This plan would have to get past the legislature, of course, and I'm somewhat skeptical that in the current political environment that will occur. The paper interviewed Chuck Grey with the nearly predictable result of Grey, who is a far right conservative fellow traveler with the Wyoming Liberty Group, not being keen on the idea. The surprising part of that was that Grey wasn't as hostile to the idea as I would have expected, even though he doesn't support it. Grey told the Trib; "We need to continue to look at the current situation and purse competition".
That isn't going to work, actually. Regional air travel is limited here as its not economic. Chuck feels the solution is to attract Southwestern which. . .isn't going to happen.
I can see the opposition to this plan and what it will entail already. "Socialism!" But the fact of the matter is that the American transportation infrastructure is already government supported, with the except of the railroads. The poor railroads have to make it on their own for some reason but this isn't true of other things. American highways and streets are not, after all, privately owned. When you drive into your subdivision you likely don't pay a toll to the homeowners association, and there isn't a Wyoming State Turnpike Company that owns the highways. Nope, all subsidized. Indeed, we're so used to this that we don't even consider the inequities in the funding of highways. Looked at that way WYDOT's plan is really farsighted. The lack of intrastate air travel has long been known to be something that hurts Wyoming's economy. The airports are barely making as it is. Some, like Natrona County's, are real gems. What WYDOT is proposing isn't really any more radical than what the state and the towns are already doing with wheeled transportation.
