A Wing and a Subsidy

With a population of 4,521, Payette, Idaho, is not exactly a throbbing metropolis. Yet that small agricultural center at the junction of the Payette and Snake rivers claims a badge of prosperity that is rare on the smalltown scene: regularly scheduled air service. Airline service to small towns has never been particularly good and, because of rising costs, it is now going the way of the trolley car, the cracker barrel and the general store. During the past five years, 77 small communities have been lopped from airline route structures. Today fewer than 150 Payette-size towns have scheduled flights.

The Government has long been trying to reverse the trend. Subsidies to the nation's nine regional airlines-for retaining their 30 smallest outposts climbed from $36 million in 1969 to $59 million last year. In all, the subsidies average $65 for each traveler flying out of the 30 towns. Under a complex formula, the Civil Aeronautics Board now pays Hughes Airwest $466 for each of the few passengers that it carries out of Payette and nearby Ontario, Ore. The airline's highest regular fare is $85 for a trip from Phoenix to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico. Air-west is owned by Howard Hughes, who hardly needs the subsidy money.

Stage Line. Now the CAB is trying a different approach to serve smaller communities: strengthening the nation's 3,200 "third-level" carriers--the air taxis and commuter lines that usually fly smaller planes--Cessnas, Pipers, Beechcraft and the like. The third-levels fall into two groups: the 105 lines that provide scheduled round-trip service at least five days a week out of particular communities, and the 3,100 or so that offer less frequent scheduled service or simply hire themselves out irregularly for a motley of chores. The 105 scheduled lines observe stricter federal performance and safety regulations and generally fly bigger planes than the non-skeds. They include such companies as Arizona's Sun Airlines, Florida's Shawnee Airlines, Pennsylvania's Ransome Airlines, Wisconsin's Midstate Air Commuter and

Iowa-based Sedalia, Marshall, Boonville and Stage Line.

The CAB is encouraging the third-levels to take over some of the regional lines' more unprofitable routes and to extend scheduled service into virgin territory. As a small start, CAB Chairman Secor Browne plans to ask Congress next month to authorize a $2,000,000-a-year experimental subsidy program for the scheduled third-levels. In return for subsidies, the lines would serve a number of "remote areas" to be designated by the CAB. If the program works, it will probably be expanded to other communities that lack air service.

One of the most encouraging features of the experiment is that it would impose higher performance standards on the third-levels that participate. As it is, the overall safety record among the air taxis and commuter lines inspires little confidence. Last year 106 people died in third-level crashes. The accident death rate for every 100,000 hours flown is 1.31 for the third-levels, as compared with .09 for the nation's eleven "first-level" trunk carriers and nine regionals. After a Chicago & Southern Airlines plane crashed last month at Peoria, Ill., killing 16, the Government's National Transportation Safety Board ordered an investigation of safety practices in the third-level industry.

Raising Pilots. One of NTSB's first recommendations may well be to raise minimum pilot qualifications. At present, air-taxi pilots can operate with only a commercial pilot's rating, which requires 200 hours of flying time. Pilots for the first-level trunk carriers need an air-transport rating, which requires a minimum of 1,200 hours. Some of the larger third-levels, like Philadelphia's eight-plane Altair, demand that their pilots have trunk-style experience. But the smaller third-levels, many of them Mom-and-Pop outfits with one or two single-engine planes, generally do not.

The problem is money; it costs more to hire experienced pilots than inexperienced ones, and more to upgrade pilot skills. With CAB help, it may be possible eventually for a tiny unscheduled third-level like Winkle's Flying Service of Siwash, N.D., to attain the prestige and performance of a scheduled third-level like Maine's mighty Aroostook Airways.

*Hughes Airwest, Allegheny, Frontier, Mohawk, North Central, Ozark, Piedmont, Southern and Texas International.

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