AUGUSTA, Maine — Work on the main runway will ground commercial flights for up to two months at the airport in Maine’s capital city.
Cape Air will suspend operations while the Augusta State Airport’s main runway is closed for reconstruction during most or all of May and June.
The airport will remain open with a shorter 2,700-foot runway open for smaller aircraft and charter flights. But Andrew Bonney from Massachusetts-based Cape Air says its aircraft need at least 3,200 feet of runway for daily flights between Augusta and Boston.
The Kennebec Journal says the $7.5 million improvement project at the airport, which is owned by the state but run by the city, began last fall. Cape’s Augusta flights will remain suspended until the 5,100-foot main runway reopens by June 30.
Total waste of Federal and State money. Cape Air at Augusta serves at most 30 passenger a day (and this only maybe a dozen times during the summer). On an average day Cape Air serves 5-10 passengers total between three flights (1-4 passenger per flight). For providing this service they receive well over a $1M a year.
The actual costs, besides this $1M give away to Cape Air, to the taxpayer is much higher when you consider the government funds TSA screening at the airport that often has more screeners at the airport than passengers, plus all the other infra-structure that is required to operate a part 139 airport. Even the city has to provide police and fire protection to the airport at considerable cost to the taxpayers from Augusta to Arizona (part of the police cost at the airport are reimbursed by the Federal Government and much of the Fire equipment is also funded by US taxpayers).
It is time to stop subsidizing commercial air service at Augusta State Airport and make those 10 people a day who use the airport drive to the Portland Jetport–a little over an hour away.
The savings could and should be better spent elsewhere or returned to the taxpayer as reduced taxes. The $7.5 M, mostly from the federal government, should have been spent upgrading highways in this state. Improving the runways and providing essential air service (EAS) at Augusta is just one of thousands of examples of why as a nation we are $5 Trillion in debt.
As with any cuts in government, everyone wants them unless it affects them personally. this post office business is a prime example.