James Oberstar: “I supported this program as a pilot program in AIR-21 last year. In fact, Chairman Shuster and I worked together to…”

“I supported this program as a pilot program in AIR-21 last year. In fact, Chairman Shuster and I worked together to fashion the language. I have long supported service to small communities and to initiatives of this kind. We all know that deregulation has saved billions of dollars for air travelers, but we also know that, in the process, deregulation has cost communities air service. What we have now is a phenomenon of the community in my district and elsewhere around the country where people are traveling by car as much as 100 miles to get adequate air service. With the kind of initiative that we anticipated in this provision, this pilot program, we can both prevent communities from becoming essentially air service towns, where the Federal Government is coming in to support air service with direct dollar payments, and help them to advertise, undertake initiatives locally to encourage air travel from lesser-served communities and boost their air service. Such initiatives have worked in communities in my district to more than double air travel in those towns, saving their air service. I think that this pilot program in the manner in which the chairman has proposed to fund it ought to be approved and will help increase demand in such markets to create adequate service without direct Federal assistance.”