Air Subsidies Continue for Cody and Laramie. .. for now.

From Today's Casper Star Tribune, the following headline:

Air service subsidies expected to continue in Cody and Laramie. But larger questions loom.

But that apparently doesn't mean that such subsidies aren't on the firing line still, to some degree.

For those who might not be aware, air travel to Cody is subsidized by the Federal Government for the winter months, and for all passengers all year long for Laramie.  This provides for twice a day winter flights, for example, to and from Cody to Denver during the winter months.

It's pretty safe to assume that without these funds air travel to Cody would be impaired and for Laramie it would simply end.  The Tribune notes, regarding how this works;

United’s new contract to provide service to Cody guarantees the airline an annual payment of $850,000 to provide 14 nonstop trips each week from Cody to Denver between October and May.

That doesn't provide a reason to continue the subsidy, of course, and pure free marketers would argue that if the market doesn't support it, it should end.  On the other hand, it's been proven that a lack of convenient air transportation hinders Wyoming's economy fairly massively.  

For this reason, the state actually seriously took a look, and still somewhat is, on subsidizing air travel withing the state itself, although it didn't get to that. As the Tribune summarized it:

The Wyoming Department of Transportation presented an ambitious fix to the state’s reliance on commercial air carriers, who can currently decide whether and when to provide service — allowing the fortune’s of Cowboy State communities to rise and fall based on the whims of national corporations.

WYDOT proposed effectively creating its own airline, determining which communities would receive service as well as schedules, ensuring, for example, that it was possible for business people to catch an early morning flight into Casper or Rock Springs.

The state would contract with the same regional providers, like SkyWest or GoJet, that United and Delta Air Lines use on branded flights to connect relatively small communities, like those in Wyoming, with major hubs in Denver and Salt Lake City. These arrangements are known as capacity purchase agreements.

“This idea of capacity purchase agreements, for decades, has worked very well for airlines,” WYDOT director Bill Panos told lawmakers last summer.

At a bare minimum, a lack of air service certainly isolates Wyoming's economy.  So, at the end of the day, the argument somewhat comes the degree to which you favor practicality over economic purity, or whether you believe the government should have any role in subsidizing transportation.  The Governor's office noted, according to the Trib:

“Commercial air service is a significantly limiting factor,” Endow’s Jerimiah Reiman said earlier this year. “There’s a lack of air service particularly to global destinations.”

Of course, if we're going to go for economic purity, at some point we'd have to request that the Federal Government cease funding highway construction, which is a subsidy and a fairly direct one.  I can't see that request coming any time soon, but its interesting how in a state that tends to argue for a fairly laissez faire type of economics, we don't feel that way about highways.  No, not at all.  Of course, to be fair, funding the infrastructure, massively expensive though it is, is not the same as funding transportation itself.  I.e., there's no Federal bus subsidy, or Federal car subsidy.  

There isn't a Federal rail subsidy of any kind in most places, of course, although we do still have Amtrak, so I guess that's not fully true.  When railroads carried passengers everywhere cars were not as commonly used for over the road transportation and the Federal Government hadn't gotten in to highway funding yet.  Indeed, if the Federal Government quit funding highway construction it'd change the transportation infrastructure massively and we'd have to wonder if railroads and airlines would be big benefactors.  Anyhow, even at that time the railroads weren't necessarily super excited about passengers and the Federal Government somewhat forced the rail lines to carry them, but it didn't subsidize them.  The U.S. Mail was a big moneymaker for railroads back then, which it no longer is in any fashion, so the railroads had to listen to the Federal Government for that reason if none other.

Blog Mirror: Women In Aerospace History: Katherine Stinson

11 December 1917: Katherine Stinson

11 December 1917: Katherine Stinson flew her custom-built Curtiss-Stinson Special from Rockwell Field, North Island, San Diego to the Presidio of San Francisco, a distance of 606 miles (975 kilometers)¹ in 9 hours, 10 minutes. This was a new American duration distance record.

And more on this interesting story follows on the noted blog site.

Piper Seneca. Natrona County International Airport

Boeing 737 Max, Natrona County International Airport.

 

 This is the new Boeing 737 Max, Boeing's new narrow-body airliner which is the fourth generation of the venerable Boeing 737.  This example was at the Natrona County International Airport undergoing some testing at this famously windy airport featuring very long runways.

National Aviation History Month

Somehow I managed to miss the fact that November is National Aviation History Month.

Something that would have fit in well as a topic here on our blog.

Well, at least there's a little November left anyhow.

Face of Defense: Marine Aviator Draws Forward Air Controller Duty

Face of Defense: Marine Aviator Draws Forward Air Controller Duty

Lex Anteinternet: Persistent Myths XIV: The Korean War Edition

Lex Anteinternet: Persistent Myths XIV: The Korean War Edition:  The Korean War, we were poorly armed with antiquated stuff, edition.   " U.S. Marines wounded at Kari San Mountain are evacuated...

Wyoming Air National Guard Static Display, Republic F-84 Thunderjet

This is a F-84 Thunderjet on a static display at the Wyoming Air National Guard's main gate at the Cheyenne Regional Airport in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The Republic Thunderjet was a very early USAF jet fighter, first entering service in a straight wing version and then being modified to be a swept wing version, like the one on display here. 

Plagued with various problems throughout its service life, the F-84 none the less was a very significant US combat aircraft during the 1950s and saw heavy use during the Korean War.  It later saw widespread use around the world and completed its service in Angola in 1974.  As can be seen from this example, it saw use by Air National Guard units as well as the regular United States Air Force.

Wyoming Air National Gaurd C130 Static Display, Cheyenne Wyoming

The Wyoming Air National Guard has this C130 on a static display at their gate at the Cheyenne Regional Air Port.  Cheyenne's airport is a major air national guard base.

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: I'll be with you, boys.

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: I'll be with you, boys.

You can't fly there from here.

 

 Over the Laramie Range.

Unfortunate news from the Casper Star Tribune:

CHEYENNE – A legislative committee chose not to move a draft bill forward this week that would have made fundamental changes to commercial air service in Wyoming.

I was really hoping that the bill would pass.

But I wasn't optimistic that it would.  Wyoming has never been very sympathetic to public funding of business unless its vicarious.  People support funding of highway construction, for example (although lately not so much in the way of school construction) and the legislature is keen on investing in "clean coal" development, even though the prospects for that appear to be rather remote.  But on a project like this, it would have surprised me if they'd supported it, even though I think it was an excellent idea.

I travel for work constantly and one of the questions I get from my out of state customers is "why don't you fly?"  And by that they mean, why don't you fly from one town to another, as in, why don't you fly from Casper to Jackson, or Cheyenne to Worland, or Gillette to Green River?

Well, you can't.

Oh, of course you can, but not easily.  For example, a person wanting to fly from Casper to Jackson would actually have to fly from Casper to Denver, or Salt Lake, and then from those cities to Jackson.  It'd be an all day ordeal.  It's easier, and much cheaper, to drive.

For us.

Because we're acclimated to it.

But that doesn't work that way for most people from other places.  So, when a company looks to relocate, let's say, from New Jersey to Wyoming, it looks at this stuff.  They figure that if they can fly anywhere on the East Coast, or the West Coast, or the No Coast, in a day hop, well surely they can do the same in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Well, outside of Colorado and Utah, not so much.

At one time, oddly enough, you could.  I can recall when I was young being on planes that went from Casper to Cheyenne or Casper to Billings, Montana. But all of that is long gone. And that fact hurts Wyoming businesses and the prospect s for business.

Well, the Tribune also reported:

But all sides agree the issue isn’t dead for lawmakers.

Hmmm, I bet it is.  And here's the reason why:

An appropriation between $29.5 million and $37.2 million out of the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account – commonly known as the “rainy-day fund” – to enact the 10-year plan would have been made under the bill.

As far as various governmental bodies around here are concerned, it never rains.

Sky Aviation Boeing CH-46 Chinooks. Worland Airport

A collection of CH-46s in Worland Wyoming.  These belong to the fire fighting company, Sky Aviation.

Our Pilot

One of the contributors to this blog, and the one who has contributed nearly all the recent photos, receiving his private pilot certificate and receiving the congrats of his trainer at Casper's Crosswinds Aviation

Hawker Sea Fury, Natrona County International Airport

These photographs are of a Hawker Sea Fury, one of the highest performance propeller aircraft ever made, at the Natrona County International Airport.

A beautiful, and amazing plane.  This one in Royal Canadian Navy colors.

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: For Our Aviators

Lex Anteinternet: Poster Saturday: For Our Aviators

Lex Anteinternet: The CST goes into the Sunday before Labor Day with a barrel of economic news

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.

Lex Anteinternet: Airport flaps and the law of unintended consequences. Parking should be free? No, it shouldn't, and it actually isn't.

Airport flaps and the law of unintended consequences. Parking should be free? No, it shouldn't, and it actually isn't.

 

Flying back from Tulsa, Oklahoma.  A trip which entails going from Tulsa to Denver (cheaply) and then from Denver to Casper (expensively).  Parking while you are in Tulsa is hardly going to be a significant element of your costs.

You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.

Maddie Ross in True Grit (written by Charles Portis)

I sometimes get the feeling recently that the Star Tribune is looking for something to do.  It probably needs something to do as its paper declines to the size of a large pamphlet and its reduced to running columns from the national syndicates.

Maybe not, but it's hard to look at the story on airport parking at the Natrona County International Airport as a real story.  Or at least its hard to get all worked up about it.  But I suppose its a legitimate story.

Here's the deal.

The airport is putting in some new parking, but it isn't in yet.  It won't be, maybe, for a long time, as its part of the airport's strategic plan, not a present project.

Big deal, you might say.

Well, it sort of is, maybe, in that there's a Wyoming state law that provides:

For public convenience, commissioners or boards having jurisdiction to regulate parking of vehicles shall provide free parking areas adequate to accommodate at least twenty percent of the number of vehicle parking spaces for which a fee is charged.

That's nice, eh?

Well, it is. And it was a law that was backed by former Natrona County Democratic legislator, Dick Sadler.

So, what's the deal, you may ask?

Well, the free parking is 1.5 miles distant from the terminal.  Quite a ways.  Probably nobody is going to park there.  At least not very many people, and not very often.

The tribune, alerted to this (it seems to have come up in recent airport board meetings), interviewed Natrona County Airport Board president Joe MacGuire on this.  MacGuire, who holds a pilots license (and whose father once kept a really neat A26 Invader out at the airport), is also a Republican state representative from Natrona County.  He tends to be blunt.  So, he told the Tribune that he knew it was a long ways away and admitted that its unlikely to be used.  He even stated , about the law;“It was kind of added in there at the very end and wasn’t even placed in a part of the statute that directly deals with parking,  Honestly, it’s kind of an unfunded mandate"

You know, it is an unfunded mandate.

Now, this is just the sort of thing that's fun for some people to get their back's arched up about.  Dick Sadler, the former legislator who often focused on Democratic populist type things while in the legislature has been working on this, apparently, out at the Airport and stated about the situation; "I passed that law and they hate my guts for it."

M'eh.

I very much doubt that.

But some folks are mad.  One friend of mine with far left political leanings commented "It's always obnoxious when rich people like MacGuire are quoted saying shit like, 'I wish everything at the airport was free.' I'm sure he's not really that much of a tool."

A very nice mural, obviously put up before terrorist attacks made extra security necessary, at the airport.  I have no doubt that most of these folks don't walk to walk 1.5 miles to the terminal. . . but I also have no doubt that saving $20.00 makes much of a difference to their trip.

MacGuire did say that, in the interview, but maybe he just deserves credit for being honest.

Consider the following.   The airport is only within $33,000 of going into the red.  That's really tight.  According to MacGuire the free parking at the airport costs the airport  $165,000. That makes quite a difference.

And now we learn, on top of it, that Allegiant Air is pulling out of Casper, and that will cost the airport $26,000.  With that loss, that $33,000 in the black becomes only $7,000.

That's really tight.

And as the airport manager noted, that's just the direct costs to the airport, not the ancillary loss, and that's likely to occur.  So that $26,000 direct loss is likely to become a bigger loss.  Indeed, it almost certainly will. Quite a few of those Allegiant travelers would have, well, parked at the airport while they were in Los Vegas (which is where Allegiant flew to from here).  That's a loss.  So, we can probably say that bare minimum, at least right now, the airport has probably less than a $5,000 margin, post Allegiant, before it goes into the red.

And while "free parking" is just the sort of "looking out for the average man" type of program that folks like to get behind, in this case, it makes darned little sense in general.

Indeed, the common thesis behind such things is that this protects the interest of the little guy. That would presuppose, in this instance, that the little guy is able to afford a ticket, set by the airlines not the airport, to fly out of Casper.  Most Casperites can in fact afford to fly out of here, but its so expensive that many, including most experienced travelers, actually choose to drive to Denver and catch a plane from there. The most expensive leg of air travel in and out of Casper is the flight to Denver or Salt Lake City.

The B Concourse (United Air Lines) in Denver.

Indeed, generally if you do that (and maybe you have to), you then park your car in a public lot that's so far from the actual Denver terminal that its located just outside of Dallas, Texas.  Or at least it feels that way.  And you catch a bus from there to the airport terminal.

Ground Transportation, Denver International Airport.

All of which makes the "free parking" at the Natrona County International Airport more than a little bit absurd.  You can shave off a little of the costs of prolonged parking, sure, but not much.  And any free parking is always going to be second best and always, therefore, going to entail an added element of risk for whatever you left there.  All this means that the thought was nice, but extremely unrealistic.

 

The view from Salt Lake City's airport.  Like a lot of business travelers, I go to both airports a great deal.

Something that the residents of the County don't appreciate much, I think, is that the airport is a real gem.  We're very lucky to have it. We're so acclimated to it that we don't realize what a major piece of infrastructure it is.  The runways are massive.  Some of the runways, I'd note, are retired from use and aren't maintained, and there's no plans to put them back in use. That's a real shame.

The entire airport is a legacy of the Second World War.  It was the third airport in the county, replacing a second that is now the Town of Bar Nunn.  There's no earthly way that Bar Nunn airport, which wasn't even completely flat, could serve the needs of the county today.  Not even close.  It was likely barely adequate at the time it closed.  The Natrona County International Airport was built as a training airbase for B-24s and B-17s during World War Two, on a much flatter piece of ground, and the runways are numerous and enormous.  Beyond that, probably a majority of the hangers date to the Second World War and are gigantic. The airport complex it self features numerous buildings that date from the original airbase as well.  It's a huge, and great, airport.  Probably the closest thing to it in the state is Cheyenne's municipal airport, once a major stop for transcontinental air mail runs, but it's a shadow of what Casper's airport is.*

The airport receives quite a bit of international traffic, given its great facilities.  If kept up, and they're trying, it'll continue to.  Better yet, if the retired runways could be put back in use it would be fantastic, but there's no money to do that.**

 

British Antarctic Survey airplane at the Natrona County International Airport.  This is a common site at our airport.  Surprisingly, they did not fly here from the UK for the free parking.  Go figure.

Which takes us back to parking.  The airport's master plan is to put in new parking near the terminal, and it will include public parking, so that will solve the problem.

But it won't solve the short funding problem.

And, everything that legislators mandate must be "free", no matter what it is, in the end, isn't.  It's a reverse tax of some sort, or it just becomes a public impossibility.  Free health care, free college, free highways, whatever, aren't really free.  When there are few public "frees" its easy to appreciate that, when there are thousands of such mandates, however, they cease to be.

Which doesn't mean that they aren't worthwhile.  Some are. Some are not.  One like this, in its intent, is perfectly understandable.

But it isn't free.

__________________________________________________________________________________

*Indeed I'll note here that the location of the Wyoming Air National  Guard's infrastructure at the Cheyenne airport is somewhat unfortunate.  The Natrona County International Airport was built by the United States Army Air Corps and it has everything, including size and an out of town location, that an airbase needs. Cheyenne's airport is surrounded by the town, on the other hand (you can circumnavigate the darned thing by car) and is smaller.  In terms of placement it wouldn't matter whether the Guard's airbase was in Casper or Cheyenne and the only reason I can think of it being in Cheyenne is that its close to F. E. Warren Air Force Base, which is also in Cheyenne. But F. E. Warren houses missile wings and nothing else, and doesn't have a large air strip itself. The aircraft at F. E. Warren are helicopters.

Maybe this is something that Natrona County should ponder, although over the years some super huge hangers have been built for the Air Guard in Cheyenne and it is, no doubt, too darned late now.

**Military traffic. . . is anyone listening?

North American T-6 Texan, Natrona County International Airport

I think that this North American T-6 Texan has been featured here before, but it was out the other day which gave a good opportunity to photograph it again.

This beautiful T-6 Texan was the racing plane of the late Jim Good of Casper.

Radu Manicatide IAR-823, Natrona County International Airport

This is a Radu Manicatide IAR-823, a Romanian trainer of which only 78 were ever made.  This example flew into the Natrona County International Airport for the 2017 Solar Eclipse.

Embraer EMB-312 Tucano, Armée de l’Air (French Air Force). Natrona County International Airport

 
This is a Brazilian made EMB-312 surplus from the Armée de l’Air, i.e., the French Air Force.  While these are primarily used as trainers, some countries use this airplane as a ground attack plane, which the USAF considered doing.

 

Maybe Berlin Airlift Rates were achieved.

Light private aircraft parked on unused runway at the Natrona County International Airport.  This part of the tarmac was used just for small private aircraft.  Another was used for private jets.

They came in, and then they left again.

Hundreds of private aircraft, arriving in time to see the August 21 solar eclipse, stacked up waiting to land and landing one right after another all morning long, and then taking off right after that.

The airport has likely never seen anything like this take off and landing rate. . . at least not since World War Two.