By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
For more than seven years, the City of Great Bend has been without an air service where citizens could purchase a flight to a major airport.
The Essential Air Service program was created by the United States Department of Transportation to guarantee that smaller communities, such as Great Bend, had access to certified air carriers. The EAS program provides subsidies to the air carriers to make the flights, with limited passengers, financially worth it for the carrier.
EAS was dropped at the Great Bend Municipal Airport in May 2016
because the subsidy per customer was growing too large. Airport Manager Martin
Miller said many Essential Air Service programs across the state are also
struggling to be reliable because of pilot and crew shortages.
"Pilots and the aircraft are still the limiting factor," said Miller. "There are a lot of airports, bigger than us, with Essential Air Service that are losing flights now because they don't have air crews."
In 2016, the EAS program allowed for a $1,000 subsidy per passenger. The Great
Bend airport was receiving a $1,500 subsidy per customer to offset the expense
to the carriers.
Miller said it is very unlikely that Great Bend will have an air service provider
once again, noting the city could possibly need a $2 million subsidy.
There are still Essential Air Service providers nearby Great Bend. In Hays,
there are daily flights offered to Chicago and Denver. In Garden City, a flight
is offered to Dallas.